Principles and theories of learning MCQ Quiz - Objective Question with Answer for Principles and theories of learning - Download Free PDF

The correct answer is - Bruner

Key Points

• Bruner
  • Jerome Bruner's theories emphasize the importance of discovery learning and inquiry-based learning.
  • The Socratic method aligns with Bruner's principles as it encourages students to explore, question, and construct their own understanding.
  • Using this method, the teacher guides students to develop critical thinking skills by asking probing questions.

Additional Information

• Socratic Method
  • An approach where the teacher asks a series of thought-provoking questions to stimulate students' critical thinking and illuminate ideas.
  • Encourages students to engage in dialogue rather than passively receiving information.
• Other Theorists
  • Skinner: Known for Behaviorism, focusing on reinforcement and punishment as key to learning, not inquiry-based learning.
  • Piaget: Emphasized cognitive development stages and how children construct knowledge over time, but not specifically the Socratic method.
  • Vygotsky: Focused on social interaction and the Zone of Proximal Development as crucial to learning, but not directly tied to the Socratic method.

The correct answer is - (A), (C), (D) Only

Key Points

• Kurt Lewin
  • Kurt Lewin is recognized as one of the founding fathers of Gestalt Psychology.
  • Gestalt Psychology emphasizes understanding the human mind and behavior as a whole rather than in parts.
• Kohler's book
  • Kohler’s book titled ‘Mentality of Apes’ focuses on his experiments with chimpanzees.
  • The book is a significant contribution to the field of Gestalt Psychology and problem-solving.
• Skinner's opposition
  • Skinner opposed the "no stimulus, no response" mechanism, emphasizing that behavior can be shaped through reinforcement.
  • He is well-known for his work on Operant Conditioning.

Additional Information

• Albert Bandura
  • Albert Bandura is known for his Social Learning Theory, which emphasizes learning through observation, imitation, and modeling.
  • Key concepts of Bandura's theory include attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation.
• Positive Reinforcer
  • A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a behavior, increases the likelihood of that behavior occurring again.
  • It is the opposite of a negative reinforcer, which increases behavior by removing an unpleasant stimulus.

The correct answer is - Option 1

Key Points

• Alfred Adler disagreed with Freud's idea that the cause of human emotionality was 'unconscious conflicts'.
  • Adler believed that human behavior was motivated by social influences and a striving for superiority, rather than Freud's emphasis on unconscious conflicts.
• Aaron Beck developed Cognitive Psychotherapy in the 1960's.
  • Beck's cognitive therapy focuses on changing unhelpful cognitive distortions and behaviors, improving emotional regulation, and developing personal coping strategies.
• In the ABC Model, 'C' represents the resultant emotion or behavior.
  • The ABC Model stands for Antecedent (A), Belief (B), and Consequence (C).
  • 'C' refers to the emotional or behavioral outcome resulting from the belief about the activating event.

Additional Information

• Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
  • CBT was developed in the 1960s and 1970s, not the early 1950s.
  • It combines cognitive and behavioral techniques to address maladaptive thinking patterns and behaviors.
• In the ABC Model, 'A' represents the activating event, not assimilation.
  • 'A' stands for the antecedent or activating event that triggers a belief (B) which then leads to a consequence (C).
• Freud's Theories
  • Freud's psychoanalytic theory emphasizes the role of unconscious conflicts, mainly arising from childhood experiences, in shaping personality and behavior.

The correct answer is - Intra Psychological function comes first then Inter Psychological.

Key Points

• Intra Psychological function comes first then Inter Psychological.
  • According to Vygotsky, Inter Psychological functions, which are social interactions, come first.
  • These functions are then internalized to become Intra Psychological functions.
  • This process emphasizes the importance of social interactions in the development of higher mental functions.

