factors affecting learning

FACTORS AFFECTING

LEARNINGPresented by KHURRAM RAFI

Definition of learning.

Learning is a systematic

relatively permanent change

In behavior that occurs

through experience.

Why to study about the factors

affecting learning???

To solve the problems related

to learning

To improve our teaching

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS

Readiness / Preparedness

Interest

Intelligence

Motivation

Attitude

Feelings

Psychological factorsFrustration

Aptitude

Mental Health

Natural Ability to learn

Individual Differences

Ability

Orientation

Fear of failure

Readiness / Preparedness

To be mentally ready to learn a skill is called readiness.

“Bill guard said teaching is a pleasant thing and it would be pleasant only if your students are internally ready for learning”.

Interest

Interest refers to the feeling of writing to know or learn about something

IMPLICATION FOR TEACHING

Teachers should make the

lesson material relevant and

applicable to student’s lives

in order to build interest

Intelligence

Intelligence is a natural capacity and ability which helps the man to understand and solve the problems according to the situation

Motivation

the internal process that activates guides and maintains behavior over time, or influence of need and desires on the intensity and direction of behavior

Intrinsic motivation

the motivation to engage in a behavior arises from within the individual because it is intrinsically rewarding.

Extrinsic motivation

Extrinsic motivation refers to

our tendency to perform

activities for known external

reward, whether they are

tangible (for example money)

or psychological (for example

praise) in nature

Role of motivation on

learningStudents are more motivated to

engage in learning when they feel competent to do what is expected of them and perceive stable link between actions and achievements, they value the subject and have a clear sense of purpose they experience positive emotions towards learning activities and counter wise

Attitude

Human attitude is constructed

on the bases of one’s personal

thinking and ideologies he

likes and dislikes these

ideologies create feelings

among the individual

attitudes

Negative attitude slows

down the speed of learning

and positive attitude speeds

up learning process


Teachers must be cognizant of

these attitudes and over all

employ strategies that

encourages positive attitude

attitude

Teacher can create love for education, hope, good ideas and development by changing the behavior of the learner. Terrorism and social biasness can also be eliminated by changing the attitudes.

Feelings

feelings are the physical

sensation we experience in our

body and emotions are the

labels we give those sensations

in our minds

feelings

Love, fear and anger are

supposed to be the basic

feelings. Feeling is a power

which leads a person to its

successful destination.

Feelings

Negative behavior of parents,

teachers and peers, improper

environment, inferiority complex,

failure in some tasks also affects

the learning process.

Implication for teaching

Teachers should promote positive feelings and emotions. He has to eradicate the feelings of fear and anger from the minds

Contii..

Hate for evil, pollution and for the enemies of the nation is a healthy approach and should be created in the students.

Frustration

The feeling of being upset or annoyed, especially because of inability to change or achieve something is called frustration

Cont..

Frustration is caused by a lack of control over a situation. The best way to handle frustration is to back away from the problem, take a breath, and then approach the problem calmly and rationally


Take a break if the student says, I cannot do it “and throws the pencil down, take a little break”. May be she/he needs to ranted blow off a little steam-come back in five minutes and start fresh (those five minutes could save you an hour of struggle)

Aptitude

Aptitude is the potential in the student, which has as yet not been tapped and trained to a skill level. A student, who possesses appropriate aptitude for a particular subject of study or skill, will learn better and retain it for a longer time

Implication for Teaching

Student without the natural aptitude for the subject will need to be given adequate time to learn the required information. Students with an aptitude for a subject should be challenged to develop their potential for the subject

Mental Health

a person’s condition with regard to his psychological and emotional well-being

Mental health

Mental health is also defined as a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community

Natural Ability to learn

Some learners have natural ability to learn the things quickly and some are slow learners. Teachers have to trace out the natural abilities of the students to make them a complete personality.


Learners have different strategies, approaches, and capabilities for learning that are a function of prior experience and heredity


Educators need to help students examine their learning preferences and expand or modify them, if necessary. The interaction between learner differences and curricular and environmental conditions is another key factor affecting learning outcomes

Ability

ability is what it is present here and now in the student, that is extent to which an individual can currently execute a given task.

