EDMGT 605 – Learning Theories

and Innovations in Teaching

Lesson 1 – DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING
LESSON 1 – DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING
 Basic Concepts About Development
 It is necessary to know basic concepts and principles about development in
order to explain the development and developmental features of human
being. There are some basic concepts about development. These concepts
are human, development, period of development, critical period of
development, developing, phase, time effect, growth, maturation,
readiness, heredity, age, experience and learning.
 Human- we can define human as a bio-cultural and social entity. Within the
framework of this definition, the first human nature is about biological
dimension, the second nature is about cultural dimension and the third
nature is social dimension. Biological dimension is accepted to be the
basis or must for a human to be human. It is emphasized that human is a
living entity that is composed of 46 chromosomes, 23 of which come from a
mother while the other 23 come from father and that the most important
feature of human from other entities is that human is a living creature who
can think. Cultural dimension is also accepted to be sufficient for a human
to be human. Human can develop his/her cultural dimension at the end of
an interaction with nature. Human that is born as a biological entity grows
and develops with a cultural values of the society in which he/she is raised
up. The social dimension of human gets started with socialization at the end
of an interaction with other humans.
Development- it is a process that starts with conception and
ends with death and during which an organism experiences
changes at the end of learning, growth and maturation.
Developing – it is the regular and continual change of
organism by means of the interaction between growth,
maturation and learning.
Development Period – there are some steps where certain
features come into prominence. Each of these steps is
accepted as a period. These periods are respectively infancy,
early childhood, childhood, adolescence, early adulthood and
senility.
Critical Development Period – a person can be more
appropriate to have certain learning experiences and to gain
certain skills at certain periods of age. This is a period when a
person is more ready to learn than the previous period, when
some of his/her features are at the forefront and which can
cause continuous and irrevocable results.
 Phase – the term of phase is used to emphasize the discontinuity of
an organism’s development and to show the features about age and
interests in developmental psychology. Each phase is experienced
between certain time intervals, a phase cannot be omitted to pass
directly to the next one, a certain phase is experienced between the
time intervals that are a must, it is impossible to experience a
phase in another time interval of another phase.
 Time Effect – this effect is called as historical effect. Historical time
effect is the effect of events and phenomena that affect the society
in which individuals live in terms of individuals’ development. This
also means the effect of present time on an individual’s
development.
 For example: it is historical time effect that nowadays children learn how to use mobile phones and
computers, how to play computer games and how to use the internet.
 Growth – it is the physical changes in an organism that can be
observed quantitatively. Growth is about the body of an individual. It
means the increase in the body’s height, weight and volume. Growth
can take place at different rates of speed at different organs. Growth
goes on healthy towards maturity means of proper nutrition and
protection from bad effects.
 Maturation – it is the biological change that helps the organism that
grows physically to carry out physical functions depending on age. In a
general sense , we can call the completion of a body’s developmental
processes as a maturation. Maturation is under the effect of both
heredity and environmental factors. It is a biological change
experienced by the organism depending on heredity regardless of
learning experiences in order for organism to carry out the expected
functions. In other words, maturation is the process of biological growth
that is species-specific regardless of environmental effects.
 Readiness – we can say that the term, readiness comprises
maturation. Readiness comes out depending on maturing, namely,
previous experiences and maturation. We can define readiness as the
state of having the necessary sufficiency for learning to take place and
for learning experience to be effective. In short, readiness is a term that
comprises not only the level of maturation possessed by an individual
but also an individual’s previous learnings, interests, attitudes, level of
motivation, skills and general health condition.
 It is the readiness of the individual in terms of physical, biological and
psychological factors. Age motivation and past experiences of an
 Heredity- this term is used as “inheritance” or “genetic”.
The terms inheritance and genetic state that living beings
are still under the influence, even under the control of the
materials they receive from their ancestors. In other words,
heredity means that each living being possesses the same
qualities as their ancestors.
 Age – the progress of a person’s development is expressed
in ages. Age is the criterion to determine the features,
differences progress and changes about developmental
areas and periods. Age is the most important factor that
determines the formation of a person’s decisiveness about
his/her interest and knowledge. Age includes some