Additional Information

• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
  • Refers to the difference between what a child can do independently and what they can do with help.
  • Vygotsky emphasized the role of social interaction and instruction in learning within the ZPD.
• Scaffolding
  • A technique used to support learning by providing appropriate assistance.
  • As the learner becomes more proficient, the support is gradually removed.
• Social Constructivism
  • Vygotsky’s theory is a foundation for social constructivism, which emphasizes learning as a socially mediated activity.
  • Knowledge is co-constructed through interaction with others.

The correct answer is 'Albert Bandura'

Key Points

• Social learning theory:
  • Social learning theory was developed by Albert Bandura.
  • This theory emphasizes the role of observational learning, imitation, and modeling in acquiring new behaviors.
  • According to Bandura, learning occurs through observing others and modeling their behaviors, attitudes, and emotional reactions.
  • Key components include attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation.
  • The famous Bobo doll experiment conducted by Bandura demonstrated the impact of observational learning on behavior.

Additional Information

• B. F. Skinner:
  • B. F. Skinner was a behaviorist who developed the theory of operant conditioning.
  • Operant conditioning involves learning through rewards and punishments for behavior.
  • Skinner's work focused on how behavior is influenced by its consequences.
• Bruner:
  • Jerome Bruner was a cognitive psychologist who contributed to cognitive learning theory.
  • He emphasized the importance of categorization, the process of organizing information into categories, in learning.
  • Bruner also developed the concept of discovery learning, where learners build their own knowledge through exploration.
• Thorndike:
  • Edward Thorndike was an educational psychologist known for his work on the law of effect.
  • The law of effect states that behaviors followed by satisfying consequences are more likely to be repeated.
  • Thorndike's work laid the foundation for operant conditioning, later developed by Skinner.

The Scientific Management Theory is well known for its application of engineering science at the production floor or the operating levels.

Important Points

• The Scientific Management Theory is well known for its application of engineering science at the production floor or the operating levels.
• The major contributor of this theory is Fredrick Winslow Taylor, and that’s why the scientific management is often called as “Taylorism”.
• The scientific management theory focused on improving the efficiency of each individual in the organization.
• The major emphasis is on increasing the production through the use of intensive technology, and the human beings are just considered as adjuncts to machines in the performance of routine tasks.

Additional Information

• Gulick and Urwick :POSDCORB is an acronym widely used in the field of management and public administration that reflects the classic view of organizational theory. It appeared most prominently in a 1937 paper by Luther Gulick (in a set edited by himself and Lyndall Urwick).
• Elton Mayo: Elton Mayo's management theory promotes the hypothesis that workers are motivated by social and relational forces more than financial or environmental conditions.
• Drucker's management theory lie the concepts of decentralization, knowledge work (in fact, he coined the term “knowledge worker”), management by objectives (MBO), and the SMART goal method. Decentralization means that managers should empower employees by delegating tasks.

Thus F. W. Taylor has Propounded the scientific management theory. 

Important Points

Directive Counselling: In this counselling the counsellor plays an active role as it is regarded as a means of helping people how to learn to solve their own problems.

• This type of counselling is otherwise known as counsellor-centred counselling. Because in this counselling the counsellor does everything himself i.e. analysis, synthesis, diagnosis, prognosis, prescription and follow-up.
• During the interview attention is focused upon a particular problem and possibilities for its solution.
• During the interview the counsellor plays a more active role than the client or pupil.
• The pupil or client makes the decision, but the counsellor does all that he can to get the counselee or client makes a decision in keeping with his diagnosis.
• The counsellor tries to direct the thinking of the counsellee or client by informing, explaining, interpreting and advising him.

 Additional Information

• Non Directive: In this type of counselling the counselee or client or pupil, not the counsellor is the pivot of the counselling process. He plays an active role and this type of counselling is a growing process.
• Eclectic: In this counselling the goal is the independence and integration of the client rather than the solution of the problem. In this counselling process the counsellee comes to the counsellor with a problem.

