DOMAINS OF HUMAN LEARNING

WHA T IS LEARNING?
Learning is acquiring new, or
modifying
existing, knowledge, behaviours skill
s, values, or preferences and may
involve synthesizing different types of
information
The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines.
. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.

Learning is not compulsory; it is contextual. It does not happen all at once, but builds
upon and is shaped by what we already know.

To that end, learning may be viewed as a process, rather than a collection of factual
and procedural knowledge.

Learning produces changes in the organism and the changes produced are relatively
permanent.
Human learning may occur as part of education, personal development, schooling, or training.

It may be goal-oriented and may be aided by motivation.

The study of how learning occurs is part of neuropsychology, educational psychology, learning theory,
and pedagogy.

Learning may occur as a result ofhabituation or classical conditioning, seen in many animal species, or as a
result of more complex activities such as play, seen only in relatively intelligent animals

[ Learning may occur consciously or without conscious awareness.

Learning that an aversive event can't be avoided nor escaped is called learned helplessness.

There is evidence for human behavioral learning prenatally, in which habituation has been observed as early
as 32 weeks into gestation, indicating that the central nervous system is sufficiently developed and primed
for learning and memory to occur very early on indevelopment.

Play has been approached by several theorists as the first form of learning. Children experiment with the
world, learn the rules, and learn to interact through play.

Lev Vygotsky agrees that play is pivotal for children's development, since they make meaning of their
environment through play. 85 percent of brain development occurs during the first five years of a child's life
The context of conversation based on moral reasoning offers some proper observations on the
responsibilities of parents.

Cognitive domain (By Bloom et al)
A hierarchy of six levels (the hierarchy is what is most under question at present):

Knowledge: the recall of specific items

Comprehension: can recall, but can do a little more (e.g. paraphrase, define, discuss to some extent)

Application: all of the above, but can take information of an abstract nature and use it in concrete situations

Analysis: can break down a communication into its constituent parts, revealing the relationships among
them

Synthesis: can pull together many disorganized elements or parts so as to form a whole

Evaluation: makes judgments about the value of materials or methods.
Affective domain (By Bloom et al)

A hierarchy of five levels (the hierarchy is what is most under question at present):

Receiving: is willing to notice a particular phenomenon

Responding: makes response, at first with compliance, later willingly and with satisfaction

Valuing: accepts worth of a thing

Organization: organizes values; determines interrelationships; adapts behavior to value system

Characterization: generalizes certain values into controlling tendencies; emphasis on internal consistency;
later integrates these into a total philosophy of life or world view.
Psychomotor domain
The psychomotor domain concerns things students might physically do. Although no taxonomy of this
domain was compiled by Bloom and his coworkers, several competing taxonomies have been created
over the years since Blooms original books. The one summarized here is based on work by Harrow
[Harrow, A. (1972). A Taxonomy of the Psychomotor Domain: A Guide for Developing Behavioral
Objectives. New York: McKay], as summarized in Barry, K. and King, L. (1993) Beginning
Teaching. Wentworth Falls, NSW: Social Science Press.






The levels of this domain are categorized as:

Reflex: objectives not usually written at this low level

Fundamental movements: applicable mostly to young children (crawl, run, jump,
reach, change direction)

Perceptual abilities: catch, write, balance, distinguish, manipulate

Physical abilities: stop, increase, move quickly, change, react

Skilled movements: play, hit, swim, dive, use

Non-discursive communication: express, create, mime, design, interpret