Machado, A., & Silva, F. J. (1998).
Greatness and misery in the teaching of the psychology of learning.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
70, 215-234.
Overshadowed by more popular disciplines, the study of learning
seems to have lost its prominent place in the undergraduate
psychology curriculum. In the first part of this essay, we argue
that one reason for this state of affairs is the current content
of psychology of learning courses, namely, its disproportionate
emphasis on facts, procedures, and everyday examples at the
expense of functional and conceptual investigations. In the
second part of the essay, we outline an alternative approach to
the teaching of learning, one that emphasizes basic
contents such as the conceptualization of learning as a
biological adaptation or the study of temporal regulation,
critical methodological issues such as the logic of
experimental designs or the difficulties of measuring behavior,
and broad epistemological problems such as the role of
hypothetical constructs, the advantages of quantitative
reasoning, or the origins of knowledge and its integration. By
using learning as a means towards more fundamental ends, the
splendor of the discipline and its prominent place in the
undergraduate curriculum may be restored.
Key words: learning, teaching, conceptual analysis, methodology,
epistemology