Thorndike's Connectionism:

• The famous Psychologist, Edward L. Thorndike, (1874-1949) was the initiator of this theory which was based on the findings of his experiments on chickens, rats, and cats.
• With the help of these experiments, he tried to evolve certain laws and propagated his Theory of connectionism which is also called Trial and Error. 
• He was the first to study the concept of learning systematically by making use of different experiments and procedures.

Pavlov's Classical Conditioning:

• This type of learning was first investigated by Ivan P. Pavlov (1902).
• He was primarily interested in the physiology of digestion. During his studies, he noticed that dogs, on whom he was doing his experiments, started secreting saliva as soon as they saw the empty plate in which food was served.
• Pavlov designed an experiment to understand this process in detail in which dogs were used once again.

Skinner's Operant Conditioning:

• B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) conducted a series of experiments with animals, put forward his theory of Operant Conditioning for learning, which involves not only simple responses but also, for learning, the most difficult and complex series of responses.
• The theory of Operant Conditioning advocates the emitting of the desired response and its proper management through suitable reinforcement.
• The learner responds in a certain way to produce the reinforcing stimulus.
• The subsequent reinforcement gradually conditions the learner to emit the desired response and thus learn the desired act. 

Tolman's Sign Gestalt:

• Edward Tolman's sign theory, introduced in the 1930s is a neobehaviorist theory that presents a bridge to cognitivism, which is emphasized in its other names: purposive behaviorism, cognitive behaviorism, sign-gestalt theory, or expectancy theory.
• Learning, according to Tolman, is the acquisition of knowledge through meaningful behavior. 

Cognitivist Theory:

• In psychology, cognitivism is a theoretical framework for understanding the mind that gained credence in the 1950s.
• The movement was a response to behaviorism, which cognitivists said neglected to explain cognition.

Constructivist Theory:

• The constructivist theory posits that knowledge can only exist within the human mind and that it does not have to match any real-world reality.
• Learners will be constantly trying to develop their own individual mental model of the real world from their perceptions of that world.
• Piaget (1972) is considered the chief theorist among the cognitive constructivists, while Vygotsky (1978) is the major theorist among the social constructivists.

Hence, the correct sequence in the development of learning theories is Thorndike's Connectionism → Pavlov's Classical Conditioning → Skinner's Operant Conditioning → Tolman's Sign Gestalt → Cognitivist Theory → Constructivist Theory.

A theory that proposes that all learning consists primarily of the strengthening of the relationship between the stimulus and the response. In developing this theory. Thorndike proposed three laws: the law of effect, the law of exercise, and the law of readiness.

Important Points

• Law of Exercise: The second law of learning is the ‘Law of Exercise’ according to Thorndike’s S-R Bond Theory, which means that drill or practice helps in increasing efficiency and durability of learning and, the connections are strengthened with trial or practice and the connections are weakened when trial or practice is discontinued.
  • The ‘law of exercise’, therefore, is also understood as the law of use and disuse’ in which case connections or bonds made in the brain cortex are weakened or loosened. this needs exercise and repetition of various movements and actions May times.
  • Many examples of this are found in the case of human learning. Learning to drive a motor car, typewriting, singing or memorizing a poem or a mathematical table, and music, etc.

Additional Information

• Law of readiness: According to Thorndike’s S-R Bond Theory, the first primary law of learning is the law of Readiness’ or the ‘Law of Action'. Readiness means preparation for action. If someone is not prepared to learn, learning cannot be automatically inclined in them, for example, unless the learner, prepares himself to start studying books, he would not make much progress in a lethargic and unprepared manner.

