Essentials of Learning for Instruction: Performance Phase
The Processes of Learning: Performance Phase The performance phase of learning seems fairly straight forward. The response generator organizes the learner's responses and allows him to exhibit a performance that reflects what he has learned. For the learner, the performance made possible by the act of learning serves the important function of preparing the way for feedback, which is the next phase. Although the learner may in some instances think that he "has it," the actual performance is the best way for him to assure himself that learning has occurred. By this means, he obtains the satisfaction that comes from perceiving the product of his learning. The student of science who has "learned how" to make a graph of the growth of a plant proceeds without hesitation to respond by constructing such a graph. The learner's performance. The performance of the learner has an essential function for the observer or for the teacher. This product of responding verifies that learning has taken place—that behavior has indeed been modified. The child who previously could not dependably distinguish the sounds of a in printed words like mat and mate now does so. The student who previously could not express as now exhibits this kind of performance unhesitatingly. The youngster who was previously unable to write a sentence using "whom" correctly now shows by his performance that he can. There is, of course, the question of how many instances of performance are required as convincing verification that learning has occurred. No simple answer can be given to this question, since it depends on the degree of generality of the performance itself. Usually, a single instance of performance is not entirely convincing; the student may have "stumbled on" a correct performance. If the performance is displayed in two different examples, the inference that learning has occurred is distinctly better, and three makes the conclusion quite firm. However, it may be noted that, in the give-and-take of the classroom, the single instance of performance often suffices as evidence of learning. Feedback Phase Once the learner has exhibited the new performance made possible by learning, he at once perceives that he has achieved the anticipated goal. This ''informational feedback" is what many learning theorists consider the essence of the process called reinforcement. This process is of widespread significance to human behavior, particularly, to human learning; Skinner, 1968; see also the volume by Baer in this series). It is important to note that, according to this conception, reinforcement "works" in human learning because the expectancy established during the motivational phase of learning is now confirmed during the feedback phase. Presumably, the process of reinforcement operates in the human being not because a reward is actually provided, but because an anticipation of reward is confirmed. The importance of the motivational phase to the act of learning is again reemphasized by the reinforcement process. The "learning loop" is closed by reinforcement. The state of expectancy established during the motivational phase results in feedback that confirms this expectancy. The feedback phase of learning may obviously be influenced by events external to the learner. Sometimes, the feedback is "naturally" provided by the learner's performance itself, for example, the event of a basketball going through the hoop or the balance in a science exercise coming to equilibrium. On other occasions, the learner must make some verifying response to obtain suitable feedback, as when he checks the "balance" of a chemical or algebraic equation. Often, too, the informative feedback is obtained by comparison with a standard. The child may compare his printed H with a standard in a model book; the student's pronunciation of a German "ch" may be compared with feedback from the teacher or from an audio tape. The informational nature of the feedback appears to be its most critical feature, so far as the support of learning is concerned. Learning in Relation to Instruction A total act of learning may be conceived as a series of events which often has as short a duration as a few seconds. The phases of this series of events begin with the establishment of motivation and proceed through apprehending, acquisition (the essential learning incident), retention, recall, generalization, performance, and feedback. Systematic studies of these various learning events have led to the development of models of learning as a set of internal processes corresponding to learning phases. For each phase of learning, there is conceived to be one or more internal processes in the learner's central nervous system, which transform the information from one form to another until the individual responds in a performance. The internal processes of learning may be influenced by external events—stimuli from the learner's environment, which often are verbal communications from a teacher, a textbook, or some other source. These external events, when they are planned for the purpose of supporting learning, are called by the general name of instruction. As the manager of instruction, it is the teacher's job to plan, design, select, and supervise the arrangement of these external events, with the aim of activating the necessary learning processes. Of course, there are instances in which few of these external influences are necessary—the learner may be self-motivated and able to carry out the various additional actions needed for self-instruction. Self-instruction, however, does not provide a dependable model for learning, as it is not applicable to all circumstances of school learning. Instruction is best planned so that it will always make available the external stimulation needed to support the internal processes of learning. The learner who can instruct himself finds it possible to ignore these external influences or perhaps to refer to them occasionally. However, learners will find instruction helpful for attaining their goals in many situations. For example, for the motivation phase of learning, the table indicates that the process of expectancy may be established by (1) communicating to the learner what he will be able to accomplish when learning hay been completed, or (2) insuring that the learner has previously had a "success" experience in the performance he is about to learn. Similar references are made to the events that can be used to support each of the other processes in the total learning act, insofar as these are known. This information outlines the main points of our discussion of external influences on the learning processes. If concerned with acquisition, the instructor may suggest schemes that aid the coding process, and so on. The sum total of these external events, designed to be appropriate to any given learning goal, becomes the substance of instruction. The events we have described, both internal and external, are the general characteristics of an act of learning. Still other attributes of learning, which must be understood before successful instruction can be designed in any area of the school curriculum, are those features that are specific to different kinds of learned performances, or, to use the terms we shall employ, to different types of learning outcomes. This topic will be discussed in the next chapter. General References Hilgard, E. R., & Bower, G. H. Theories of learning. (4th ed.) New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1974.
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