The Influence of a Period of 'Incidental' Learning Upon Subsequent Learning with Intention
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Date
1936-07
Authors
Porter, Jr, Elias Hull
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Both without and within the formal educational institution a great part of the average person's living experiences are directed in channels other than conscious attempts to gain information. Many of such experiences make use of information which was not consciously or intentionally learned. For example, many items of information may be learned through the reading of novels but it cannot be said that it is always the reader's intention to learn this information. Similarly it may be said that individuals do not always consciously set about learning all of their emotional and attitudinal responses. That such learning does result incidentally in other than conscious learning activities has been shown experimentally, as will be demonstrated in the historical section of this study. Moreover, a given period of such 'incidental' learning has been demonstrated experimentally to be less effective than an equal period of learning in which the intent to learn was present. Since it is easily conceivable that a given situation may be first met under conditions that do not call for intended learning and later under conditions that demand conscious learning activity, it becomes important to know what influence such as an initial period exerts upon subsequent intentional learning.
It is the purpose of this study to seek the answer to the question of the influence of a period of 'incidental' learning upon subsequent intentional learning in a series of experimental situations where the materials to be learned consist of meaningless syllables, simple words, complex words, and simple puzzles. The materials to be learned were selected so as to fall into two classifications: (1) memoritor or rote type learning, and (2) learning by problem solving.
Description
72 pages
Keywords
Education, rote learning, memoritor, word experiments, incidental learning, intention