2.1 Introduction

The purpose of including learning theories in the core module is to extend the professional trainer's insights into the process at work during the training activities they organise. There are numerous professional opinions about how people learn, but for simplicity learning theory restricts content to ways of learning commonly used by trainers as a framework, and then to scientific approaches taken by some leading psychologists. Greater awareness of these theories enables the trainer to construct effective learning and training activities.

#Learning theories versus training theories

The two are not the same. Learning theory makes this distinction explicit and the rest of the course manual treats it as load-bearing.

Part of the trainer's problem arises from the terminology used in common speech. Without too much thought about their precise meanings, words like "knowledge", "learning", "teaching", and even "training" are used interchangeably. For professional purposes the trainer needs greater clarity, and in the training field the focus is on things that can (or are thought to) be measured.

#The behavioural focus

This behavioural focus is the bridge into 2.3 Behaviour and into the core competency framework reproduced in the cluster's competency appendices.

#Structure

2.2 The Learning Process sets out what learning is as a process: the laying down of long-term memory and motor programmes through repetition and rehearsal, the shape of the learning curve, the conditions that help and hinder, and the four ways of learning the trainer should consider when designing a session. 2.3 Behaviour categorises the resulting behaviour as skill-based, rule-based, or knowledge-based, in the TEM-adjacent taxonomy that runs through the rest of the course manual. 2.4 Motivation and 2.5 Needs treat motivation and needs as the two sides of the engagement question (what drives trainees to learn, and what they actually want from the session). 2.6 Perception and Understanding covers perception and understanding, including the categories of knowledge and skill the trainer is trying to build. 2.7 Human Information Processing and Memory gives the cognitive architecture that explains why the techniques in 3.1 Introduction work the way they do.

#Connections

• 2.2 The Learning Process. Learning as a process, and the four ways people learn.
• 2.3 Behaviour. Categorises the output of learning into skill-based, rule-based, and knowledge-based behaviour.
• 2.7 Human Information Processing and Memory. The cognitive-architecture model that closes learning theory and underpins the rest of the course manual.
• 1.6 Training References. The reference hierarchy that learning-theory pedagogical content sits inside.
• Core competencies. The behavioural framework the focus on observable behaviour ultimately serves.