• Law of Effect: The third law is learning is the ‘Law of  Effect ’ according to Thorndike’s S-R Bond Theory according to which the trial or steps leading to satisfaction stamps in the bond or connection is the law of Effect’,. Satisfying states lead to consolidation and strengthening of the connection, whereas dissatisfaction, annoyance, or pain leads to the weakening or stamping out of the connections.
  • The law of effect principle developed by Edward Thorndike suggested that: "responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become more likely to occur again in that situation, and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation.
  • In fact, the law of effect’ says if the responses satisfy the subject, they are learned and selected.
  • While those which are not satisfying are eliminated. Teaching, therefore, must be pleasing. The educator must obey the tastes and interests of his pupils. In other words, greater the satisfaction stronger will be the motive to learn. Thus, the intensity is an important condition of the law of effect’.

Hence, we may say that the law of exercise means repetition of the activity for more retention.

John Dewey is a great philosopher, educationist, and thinker of the modern age. John Dewey’s concept of education is based upon the Philosophy of Pragmatism. He has proposed the concept of 'learning by doing.

Important Points

• It emphasizes that reality must be experienced and students must interact with their environment in order to adapt and learn.
• It promotes self-learning and self-assessment and gives a real experience of solving real-life problems.
• It is a way of combining thinking and reasoning with the practical act of manipulating objects for solving a problem.
• He advocates that learning by doing ensures the development of self-learning skills, emotional growth, physical coordination, and cognition as they gain knowledge by engaging with the contents and objects and gain real experience in real-life situations.

Hence, we conclude that the problem-solving method is based on learning by doing theory.

Additional Information

• The lecture cum discussion method is not just a matter of teacher's communication with students; it is a chance for them to share ideas. The basic purpose of this method is to disseminate information and attain educational objectives by promoting student learning.
• The inductive and deductive methods can be used in a combined form to teach complex concepts of mathematics while the analytic and synthetic methods are based on inductive and deductive reasoning. 

Counselling is a process having a beginning, middle, and end. It begins with establishing a relationship with the client and ends with terminating this relationship and following up to find out the effectiveness of counseling provided.

The counseling process can be described in five broad steps/stages that are cyclical in nature. The steps are as follows:

1. Establishing rapport
2. Understanding and Assessing the problem
3. Goal setting
4. Counseling Intervention Strategies
5. Termination and Follow up

Rapport Building (Establishing Rapport):

• The first step in the counseling process is establishing rapport or relationship with the client.
• Since counseling is a helping relationship, the client needs to have trust and confidence in the counselor in the first place. To build this up, forming a proper rapport or relationship with the client is the crucial first step, which will enable the client to feel at ease and open up.
• The success of rapport establishment determines the success of other counseling steps and the achievement of counseling goals.
• The counseling relationship is a special relationship in that it is not a social relationship but a professional relationship in which the client and counselor together progress towards achieving counseling goals.
• This relationship is based on trust, empathy, genuineness, warmth, mutual understanding, and confidentiality.
• This relationship building is a continuous process; however, this first step is important in laying the foundation for trust and confidence and the hope for a solution.
• The client is also informed about the structure, roles, and responsibilities of both the counselor and the client.

Rational counseling:

• Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy was originally called ‘Rational Therapy’, soon changed to ‘Rational Emotive Therapy’ and again in the early 1990’s to ‘Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy’. The basic theory and practice of rational emotive therapy were formulated by Albert Ellis in 1962.
• The practice of REBT mainly focuses on the emotional-behavioral functioning of humans and how these can be modified if required.
• The central hypothesis is the concept that not events, but how these events are interpreted by the individual that force people to have emotional behavioral reactions.
• REBT, also posits that a person’s biology also affects their feelings and behaviors as individuals have inborn tendencies to react to events in certain patterns that may not necessarily be influenced by the environmental factors.
• The person's belief pattern or system is considered to be influenced by the biological inheritance of the persons as well as his/ her learning throughout life.
• REBT is based on the ABCD technique, named after the four stages that it involves:

1. Action (for example, you crash your car)
2. Belief (this leads you to believe that you are a bad driver)
3. Consequence (you stop driving because you fear you will have another accident)
4. Dispute (the counselor disputes that you are a bad driver, and points out that most people have at least one accident in their driving career).

