The psychology of learning is a theoretical science.
Learning is a process that depends on experience and leads to long-term changes in behavior potential. Behavior potential designates the possible behavior of an individual, not actual behavior. The main assumption behind all learning psychology is that the effects of the environment, conditioning, reinforcement, etc. provide psychologists with the best information from which to understand human behavior.
As opposed to short term changes in behavior potential (caused e.g. by fatigue) learning implies long term changes. As opposed to long term changes caused by aging and development, learning implies changes related directly to experience.
Learning theories try to better understand how the learning process works. Major research traditions are behaviorism, cognitivism and self-regulated learning. Media psychology is a newer addition among the learning theories because there is so much technology now included in the various types of learning experiences. Neurosciences have provided important insights into learning, too, even when using much simpler organisms than humans (aplysia). Distance learning, eLearning, online learning, blended learning, and media psychology are emerging dimensions of the field.
Famous quotes containing the words psychology and/or learning:
“I was now at a university in New York, a professor of existential psychology with the not inconsiderable thesis that magic, dread, and the perception of death were the roots of motivation.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Ordinary time is “quality time” too. Everyday activities are not just necessities that keep you from serious child rearing: they are the best opportunities for learning you can give your child...because her chief task in her first three years is precisely to gain command of the day-to-day life you take for granted.”
—Amy Laura Dombro (20th century)