Summary

In this study session, you have learned that:

1. Learning is a process that results in some modification in the learner’s ways of thinking, feeling and doing. The characteristics of learning include the idea of learning as a unitary process: it is both an individual and a social experience that is self-active, purposive and can be creative and transferable.
2. Steps in the learning process include:
   • Observation (watching) very carefully.
   • Using other sensing methods like listening, touching or tasting.
   • Speaking and asking for responses to questions such as ‘why?’ and ‘how?’ something happens.
   • Imitating or copying the same action saying, ‘Let me do it myself’.
   • Repeating the action again and again.
   • Performing the action while others are observing you.
3. Principles of learning include readiness, exercise, effect, primacy, recency, intensity and freedom.
   • Readiness implies a degree of willingness and eagerness of an individual to learn something new.
   • Exercise states that those things most often repeated are best remembered.
   • Effect implies that learning is strengthened when accompanied by a pleasant or satisfying feeling.
   • Primacy the things you learn first often create a strong impression which can be very difficult to change.
   • Recency states that things most recently learned are best remembered.
   • Intensity implies that a learner will learn more from the real thing than from a substitute.
   • The principle of freedom states that things freely learned are learned best.
4. In the day to day activities of health education, the factors that influence learning may be classified into four categories: physical factors, psychological factors, environmental factors and teaching methodology.