progress and some experience.
 For example: with aging, people’s interests and knowledge can gain certainly
and decisiveness. In the first years of a human life, interests and knowledge
are different and short-term. In the following time, a person concentrates on
certain areas. Thus interests and knowledge of person definite in a sense.
 Experience – is defined as the impression of the
interaction between the individual and other individuals
or environment on the individual. Experience is divided
into two categories as experience in term of education
and experience in terms of living. Gained experience
comprises all the activities at the end of the interaction
between the individuals. Lived experience, on the other
hand, comprises just the activities that leave their
marks on the individual and that cause a change in
individual’s behavior.
 Behavior – in a general sense, behavior is composed of
all the movements of an organism. According to the
behaviorist psychologists, behavior is the reaction of an
organism to an action or the action to a certain.
 Learning – it can be defined as all types of changes
that are permanent and that come out as a result or
repetition and experiences of an individual.
 Basic Principles about Development
 There are some universal principles about development.
Development of all people follows these principles:
 1. Development occurs as a result of the interaction
between heredity and environment: The hereditary
features of a person influence his/her physical, cognitive and
many other features. However hereditary features take shape
as a result of a person’s interaction with the environment and
thus development occur.
 2. Development is continuous and occurs certain phases:
Development is a process that continuous all throughout life
from conception to death and it occurs through phases. Each
phase becomes the basis of the next phase and each phase is
fulfilled depending on the accumulations of the previous phases.
 3. Development occurs by turns : During the critical periods
of development, a field of development specific to that period
comes to the forefront and accelerates while other development
areas experience a lag.
 4. Development follows a predictable line: Development can be
guessed in advance, in other words, development follows a
predictable line. This line is as stated below:
 A. Development occurs from the head to the foot: the
development of an organism starts with the development of
head and then it is completed by the development of body,
stomach, legs and feet respectively. Apart from this, after the
development of internal organs is completed, the development
of body is completed.
 B. Development occurs from inside to outside: Development
follows a direction from the center to outside. For example; first
of all, internal organs develop and then skin develops.
 C. Development occurs from the general to the specific: minor
muscular movements of an organism develop after major
muscular movements develop. After a baby can hold an object
with its arms with the development of major muscular
movements, it can hold an object with its hands and fingers
with the development of major muscular movements.
 5. Development occurs as a whole: zones of development are
not independent from each other they are in an interaction. A
positive or negative feature in a developmental zone also
influences another developmental zone.
 6. There are some different people about development:
each person has got his/her own specific hereditary feature;
experiences; interaction with environment and personal qualities;
because of this reason, the speed of development may also
change from person to person.
 7. There are critical periods in development: an organism can be
more sensitive to certain learning experiences and environmental
factors at certain times. According to psychosexual and
psychosocial approaches; those certain needs are not met at
certain times cause the individual to stick to that period. Such
individuals cannot display proficiency specific to the next
developmental period and so they cannot develop sufficiently in
 Meaning of Learning – the term of learning is mostly misused
conceptually. When one mentions learning, first of all, studying the
information related to a curriculum or a programmed education come to
everyone’s mind. Thus, just the term of learning that means gaining
knowledge comes to the foreground . However, we also learn an example
of our experiences, feelings, vernal and non-verbal communication with
other people.
 Basic Concepts about Learning
 It is necessary to know basic concepts in order to understand how
learning occurs. The leading ones of them are act, reflex, instinct,
experience, behaviour , sense, perception, attention and memory. It is
useful to explain what act is at first.
 ACT – this term means performance. What a person does constitutes
his/her performance. A goalkeeper can be mentioned to have a high or
low performance in a football match. We can define performance as a high
or low level of performance.
 We can say that a person’s performance is influenced directly or
hereditary and environment. Hereditary comprises a person’s behaviours
from birth while environment comprises behaviours learnt later. We can
say that inborn behaviours are divided into two. These are reflex ant
 Reflex – this term and is mostly used for behavior that are
displayed suddenly and immediately. We can say that a
driver who can easily adapt to new and sudden
circumstances has got good reflex. However, it is not enough
to explain reflex in that way.
 Reflex is an inborn, quite immediate, consistent and simple
behavior displayed to a certain stimulus.
 Example: we lift our leg when we hit our knee.