Implication for Teaching

As teachers, we must be aware of about students’ individual differences .These factors should be taken into consideration when we plan teaching and learning process in the classroom.

ability

Abilities are considered innate capacities, the foundation upon which the delegated tasks are carried out


Students have different intellectual strength, and weaknesses. Teachers should get to know their students, and then they can help them learn the lesson content by teaching to their strengths.

Orientation

Orientation can be described as an integrated set of attitudes beliefs and practices as well as the alignment of oneself and ones idea to circumstances and context. Some students are mastery oriented while others are performance oriented

mastery oriented

Students who are mastery oriented see the purpose of schooling as gaining competence in the skills being taught. They focus on learning, mastering the task according to self-set standards or self-improvement if also encompasses developing no skills, improving or developing competence, trying to accomplish something challenging and tries to gain and understanding or insight

performance oriented

Students oriented towards performance goals desire to gain recognition from others and earn good grades. These students focus on getting good grades taking easily course and avoiding challenging situation they become discouraged in the face of obstacles and performance is seriously hampered


Teachers should try to convince their students that learning more than good grads is desirable; teachers should therefore deemphasized grads and emphasis the interest value and practical importance of material being studied. They should design assessment to encourage this.

Fear of failure

. It is a psychological problem and when a learner think of being fail this feeling affects his learning. So teachers should always motivate and encourage the students and get them out of this fear to improve their learning.

2. PHYSIOLOGICAL / BIOLOGICAL FACTORS

1 Maturity

2.2 Needs

2.3 Physical Health

2.4 Self-concept

2.5 Proper Nutrition

2.6 Proper Sleep

Tiredness

physical maturity

The movements such as walking reading writing etc. are physical maturity of the learner

Maturity

The changes and development in the structure of body and mind are called maturity

Cognitive maturity

Cognitive maturity implies more than the ability to calculate or memorize facts.

Conti..

. Cognitive maturity plays an important role in the learning. Maturity sets the level of learning. As an individual get mature the learning style and learning objectives changes. It is necessary for teachers to be careful about the maturity level of the learner.

Needs

A need is the lack of something which if provided, would facilitate a child /students usual behavior.


The teacher must be cognizant of students unmet needs that may affect their learning and take steps to have these remedied. Meeting certain needs can also act as a motivator and significantly enhancing learning. For example a child not receiving love and attention from parents but gets this from teacher or being provided meals at the school

Physical Health

A simple headache or stomachache can play havoc with the process and products of learning. A child who does not maintain satisfactory physical health, have to suffer adversely in terms of gains in learning Similarly, the mental state and health of a learner at the time of learning become potent factors in deciding the outcome of his learning

Self-conceptSelf-concept is the way in

which people view and understand themselves. It is different from self-confidence or self-esteem which deals with how confident students are in their abilities.

Acadamic Self-concept

Academic self-concept refers to how the students understand their academic abilities. For example a student who sees herself as intelligent, an excellent reader and good at mathematics has a positive self-concept


Teachers can incorporate activities into the learning environment for their students to help developing their self-concept use activities that fit in with the class you are teaching

Proper Nutrition

Nutrition provides energy to the learner and with energy learning cannot be done. Nutrition is essential for organs to develop (building material), but also to let it operate (fuel)

Proper Sleep

Taking a good sleep is a basic psychological and biological need of a person

A good and proper sleep makes the man fresh, active, competent and ready for working and learning

Tiredness / boringness

The decrease in the physical and mental abilities of a person due to tiredness or unpleasant task is called boringness

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS

Learner Beliefs

Social Expectations

Cultural Demands

Family Background

Achievement

Physical Condition

Learner Beliefs

. Learners always take interest in the things related to their religious ideas and environmental believes. The things which are against the beliefs of the learner are not taken seriously by him and do not take interest to learn them.

Social Expectations

Social expectation is an internalized social norm for individuals and organizations, thus for society as a whole, about what people should do. The term social expectations refers to the general standards of behavior that individuals who live within a society are expected to uphold

Cultural Demands

Our cultural values, which often include particular religious beliefs, shape our way of living and they have also changed over time as circumstances demand

Family Background

Learner inherits many things from his family. Mother is the first institute for a person so family background effects on the learning of a person. A student belong to a literate family has different learning trend as compared to the students who do not know to read and write

Achievement

Student who have achieved highly before are more likely to achieve highly again. Achievement may enhance performance as it and psychologically facilitates adherence to expectation of others


Opportunities must be created for the learner to excel in an identified strength. Teachers should use a variety of instructional techniques appealing to different interests and learning orientations to ensure that the abilities of students translate into some form of achievement

Physical conditions

Physical conditions needed for learning is under environmental factor. One of the factors that affect the efficiency of learning is the condition in which learning takes place. This includes the classrooms, textbooks, equipment, school supplies, and other instructional materials.

