Thorndike

1. Thorndike The Revisions

2. Revisions • Revised law of exercise: • Renounced this law! • Law of use shown to be inaccurate • Practice leads to minor improvement, maintains behavior and helps inoculate against forgetting • Revised law of effect • Only half true! • Kept reinforcer half, dumped punishment • Suggested punishment had no effect • Was right, but wrong • Punishment lowers or supresses behavior • Does not get rid of behavior • Really a misunderstanding (Skinner, too!)

3. Revisions • Belonginess • Elements which “belong” together are learned together • More than simple contiguity • If natural relationship between need state of organism and effect caused by response, learning is more effective • Suggested biological boundaries! • Principle of polarity: • Learned response is most easily given in direction in which it was formed • Learn alphabet forward, not backward • Really a response to the Gestaltists.

4. Revisions • Spread of effect • Satisfying state of affairs not only increases probability of target response, but related responses to target response • Will engage in related behaviors • This concept helped him revise original law of effect • Very “Sherington”

5. Thorndike’s influence: Science and Human Values • Criticized for assuming determinism in studying humans • But Thorndike argued that determinism was ticket to understanding, predicting, and thus helping humanity! • “The welfare of mankind now depends on the sciences of man. The sciences of things will, unless civilization collapses, progress, extend man’s control over nature, and guide technology, agriculture, medicine, and other arts effectively. They will protect man against dangers and disasters except such as he himself causes. He is now his own worst enemy. Knowledge of psychology and its applications to welfare should prevent, or at least diminish, some of the errors and calamities for which the well-intentioned have been and are responsible. It should reduce greatly the harm done by the stupid and vicious.”

6. Thorndike’s influence: Science and Human Values Thus, at last, man may become rule of himself as well as the rest of nature. For strange as it may sound man is free only in a world whose every event he can understand and foresee. Only so can he guide it. We are captains of our own souls only in so far as they act in perfect law so that we can understand and foresee every response which we will make to every situation. Only so we can control our own selves. It is only because of our intellects and morals- the mind and spirit of man- are a part of nature that we can be in any significant sense responsible for them, proud of their progress, or trustful of their future.

7. Focus on individual differencees • Fascinated with individual differences • Tried to measure individual differences • Explain them • Use them for prediction (IQ tests emerging during this time period). • Believed science could solve human problems, and could be applied scientific method to problems of education. • Use these research and assessment measures to make education more efficient and successful.

8. Educational focus • Very active in education from 1900 to 1925 • Focus on in developing measures of intellect. • developed a wide variety of measures of human abilities, • culminated in the CAVD, a “test constructed (in 1922–1925) as a sample of what a measuring instrument for a mental ability should be” (Thorndike, 1949, p. v.). • CAVD: Comprehension, Arithmetic, Vocabulary and Direction following, four of the more important dimensions of intellect in Thorndike's view.

9. Educational Research should be Scientific • Wanted to place education on a sound scientific footing. • Until his work, curriculum founded on opinion, not evidence. • The prevalent educational practice in 1900 = Doctrine of Mental Discipline • Learning can not occur by itself; it has to be forced. • To ensure learning occurs effectively, strict control must be enforced upon the learner. • The perfect learning outcome may only be achieved through mental discipline by rigid training and practices.

10. Using his data made paradigm shifting conclusions • Concluded that education must be conducted in the subject to be learned • tailored to the ability levels of the students. • Should be quantification using the scientific method to evaluate changes in learning • Wrote one of the first books on psychological and educational measurement (Thorndike, 1904).

11. Educational influences • Education should be studied scientifically! • Thorndike-Lorge word list • Dolch sight word list • Thorndike intelligence scales • Many radical approaches: • No generalist learning, but specific training • Did not think lecture approach was effective • What is good teaching? • Knowing what you want to teach • Know what material to present • Responses to look for • When to apply satisfiers

12. A good teacher….what a radical approach! • Considers the situation the pupil faces • Considers the response that the teacher wishes to connect with the pupil/situation. • Forms the bond; does not expect it to occur by a miracle. • Other things being equal, forms n o bond that will have to be broken. • Other things being equal, does not form 2 or 3 bonds when 1 will do. • Other things being equal, will form bonds in the way that they are required later to act. • Favor, therefore, situations which life itself will offer, and the responses for which life itself will demand.

13. A good classroom is: • Orderly • Has clearly defined objectives • Objectives within students’ capabilities • Divided into manageable units • Uses appropriate but frequent reinforcement • Motivation is “unnecessary”: reinforcement is extrinsic not intrinsic • Learning situation should approximate the real world

14. Pervasive Effect on education: • E. L. Thorndike's influence on education and psychology is so pervasive that it is hard to detect. • pioneered the scientific study of education • made major contributions to the measurement of human abilities, comparative psychology, and social psychology. • Taught hundreds of students, who then spread his ideas throughout American education and psychology. • Most 21st-century education faculty can trace their intellectual ancestry to him through their mentors.

15. Changed nature of Dictionaries • In the 1930s, Thorndike turned attention to problems of lexicography • revolutionized the way dictionaries were produced. • For years he kept records of the frequency of word usage in the English language. • used these counts to determine which words to include in his dictionaries and what the order of definitions should be. • Required that each word be defined only using words that were more frequently used than the word being defined. • All modern dictionaries now apply these principles.

16. Evaluation: Contributions • Distinct alternative for conceptualizing learning • Radically different from any approach so far • Fairly scientific • Set ground rules for observing, controlling, manipulating behavior • Significant implications for educational policy

17. Evaluation: Criticisms • Not always right for reasons he thought he was right: • Spread of effect really more generalization • Problem with definition of “satisfiers” • Circularity of the law of effect: if the response increased, the stimulus was satisfying, but if the stimulus was satisfying then the response should increase. • Is definitional, which is circular • Need external measurement • Incorrect in way that S-R connections thought to be strengthened/weakened. • Believed learning = automatic function of satisfying state of affair • Not result of conscious act • No need for awareness on part of learner • This is only partially true