Two perspectives in psychology and the ways in which they study learning.

Ideas are innate, what appears to be learning is actually the ‘recollection’ of innately specified ideas. With this definition of the Greek philosopher Plato on the topic of learning we can see, that it has been a long studied subject.
Today’s psychology defines learning as a process by which humans and other animals acquire knowledge or skills over the course of their lifetime, enabling them to cope better with the environment through responding to experience with change.
This essay will explain and illustrate the perspectives of conditioning and sociocultural within the subject matter of learning, and by pointing out similarities and differences explain the complexity and the need and beneficiary of understanding them as complementary, each enriching our understanding about learning in its own way.

In contrast to evolution, which is a slow process over generations, learning occurs over a lifetime of an individual. As with many other psychological phenomenon, learning is a complex matter and can be defined by different perspectives leading to different theories with different insights. One of the most important differences between the perspectives of learning within psychology is about the best way to study learning e.g. from a behavioural point of view or through an interpersonal and institutional context.
A well-known approach focusing on behaviour is the comparative approach, initially closely associated with the American psychologist John Watson. This approach originates from the early 20th century out of the need for more objective observation and measurement in psychology on the base of legitimate data, comparable to other sciences like biology, physics or chemistry. It constituted a break away from introspective methods where to much emphasis on ‘innate’ or ‘instinctive’ factors was given and the role of environmental factors was neglected.
An important theory in the comparative approach perspective is classical conditioning. By experiments with dogs, Ivan Pavlov presented food (stimulus) to a dog which triggered in response salivation, a secretion of digestive juices. By pairing a stimulus with a neutral stimulus like a bell or a light, after a number of pairings, the neutral stimulus on its own triggered salvia and was not neutral anymore. It was termed conditional stimulus. Pavlov’s experiment was the first kind of conditioning to be studied scientifically and therefore termed classical conditioning and it proved learning arising from pairing of events outside the control of the animal.
Another form of conditioning is termed instrumental conditioning in which the outcome depends on the animal’s behaviour. In an operant situation, in a Skinner box, a rat (operant) is rewarded with small pellets of food by pressing a lever. The experiment is conducted with the shaping procedure. The rats freely emitted behaviour, being spontaneous, is reinforced by gaining food with the frequency of pressing the lever, termed as positive reinforcement, hence, more likely to happen again.
Psychologists have gathered evidence, that there is more then one type of change involved by conditioning. By placing the dog in a different room, at the sound of a can opener (conditional stimulus) not only a reflex of salvia is triggered but also expectancy, which guides the dog’s behaviour. The experiments proved, that animal learn stimulus-response association and about the ‘what’ e.g. the location of the food. They can make inference and learning involves ‘something in the head’ as well as change in behaviour.
Another perspective is the sociocultural perspective, which considers how particular contexts, and situations constrain or offer opportunities for learning. The focus of this perspective is neither on the mental nor on the physical activity but on the ‘surrounding’, the environment that supports and sustains learning. By the example of the approach on solving math problems, sociocultural theorists say that cognitive activity is fundamentally affected by the use of tools and technology, a key feature of a sociocultural approach on learning. According to Säljö (1999), the concept of mediation is important as it emphasizes that learning is a process that occurs in the interplay between the learner and the tools or technology used, embodying a history of human activity, often referred to as ‘cultural tools’ e.g. language. Observational studies on talk, show learning as a creative process of meaning making, but meanings originate and have their significance in the culture in which they are created or in other words, how to use particular forms of ‘educated discourse’ is as important as learning the specifics of the matter in hand.
What do these two perspectives have in common? Both approaches contribute to the understanding of learning. Sociocultural theorists are interested in the institutional and interpersonal context of learning and the comparative approach focuses on general and specific features of behaviour of different species of animals. Both perspectives confine themselves to the study of observational events. The comparative approach proves through experiments e.g. the Skinner box, that learning can arise from a pairing of events outside the control of the animal and that expectancies are formed in the process. In contrast, from a sociocultural perspective there is no clear separation between what is learned and how knowledge is learned and used. It emphasizes on the particular institutional and cultural context in which it occurs because they either constrain or afford particular opportunities of learning. Sociocultural theorists researched in observational studies that people, consciously or unconsciously, pick up relevant jargon, imitate behaviour and gradually start to act in accordance with the cultural norms in order to fit in and make sense of the rituals, routines and expectations e.g. created by studying or working in a specific environment. From a sociocultural perspective there is no clear boundary between the subject matter of cognitive psychology and social psychology.
On the practical side, conditioning provide the basis for therapeutic treatments like e.g. phobias and sociocultural knowledge leads to new forms of learning e.g. CPT (computer based training) or new organization of learning environments.

Learning to earn food or avoid averse stimuli clearly enables animals to fit into their environment and some universal principles, such as the law of effect do apply across situations and species. However, some universal principles do not indicating, that in order to gain insight into the diverse processes of learning, we rather view the different perspectives as complementary, each enriching the understanding of the issue in its own way. Learning takes place within the context of ‘what is already there’. So far Plato’s observation was correct. But learning is also about change, about acquiring skills and information in response to what is experienced in the environment, thus, very complex and only understood by a holistic approach, by encompassing all the components, especially our fast changing society, culture and new technologies.
(1094 words)

References
Littleton, K., Toates, F., Braisby, N. (2002) Three approaches to learn, in Miell, D, Phoenix, A., Thomas, K., (eds), (2002), Mapping Psychology 1, Milton Keynes, Open University.

Säljö, R. (1999) ‘Learning as the use of tools’, in Littleton, K. and Light, P. (eds) Learning With Computers: Analysing Productive Interaction, London, Routledge, in Miell, D, Phoenix, A., Thomas, K., (eds), (2002), Mapping Psychology 1, Milton Keynes, Open University.

Skinner, B.F. (1948/1990) Walden Two, London, Collier Macmillan, in Miell, D, Phoenix, A., Thomas, K., (eds), (2002), Mapping Psychology 1, Milton Keynes, Open University.