. It cannot be denied that the type and quality of instructional materials and equipment play an important part in the instructional efficiency of the school. Good and pleasant conditions always produce better results for learners. Teachers should provide a healthy and creative environment in the class room and in the institute so that learning may become better.

TEACHING / INSTRUCTIONAL FACTORS

1 Teacher’s Personality

4.2 Learning Strategy

4.3 Standards and Assessment

4.4 Counseling and Advising

4.5 Learning Methodology

4.6 Curriculum

4.7 Teaching Aids

Teacher’s Personality

The way in which his personality interacts with the personalities of the pupils being taught helps to determine the kind of behavior which emerges from the learning situation. The supreme value of a teacher is not in the regular performance of routine duties, but in his power to lead and to inspire his pupils through the influence of his moral personality and example

Learning StrategyEveryone has his own

preference for a strategy to learn and study. Some prefer to make a summary; others highlight or underline important text, and read the same text several times. But the preference that someone follows is not always the most effective strategy

Standards and Assessment

Setting appropriately high and challenging standards and assessing the learner as well as learning progress -- including diagnostic, process, and outcome assessment -- are integral parts of the learning process. Assessment provides important information to both the learner and teacher at all stages of the learning process

Effective learning takes place when learners feel challenged to work towards appropriately high goals; therefore, appraisal of the learner's cognitive strengths and weaknesses, as well as current knowledge and skills, is important for the selection of instructional materials of an optimal degree of difficulty. Ongoing assessment of the learner's understanding of the curricular material can provide valuable feedback to both learners and teachers about progress toward the learning goals

Learning Methodology

Methodology of learning: learning depends upon the methods, techniques and approaches employed for the teaching and learning of selected contents

: (a) Linking the recent learning’s with those of the past

(b) Correlating learning in one area with that of another

(c) Utilization of maximum number of sense

(d) Revision and practice

(e) Provision of proper feedback and reinforcement

(f) The selection of the suitable learning methods and teaching.

Counseling and advising

Counseling and advising by the teacher to his students effects on the learning of the student. Good teachers always direction their students in the right direction and this advising is very affective for learning. When a learner gets a positive counseling and advising he learns more and attain his required ability or skill

PERSONAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS

Emotional and social factors

Cultural demands and social expectations

Relationship with Parents

Cooperation

Goals of life

Emotional and social factorsPersonal factors, such as instincts

and emotions, and social factors, such as cooperation and rivalry, are directly related to a complex psychology of motivation. It is a recognized fact that the various responses of the individual to various kinds of stimuli are determined by a wide variety of tendencies

Cultural Demands and Social Expectation

They influence learning deeply; the spirit of culture is reflected in its social and educational institutions. For instance, in an industrialized culture, the emphasis mostly centers mechanical science and preparing children for highly mechanized vocations. Likewise, in an agriculture based community, the educational process focuses on preparing its members for those skills which are suited to the needs of an agrarian community

Relationship with parents. If the child-parents relationship is

based on mutual respect and faith, it can facilitate his or her learning. On the contrary to it a distorted and unhealthy environment, adversely affects the learning of the student. The upward mobility brings resistance on the part of the student to learn. Student's belongings to such families find them unable to cope up.

A healthy peer group This relationship also plays an important

role in learning. Student-student relationship in the classroom, school, society, etc., creates a particular type of emotional climate. The climate solely depends upon their relationships. A sound relationship provides a tension free environment to the student enabling him to learn more and to complete in the class. If the relationship among peers is not good, it adversely affects their learning.

Some others factors

EXERCISE

EFFICIENCY

TREND

factors affecting learning

Education

feelings feelings

learning factors

learning activities

learning processimplication

speed of learning

positive feelings

feelings of fear

basic feelings