From classic perspectives on learning to current views on learning

In this chapter, the authors describe some of the core paradigms and viewpoints on learning relevant for workplace learning. The idea of stimulus-response is at the heart of the behaviourist perspective whereby learning is described as reacting to stimuli in the environment and the goal of learning is to tap into stimulus-response parings that already exist to form new stimulus-response patterns. This type of ‘classical conditioning’ was at the heart of the famous experiment by Pavlov, in which a dog was presented food together with sound of a bell. Over the years, social learning theory gradually adopted a more cognitive approach to understand the black box between stimulus and response. Social cognitivists propose the interplay between behaviour, person, and the environment. A powerful idea behind professional learning analytics is that by making both formal and informal learning processes visible, professionals can be connected with the knowledge they need and provided with the feedback that will help them to develop further.