Robert M Gagné
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Robert
M.Gagné(1916-)
As an instructional psychologist, Gagné was primarily interested in determining what knowledge and skills are required for a person to effectively perform a given job. Gagne
suggested that there are five categories of learning. Such categories can be
formed because each leads to a different class of human performance and each
requires a different set of instructional conditions for effective learning
(Gagné. 1974). The categories are: 1.
Intellectual
skills. These skills are the
capabilities that make the human individual competent.
They enable him to respond to conceptualizations of his environment. 2.
Cognitive
strategies. These skills are the ones
that govern the individual capability to learn, think and remember. 3.
Verbal
information. Stored in our memory
to recall when needed, such as names of months, days of week, letters, numeral
e.t.a. 4.
Motor
skills.
The capability to learn: to ride a bike, drive a car, write, draw a straight
line. 5.
Attitudes.
All of us possess attitudes of many sorts towards
different things, persons and situations. These
attitudes may affect our position toward those things. These
categories of learned capabilities are distinctive categories that also require
different arrangements of conditions in order for the learning of each to occur. Within
these various types of learning there must be nine general instructional events: 1.
Gaining attention. To ensure reception of coming instruction we give the
learner a stimulus 2.
Tell the learners the learning objective.
Tell the learner what they will be able to do because of the instruction 3.
Stimulating recall of prior learning. Ask for recall of existing relevant
knowledge. 4.
Presenting the stimulus. Display the content. 5.
Providing learning guidance. 6.
Eliciting performance. Ask the
learner to respond, demonstrating learning 7.
Providing feedback. Give
informative feedback on the learner's performance. 8.
Assessing performance. Require more learner performance, and give
feedback, to reinforce learning. 9.
Enhancing retention and transfer to other contexts. Provide varied
practice to generalize the capability Designing
instruction would involve analyzing
requirements, selecting media and designing
the instructional events. Skills should be learned one at a time and lower
level objectives must be mastered before higher-level objectives can be met.
Objectives must be stipulated in concrete behavioral terms. Like Skinner he
emphasizes use of positive reinforcement in a repetitive manner. When designing
instruction, the analysis phase must identify and describe the prerequisite
lower level skills and knowledge required for an instructional objective. Each
new skill learned should build on previously acquired skills. Gagné
distinguished eight different classes of intellectual skills in which human
beings learn. These intellectual
skills can be categorized on a dimension of complexity. The more complex kinds of intellectual processing are based
upon these simpler varieties (Gagné., Briggs., 1974). 1. Signal Learning. The individual learns to make a general, diffuse response to a signal. Such was the classical conditioned response of Pavlov. 2. Stimulus-Response Learning. The learner acquires a precise response to a discriminated stimulus. 3. Chaining. A chain of two or more stimulus-response connections is acquired. 4. Verbal Association. The learning of chains that are verbal. 5. Discrimination Learning. The individual learns to make different identifying responses to many different stimuli that may resemble each other in physical appearance. 6. Concept Learning. The learner acquires a capability of making a common response to a class of stimuli. 7. Rule Learning. A rule is a chain of two or more concepts. 8. Problem Solving. A kind of learning that requires the internal events usually called thinking (Gagné., Briggs., 1992). Gagne's
work has contributed greatly the field of instructional technology especially
regarding the design of instruction. According to Gagné the following steps
should be clearly thought out when designing instruction. 1.
Identify the types of learning outcomes 2.
Each outcome may have prerequisite knowledge or skills that must be identified. 3.
Identify the internal conditions or processes the learner must have to achieve
the outcomes. 4.
Identify the external conditions or instruction needed to achieve the outcomes. 5.
Specify the learning context. 6.
Record the characteristics of the learners. 7.
Select the media for instruction. 8.
Plan to motive the learners. 9.
The instruction is tested with learners in the form of formative
evaluation. 10.
After the instruction has been used, summative evaluation is used the
judge the effectiveness of the instruction. Evaluation
of courses, programs and instructional programs usually has the following
questions in mind: 1)
Have the objectives of instruction been met 2)
Is the new program better
than the previous one 3)
What additional effects does the new program produce.(Gagné., Briggs.,
1992) Formative
evaluation is undertaken while the new unit is being developed.
The purpose is to supply data on feasibility and efficiency to develop
and improve the course. Summative
evaluation is concerned with the effectiveness of the course or program
regarding the student’s performance. Based on the students performance
measures are taken of the kind of student capabilities the program is intended
to establish.
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Sólrún B. Kristinsdóttir © 2001 Síðast uppfært 21.10.2008 |