ROBERT M. GAGNE’S THEORY

ROBERT M.GAGNE’S THEORY

Robert M.Gagne was one of those who had turned from the study of basic problems in a laboratory to the practical tasks of training in the air force during world war II.  He found that the best known psychological principles like reinforcement are inadequate in their application in certain fields like ‘radar tracing’, ‘aerial gunning’ etc. as a result, he proposed a taxonomy of learning known as ‘hierarchy of learning’. Gagne proposed that all learning were not alike. He divided learning into 8 types or categories, and arranged them in a hierarchy because; each kind of learning begins with a different capability for performance. The mastery attained in performance of one type becomes the prerequisite for the next higher type of learning.

 The varieties of learning that Gagne distinguished are:

Signal learning:

The individual learns to make a general response to a signal. This is similar to the classical conditioned response of Pavlov.

S-R Learning:

          The learner acquires a precise response to a discriminated stimulus. What is learnt here may be connection as enunciate by Thorndike, or discriminated operant (skinner)

Chaining:

In this what is acquired is a chain of 2 or more S-R connections. The conditions for acquiring this have been elaborated by Skinner.

Verbal associations:

This is the learning of chains that are verbal. The conditions for this resemble those for other chains like motor chains.

Discrimination learning:

The individual learns to discriminate and make a different identifying response to as many stimuli that may resemble each other in physical appearances.

Concept learning:

The learner learns to give a common response to a class of stimuli that may so differ from each other widely in physical appearances but have some common characteristics or attributes

Rule learning:

A rule is a chain of 2 or more concepts. It helps control behaviour in the manner suggested by a verbalised rule of the form, “if A, then B”, where A and B are two previously learned concepts.

Problem solving:

It is a kind of learning that requires the internal events that are usually called thinking. Two or more previously acquired rules are some how combined to produce a new capability that depends on higher order rule.

 According to Gagne, one should master a lower order leaning. Before attempting to learn the next higher order learning. For example, if one should bet the skill of solving a particular type of problem in mathematics he should know the rules and the formulae related to that type of problem. To know these formulae and the rules to apply them, he should know the concepts involved in these rules or formulae.

For example, though ‘addition’ and ‘multiplication’ belong to similar type of linking of numbers, yet ‘addition’ and ‘multiplication’ are different. One should know when to add and when to multiply.

Similarly the similarity and difference between ‘divisions’ and ‘subtraction’ should also be known. The prerequisite for these is the knowledge of different symbols to link numbers, the prerequisite for which is the skill of spelling and writing numbers.

All these varieties of learning occur in a school situation. Most instruction in school deals with discrimination, concept formation, rules and problem solving. Each of these requires different conditions of instructions.