Understanding Learning According to Psychologists

Understanding of Learning According to Psychologists is not far from the understanding of learning in general, which is an optimal process of activities from those who do not know to know, from those who do not understand to understand. Learning activities or learning is a process of unification between cognitive, emotional, environmental and experience to obtain, enhance, or make changes in someone’s knowledge, skills, values, and views.

Here are some terms of learning according to some psychologists.

Arno F. Wittig in Psychology of Learning: 1981. Learning is a relatively permanent change that occurs in all kinds of behavior of an organism as a result of learning.

James Patrick Chaplin in Dictionary of Psychology: 1985. Learning is limited by two kinds of formulations. The first formulation of Learning is the acquisition of relatively permanent behavioral changes as a result of practice and experience. The second formulation of Learning is the process of obtaining responses as a result of special training.

Hintzman, Douglas L. in The Psychology of Learning and Memory: 1987. Learning is a change that occurs in an organism, human or animal, caused by experiences that can affect the behavior of these organisms.

John Burville Biggs in Teaching for learning: the view from cognitive psychology: 1991. Learning has three kinds of formulations, namely:

1. Quantitative formulation, learning means the activity of filling or developing cognitive abilities with as many facts as possible. So, learning in this case is viewed from the point of how much material is mastered by students.
2. Institutional formulation, learning is seen as a process of validation (validation) of students’ mastery of the material they have learned. Institutional evidence that shows students have learned can be known in relation to the teaching process. The measure is, the better the quality of teaching done by the teacher, the better the quality of student acquisition which is then expressed in the form of scores or grades.
3. Qualitative formulation, is the process of obtaining meanings and understandings and ways of interpreting the world around students. Learning in this sense is focused on achieving quality thought and action to solve problems that are now and later faced by students.

Arthur S. Reber, Rhianon Allen, Emily Sarah Reber in The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology: 1986, 1995, 2001 edition. Learning with two kinds of definitions.

• First, learning is: the process of gaining knowledge. This understanding is usually used more often in the discussion of cognitive psychology which is considered by some experts to be less representative because it does not include the acquisition of non cognitive skills.
• Second, learning is a change in the ability to react relatively forever as a result of strengthened training. In this definition there are four kinds of terms that are essential and need to be highlighted to understand the learning process, namely: relatively permanent, response potentiality, reinforced and practice.