The Learning Outcomes, Conditions and Steps of Instruction

Five Types of Learning - learning is similar to processing it is sequential and builds on prior knowledge.

Eight Conditions of Learning - the hierarchal structure is listed lowest to highest, you must master each step before reaching the next.

1. Signal learning: the learner makes a general response to a signal
2. Stimulus-response learning: the learner makes a precise response to a signal
3. Chaining: the connection of a set of individual stimulus & responses in a sequence.
4. Verbal association: the learner makes associations using verbal connections
5. Discrimination learning: the learner makes different responses to different stimuli that are somewhat alike
6. Concept learning: the learner develops the ability to make a generalized response based on a class of stimuli
7. Rule learning: a rule is a chain of concepts linked to a demonstrated behavior
8. Problem solving: the learner discovers a combination of previously learned rules and applies them to solve a novel situation

Nine Events of Instruction - these events apply to each of the 5 types of learning but not necessarily in the same order for each type.


The Gagne Assumption ~ is for each of the different types of learning (learning goals) that exist different instructional conditions are required.

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Robert Gagné: The Conditions of Learning

Robert Gagne's Biography

Robert Gagne was born in North Andover, Maine in 1916 an died in 2002.

He attended Yale University on scholarship and received A.B. in 1937. He received his Ph. D in psychology from Brown University in 1940.

Gagne was a professor at some of the most studious college institutes in the country. He was a professor for Connecticut College, Penn State University, and Florida State University where he helped to create the "Principles of Learning."

Another neat fact was that Gagne served as Director of the U.S. Air Force Perceptual and Motor Skill Laboratory.

Gagne joined the American Institutes for Research, where he wrote his first book, "The Conditions of Learning." He spent additional time in academia at the University of California, Berkley, where he worked with graduate students. With W. K. Roher, he presented a paper, "Instructional Psychology", to the Annual Review of Psychology.