The Four Learning Styles and Their Examples

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Learning is one of the most interesting concepts in education because of its complex psychology. A person has learned if they exhibit a permanent change in behavior after acquiring some skills or knowledge through experience. The change in behavior entails psychological, mental, physical, and cognitive processes, seamlessly intertwined together. This paper discusses four major learning styles including associative learning, giving relevant examples for each style.

Discussion

Associative learning takes place when the learner connects events occurring sequentially in their environment. This kind of learning is very vital to the different learning processes. The stimuli or events in associative learning can either be abstract concepts or concrete objects; depending on context, location, and time (Lind et al., 2019). An example of associative learning is when a person touches a hot stove for the first time and they feel pain. Consequently, the individual learns to avoid hot stoves by not putting their hands on them.

In classical conditioning, the learner changes his behavior by associating events occurring in a repeated manner. This process is common in our daily lives; an example being the experience of thunder and lightning during a storm (Spielman et al., 2014). Normally, a person will jump when they see lighting flashing across the sky followed by a big boom of thunder. They jump upon hearing the big boom since loud sounds cause such reflex reactions. Since the flashing of the lightning can, reliably, foretell the impending roaring of the thunder, people tend to associate the two, making them jump whenever they see the lightning flash.

In operant conditioning, a learner’s behavior is associated with a consequence which can either be reinforcement or a punishment. Pleasant consequences of a behavior encourage the behavior in the future while unpleasant consequences deter it (Spielman et al., 2014). An example of operant conditioning is attempting to train a dog to sit. Normally, one will command the dog to sit, giving it a treat whenever it obeys. After some time, the dog will start associating the act of sitting with receiving a treat. Conversely, if you punish the dog for exhibiting some behavior, the dog will be conditioned to avoid the behavior. For example, if it receives some shock while attempting to cross the boundary of an electric fence it will try to avoid the electric fences in the future.

Observational learning is another style of learning that occurs through indirect experiences. In this style of learning, the learner observes the experiences of another character and then imitates their behavior (Spielman et al., 2014). One of the examples of observational learning is where a son observes his father surfing. He is able to see the moves that cause failure, avoiding them while imitating those that bring him success. Through observation, the son can learn to surf faster than if he adopted a trial-and-error method of learning.

Conclusion

To sum it up, learning occurs through the association of different stimuli or events, leading to a change in behavior. While classical and operant learning entail direct experiences, in observational learning a learner’s behavior change is influenced by another party. Learners require a variety of learning experiences in order to gain skills and knowledge in a holistic manner. All these learning styles are essential to different facets of life and instructors should understand the processes in order to help learners achieve better learning outcomes.

References

Lind, J., Ghirlanda, S., & Enquist, M. (2019). Social Learning through associative processes: A computational theory. Royal Society Open Science, 6(3). Web.

Spielman, R., Dumper, K., Perlmutter, M., Lacombe, A., Lovett, M., & Jenkins, W. (2014). Psychology. OpenStax.

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The Four Learning Styles and Their Examples

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