Applying Learning Principles and Theories to health care

• Learning - is a relatively permanent change in mental processing, emotional functioning and/or behavior as a result of experience (Bastable, 2003)
• Several environmental factors affect learning:

  1. Society and culture
  2. The structure and pattern of the stimuli
  3. The Effectiveness or credibility of role models and reinforcements
  4. Feedback for correct and incorrect responses, and opportunities to process and apply learning to new situations.
• Ten (10) learning principles that can help motivate the learners (deYoung, 2003)

  1. Use several senses
  2. Active involve the patients or clients in the learning process
  3. Provide an environment conducive to learning
  4. Assess the extent to which the learner is ready to learn
  5. Determine the relevance of the information
  6. Repeat the information
  7. Generalize information
  8. Make learning a pleasant experience
  9. Begin with what is know; move toward the unknown
  10. Present information at an appropriate rate
• What helps ensure that learning becomes relatively permanent? (B-P-A-A)

  1. By organizing the learning experience so that it becomes meaningful and pleasurable
  2. Practicing or rehearsing new information mentally or physically to retain and strengthening
  3. Applying reinforcement through rewards or recognition to make the learner know that learning has occurred
  4. Assessing or evaluating whether learning has taken place immediately after the experience or some later point in time.
• A Learning Theory - is a coherent framework and set of integrated constructs and principles that describe, explain or predict how people learn, how learning occurs, and what motivates people to learn and change ( Bigge & Shermis, 1992; Hilgard and Bower, 1996; Hill, 1990)
• The 5 major learning theories that are widely used in patient education and health care practice are: ( B-C-S-P-H)

  1. Behaviorist
  2. Cognitive
  3. Social Learning
  4. Psychodynamic
  5. Humanistic