The goal of the REBT counseling ABCD model is to help clients replace irrational thinking with rational thinking.

Hence, From the above-explained points, we can conclude that rapport building is important in Rational Counselling because it requires an understanding of the emotional behavior of the client, which can be done by developing trust and confidence between client and counselor.

Behavioural counseling deals with cognitive behavior in which the counselor tries to study the behavior of the client, and after studying the behavior, s/he helps the client either reinforce the behavior or stop the behavior. And in this counseling, rapport building is not much important as compared to rational counseling. 

Person-centered counseling:

• Person-centered therapy uses a non-authoritative approach that allows clients to take more of the lead in discussions so that, in the process, they will discover their own solutions.
• The therapist acts as a compassionate facilitator, listening without judgment and acknowledging the client’s experience without moving the conversation in another direction.
• The therapist is there to encourage and support the client and to guide the therapeutic process without interrupting or interfering with the client’s process of self-discovery.

Directive counseling:

• It is counselor-directed counseling. A counselor is the leader who discovers the problem, diagnoses it, and provides a solution to it.
• It is counselor-oriented.
• The majority of the talking is to be done by the counselor. 
• In this type of counseling, the emphasis is upon the problem. What caused the problem? How can it be solved?
• The role of the counselor is portrayed in various steps:
  • Analysis
  • synthesis
  • diagnosis
  • prognosis
  • counseling and treatment
  • followup and evaluation

Behaviouristic counseling approach:

• It is based on the understanding that reinforcement strengthens the behavior which means positive reinforcement leads to the behavior occurring in the future whereas negative reinforcement resulting either in behavior modification or dropping of the behavior.
• Behavioral counseling aims at developing desirable behavior and modifying or removing undesirable behavior.
• In the behavior approach to counseling, the counselor begins with the assessment of the client’s behavior so that problem behavior can be identified.
• The behavioral analysis helps the counselor in understanding the situations that lead to a behavior, the consequences of the behavior, or if the behavior reveals any pattern.
• The counselor then attempts to find out if the problem behavior changes when the situation leading to it or the consequences is altered. The behavioral analysis using the ABC model.
  • ‘A’ refers to the antecedent, which means what happens prior to the problem behavior occurs.
  • ‘B’ refers to the problem behavior of the client.
  • ‘C ‘refers to the consequences of the behavior.

Any activity that the child finds enjoyable is play. Play activities provide satisfaction to children. When a child jumps from a step and climbs back to jump again, s/he is doing it simply became s/he is enjoying it, not to show his/her skills to get praise or to win a prize.

At the same time, the child is developing physical and motor skills though this may not have been the child's goal. There are five theories of play:-

• Cathartic Theory
• Re-creative Theory
• Anticipatory Theory
• Recapitulation Theory
• Surplus Energy Theory

Key Points Anticipatory theory of play: This theory is also known as PRACTICE THEORY was propounded by Karl Groos in his two works ‘The Play of Animals’ and ‘The Play of Man’.

• Play of animals: Puppies quarrel in a playful way because dogs have to fight. Kittens run after moving objects, as they have to catch mice.
• Play of man: Children play different roles as a rehearsal for the future. The child anticipates his future activities and prepares himself to meet the problems in anticipation.

Thus, it is concluded that Karl Groos was the propounder of the Anticipatory theory of play.

Additional Information

•  McDougall's theory of social psychology proposed that inborn instincts are the cause of social behavior. In his views, tendencies of imitation and suggestion are rooted in their biological nature.
• G. Stanley Hall, a pioneer in the study of children and their learning processes, is credited with giving adolescence its first full definition in his text.

Tolman’s theory of learning:

Edward C. Tolman (1886-1959) developed a theory of learning, combining the advantages of Stimulus-Response theories and Cognitive Field Theories. His system stands in between S-R theories and cognitive field theories. His system was rooted in behaviourism but he was opposed to S-R associationism. He developed a system which recognizes the cognitive aspect of behaviour without sacrificing the objectivity of behaviourism.

