Thorndike

Edward Thorndike

Edward Lee Thorndike, an American psychologist, is one of the representatives of behaviorism in psychology. He taught at the school of education at Columbia University almost all his life. From his experiments on animals, he understood their learning process and put forward his Connectivism Theory: stimulus (s) - response (R) formula. It is regarded as the founder of educational psychology.

brief introduction

Edward Thorndike is one of the representatives of behaviorism in psychology. He taught at the school of education at Columbia University almost all his life. From his experiments on animals, he understood their learning process and put forward his Connectivism Theory: stimulus (s) - response (R) formula. It is regarded as the founder of educational psychology.

Life

Edward Thorndike was born in a pastor's family in Massachusetts, USA. He was shy and lonely by nature. He could only find fun in his study. Thorndike began to study psychology in 1893-1894 when he was graduating from Wesley University. Later, he became a graduate student at Harvard University and studied psychology with James. Thorndike began the experimental study of animal learning in 1896. He started with chickens, but his landlord didn't allow him to keep chickens in his room. Later he got James' support and allowed him to move into his basement to continue the experiment. When cartel of Columbia University went to Harvard University to meet Thorndike, Thorndike went to school and worked as a tutor for others. Cartel appreciated Thorndike's experiment and asked him to study at Columbia University and applied for a scholarship for him. So he transferred to Columbia University. Under the encouragement, support and guidance of cartel, he continued his animal learning experiments with cats and dogs, and studied psychometrics with cartel. In 1898, Thorndike published a paper entitled "animal wisdom: Experimental Research on animal association process" (later called "animal wisdom", 1911 Edition), and obtained a doctor's degree in psychology. Since 1899, Thorndike has been a teacher of psychology in Normal College of Columbia University. He was promoted to a professor in 1903 and published the book educational psychology. In 1905, he published measurement of twins, and in 1906, he published principles of education. From 1911 to 1913, he expanded his "educational psychology" published in 1903 into three volumes, namely: (1) human nature; (2) learning psychology; (3) differences between work and fatigue and personality. Later, he successively published "Introduction to educational psychology" (1914), "intelligence measurement" (1926), "adult learning" (1929), "human learning" (1931), "basis of learning" (1932), "Experimental Research on reward" (1933), "people and their work" (1943), etc. He has been engaged in psychological research for more than 40 years and published 507 pages of works. He died in 1949 at the age of 74.

educational philosophy

Thorndike clearly defined the object of educational psychology as the study of human nature and the laws of its change or learning, and exploring the knowledge of these laws is the basic task of educational psychology. Sandek also initiated the research of subject psychology, the development of learning scale and adult learning research. Finally, he also discussed social psychology, and he had a series of researches on action human social psychology in his life. Dr. Edward Thorndike conducted an experiment on fatigue. He continued to arrange some interesting affairs to keep a group of young people up for nearly a week. He finally concluded in his report that "boredom is the only reason for reducing the ability to work." Thorndike's educational psychology is deeply influenced by James' functionalism and biological evolutionism. Starting from instinctism, he believes that "when human life occurs, that is, when sperm and egg combine into human beings, there are innumerable definite trends, forming future behaviors.". Starting from connectionism, he regards the combination of situations and responses as the basic unit of psychological factors such as thought, emotion, action and attitude. He believes that the purpose of education and learning "is to preserve, eliminate or change the original combination for the benefit of guidance". Therefore, he believes that the task of educational psychology is to give people knowledge, that is: first, what is human nature without education; second, what is the law of human nature change. This is the basis for him to list "human nature" and "learning psychology" as the basic contents of educational psychology. In addition, he believes that human nature and its changes in learning are different for different individuals. Therefore, he thinks that personality differences and their tests should become the basic content of educational psychology. Therefore, based on the study of animal and human learning, he established a theoretical system of educational psychology which he called "connectionism". Learning psychology is the most important part of Thorndike's educational psychology. He regards the learning process as the process of forming the connection of acquired learning, and puts forward his learning theory of trial and error and three laws of learning. He is best known for his experiments with cats. He put the hungry cat in the box and the food outside as a reward for escape. In order to open the door, the cat has to pull a lever or a chain. Driven by hunger, cats constantly try and learn wrong, showing correct behavior.

Educational thought

After long-term experimental research, sandek summed up three learning rules.

Law of preparation

"In neurogenesis, when any conduction unit is ready to conduct, giving conduction causes satisfaction; when a conduction unit is ready to conduct, not conducting will cause trouble; when any conduction unit is not ready to conduct, reluctantly conducting will cause trouble," sandek said

Practice law

It includes application law and misuse law. The law of application, that is, a person forms a connection between stimulus s and response R. if he continues to apply it, then the connection will become stronger. The law of disuse, that is, a person forms a connection between the stimulus s and the response R. if the connection is not used for a long time, it will become weak.

Law of effect

Thorndike made the following statement on this Law: "any action that causes a sense of satisfaction in a certain situation will be related to that situation. As a result, when this situation reappears, the action will be easier to reappear than before. On the contrary, any action that causes discomfort in a certain situation will split with that situation. As a result, when this situation reappears, this action will be more difficult to reproduce than before. " The core of "educational psychology" is the concept of link. At first, Thorndike experimented with chickens and trained them to walk in the maze separated by books. Later, he used cats and dogs as subjects, and used his own puzzle box to study animal learning. Based on these experiments, Thorndike believes that animal learning is the connection between stimulation and response, and applies this view to human learning. The concept of connection has long been put forward in British associative Psychology (first seen in Locke's theory of human understanding). On the basis of experiments and according to functionalism, Thorndike replaced the union of ideas with the union of stimulation and reaction. According to his own experimental research on learning and summarizing the previous exploration on educational psychology, Thorndike began to establish the name and system of educational psychology, making it an independent discipline. He defined the object of educational psychology as the study of human nature and the law of its change, which is composed of human nature, learning psychology and individual differences. Thorndike divides behavior into two categories: innate response tendency (instinct) and learned response tendency (habit). He valued instinct as the cornerstone of yache's behavior. The characteristic of instinct is not to learn but to be able, which is the innate connection, while habit is the acquired connection. Thorndike pointed out that human nature only provides a starting point for education, and the real task of education is to gradually change human nature according to people's needs. Therefore, he attached great importance to the study of the law of human learning.

Main works

Animal intelligence (1911) Educational Psychology (three volumes, 1903 / 1913-1914) intelligence test (1927) human learning (1931) psychology of needs, interests and attitudes (1935) human and social order (1940)

contribution

Thorndike's research interest is very wide. He is the main representative of American Columbia School, the pioneer of animal psychological experiment, the founder of educational psychology system and connectivism psychology, and designed psychological test. He is one of the leaders of American educational test movement. Because of this, some historians put him in the American functional psychology school, but many people think that he is more like a behaviorist school, but he himself thinks that he does not belong to any school. Thorndike's contribution to the development of American educational psychology lies not only in his creation of animal learning experiments and educational tests, which laid the foundation for the occurrence and development of American educational psychology, but also in his creation of a complete system of educational psychology, which laid the foundation for the basic content of American educational psychology and made it more effective