 Instinct – instinct means a behavior that is seen in all the

members of a species and that develops not as a result of
learning but as a result of maturity. This is of behaviours is
not displayed intentionally. Behaviour should have these
features to be called an instinct:
 * It must be in born.
 * It must be seen in all the members of a species.
 * It must not be seen in other species.
 Behaviour – we can call all types of behaviours of a person
as behavior. Behaviour cannot always be observed. In
other words, behavior can be explicit or implicit.
 For example: a person’s talking, writing, blinking, waving, thinking, saddening, heart
beating are all behaviours.

 Human behaviours are divided into three groups such as

inborn behaviours, temporary behaviours and acquired
behaviours.
 Inborn behaviours are behaviours that cannot be change
with learning.
 For example; that a human’s pupil shrinks in harsh light and grows in low light are inborn
behaviours.

 Temporary behaviours – are the ones that come out as a

result of some factors such as alcohol, drug, narcotic drug,
illness and that disappear after these factors disappear.
 For example; that a human talks because of high fever and alcohol can be as an example
of this behavior.
 Acquired behaviours – are the ones that are not inborn
and that are a product of learning. Behaviours that are a
product of learning are generally acquired through a
planned education or random domestication.
 For example; telling the definition of learning, keeping the environment clean, keeping
healthy, playing musical instrument are behaviours acquired through a planned education.

 Sense – a person generally processes a piece of

information at two levels, which are sense and
perception. Sense is a general concept that shows
the sensitivity of organism to internal and external
stimulant events.
 For example; experiences such as brightness of light, warmth of tea, the pain of
pinprick are included in sense.

 Perception – the process of interpreting and making

senses meaningful is called perception. People
perceive the world with their sense organs. So, there
are perceptions related to all of the senses as visual
perception or audio perception. In general, visual
perception is the most dominant one in a human life.
 Attention – one of the most leading features of perception is that it
is selective. Sense organs of a person meet a lot of stimuli at a
certain time. However, we perceive just a few of these stimuli more
specifically in this period of time. In other words, people pay
attention to just a few events happening at a certain time. Then, we
can say that attention plays an important role in terms of what
people perceive. Attention is defined as focusing on some aspects of
an experience at a certain time while ignoring the others. Attention
has got a focus and a boundary area. Events are perceived
specifically at the focus of attention. On the other hand, events are
perceived to a lesser degree in the boundary area of attention.
 FACTORS THAT AFFECT LEARNING
 We can divide the factors that affect learning into three groups.
These are factors about learner, learning methods and to-be-learnt
matter. There are also other factors that affect learning while they
can be divided into different groups. The major ones of them are
teacher and the learning or teaching environments. However,
teacher and the learning or teaching environment do not affect
learning directly. So, we can look at the factors that affect learning
under three groups, which are about learner, learning methods
and to-be-learnt matter.
 Factors about Learner- factors related to the learner comprise
the necessary qualities of a person needed to realize learning.
These qualities of a person are species-specific readiness,
maturation, level of general motivation and anxiety,
transferring previous information, motivation and attention.
 Species-specific readiness - human can learn to the extent
his/her genetic structure allows. In other words, a person is
prepared to do some actions while not to do some other
actions. It means that a person has got the necessary biological
qualities to acquire the expected behaviours. A person can
learn just what his/her own can learn.
 Maturation - a person should be at a certain age to realize a
good learning. In other words, a person should have a
maturation of a certain age in order to learn.
 Level of general motivation and anxiety: a person should be
motivated at a certain level to learn. The level of motivation
means the degree of a person’s accepting the stimuli coming
from outside. The level of general motivation is very important
in learning situations that necessitate complex mental process.
 Anxiety – is also important in learning just like the level of
motivation. The effect of anxiety, which means a mild fear
possessed without knowing what the problem is, is similar to
the level of general motivation. A very high or low level of
anxiety makes it difficult to learn. Although the effect of
anxiety on learning depends on people, we can say that a
medium level of anxiety is necessary for a good learning.
 Past experiences – the preliminary information to be learnt also
plays an important role in a person’s learning. Especially adults
do not start learning at a zero level since adults have a lot of
past experiences in and out of the school. They generally build
each new learning on their previous knowledge.
 Motivation - in general, motivation means the impetus that
starts, directs and continues the action of a person. Motivation
makes learning easier by means of effects such as lengthening
the duration of participation in a certain activity, directing
behaviours towards a certain purpose.
 Attention – it plays an important role in a person’s learning. We
can say that learning process starts with the process of attention
. Although there are a lot of stimuli around us, we just learn the
information to which we pay attention. We cannot process a
piece of information without being aware of or perceiving that
information. The level of motivation can affect attention. A high
level of motivation can increase attention.
 Factors About Learning Methods
 Another group of factors that affect learning are learning
methods. The major factors about learning methods are
organizing the time and duration of learning, the
structure of the subject to be learnt, participation and
feedback.
 Organizing the time and duration of learning- it is a well-
known fact that people differentiate in organizing the
time and duration of learning. While some people spend
an hour a day on the subject or subjects to be learnt
while others can learn if they spend two hours on certain
 The structure of the subject to be learnt – plays an important
role in learning. People learn something as a whole or by
means of dividing it into parts. Many studies have been
carried out to find out if learning as a whole or by means of
dividing it into parts is more efficient.
 Participation – studies have been carried out in the field of
learning prove that learning is an individual activity. No one
can learn on behalf of any other person. So, a person should
take the responsibility for his/her own learning. And this
means that a person should participate in learning process
efficiently.
 Feedback – feedback or the information about the results
means acquiring information about an action that has been
carried out. A person who gets information about how right
or wrong what he/she does and says can learn more easily.
 Factors About the Subject to Be Learnt
 Another important group of factors that affect learning
includes factors about the subject to be learnt . The subject
to be learnt may be easy or difficult. That a subject is easy
or difficult for a person may be related to the qualities of
the subject to be learnt.