Tolman revised his theory of learning in 1949 and distinguished six types of learning:

1. Cathexis: it explains the final type of positive or negative objects to basic drive. Like the connection between a given type of food and hunger.
2. Equivalence beliefs: Connection between positively cathected objects and a type of sub- disturbance of objects.
3. Field expectancy: It is developed in the organism when certain environment set-up is repeatedly presented to him.
4. Field cognition mode: New mode of remembering and perceiving the objects of the environment.
5. Drive discrimination: There is a definite relationship between the type of drive and mode of response.
6. Motor pattern: Tolman admits that motor patterns are conditioned.

Conclusion: Tolman’s revised theory include field cognition mode. Hence, option (2) is correct.

Law of learning by Thorndike

E. L. Thorndike (1874- 1949) was the first American psychologist in Stimulus-Response (S-R) theories who conducted a series of experiments on learning with animals. He introduced the concept of reward in learning. Earlier psychologists had made a systematic observation of animals but Thorndike was the first to study the subject of learning systematically using standardized procedures and apparatus. Thorndike’s classical experiments on cats in the puzzle box are widely known and often quoted in the psychology of learning.

Key Points

He proposed three basic laws of learning.

1. The Law of Effect: Learning occurs if and only if the response has some effect on the environment. It maintains that when the modifiable connection between Stimulus-Response has been made, it strengthened if it resulted in satisfaction and was weaken if it led to annoyance. Later on, in 1932 he modified his earlier law of effect as “satisfaction strengthen the bond but annoyance does not weaken it”.
2. The Law of Exercise: it is divided into the law of use and the law of disuse. The more frequently modifiable connection between S-R is mad, the stronger that connection will be and if that connection between S-R is not made over a period of time, that connection will be weak.
3. The Law of Readiness: When a modifiable connection is ready to act, to do so is satisfying, when it is not ready to do so is unsatisfying.

Conclusion: From the above discussion, it is clear that the Law of Effect given by Thorndike had to be revised in 1932. Hence, option (3) is correct.

Carl Rogers 

• Carl Ransom Rogers was an American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology. 

Self-regulated learning

• Self-regulated learning refers to one's ability to understand and control one's learning environment.
• Self- regulation abilities include goal-setting, self-monitoring, self-instruction, and self-reinforcement.
• Self-regulated learning is one of the domains of self-regulation and is aligned most closely with educational aims.
• Broadly speaking, it refers to learning that is guided by metacognition, strategic action, and motivation to learn.

Reception learning

• Reception Learning is a learning theory of instruction proposed by Ausubel who believed that learners can learn best when the new material being taught can be anchored into existing cognitive information in the learners.
• According to Ausubel, people acquire knowledge primarily through Reception rather than through discovery.
• Concepts, principles, and ideas are presented and understood, not discovered.
• The more organized and focused the presentation, the more thoroughly the individual will learn.

Self-initiated learning

• The ultimate goal is to engage children in the possibility of learning so that they carry forth the enthusiasm, self-esteem, and initiative to learn in the future.
• self-initiated, evaluated by the learner, and pervasive effects on learner. 

Discovery learning

• Discovery learning takes place in problem-solving situations where the learner draws on his own experience and prior knowledge.
• It is a method of instruction through which students interact with their environment by exploring and manipulating objects, wrestling with questions and controversies, or performing
• Discovery learning is a technique of inquiry-based learning and is considered a constructivist based approach to education. 

As, Roger's theory of learning prescribes a learning environment that focuses on the following qualities in instruction; personal involvement, self-initiated projects, evaluation by the learner, and pervasive effect of instruction on the learner. Therefore, the techniques in respect of 'human learning context' advocated by Carl Rogers were Self-initiated learning.