 The major ones of these qualities are perceptual

distinguishability, meaningfulness and conceptual
grouping.

 Perceptual distinguishability: we can say that those

things that are easily distinguishable from the
objects and written or oral information around can
be learnt more easily. It is about perception to see
 Semantic association – we can say that
meaningfulness is one of the most important
variables in learning verbal knowledge . The more
meaningful a subject is, the easier it is to learnt this
subject.

 Conceptual grouping- it makes learning easier to group and

integrate what is going to be learnt since grouping what is
going to be learnt activates a person’s sense of exploring.
If grouping cannot be achieved, what is going to be learnt
is perceived as too much and this makes learning more
difficult. Conceptual grouping can be accepted as a class
comprising a lot of members.
 Summary
 1. Educational Psychology is mainly composed of two
domains called development and learning.
 2. There are some basic concepts about development .
These are human, development, developing, developmental
period, critical development period, phase, effect of time,
growth, maturation, readiness, heredity, age, experience,
and learning.
 3. the change of behavior should not come out as a result
of factors such as illness, drug, tiredness, etc. behaviors
that are observed under the influence of a temporary factor
are not learnt (for example, a drunken person’s specific
actions).
 4. It is not possible to observe learning itself directly. The
observable quality is the performance.
 5. If an organism reacts to a certain stimulus differently
 Summary
 6. Learning is the success of a person. A person learns the
necessities of life, whether they are right or wrong, through
success. During the period of learning, a person learns by
means of attending different establishments from birth to
death on one side while he/she learns in the environment
where she/he lives on the other side. What a person learns
in the environment where he/she lives on the other side.
What a person learns in the environment she/he lives in is
as important as what she/he lives in the establishments.
 7. We can group the factors that affect learning under
three headings. These are factors about learner, learning
methods and the subject to be learnt. There are also some
other factors that affect learning. The major ones of them
are teacher and the environment of learning and teaching.
However, teacher and the environment of learning or
teaching do not affect learning directly.
 Instructions:
 Read and understand this lesson
Thank You!