THE CONCEPT OF LEARNING CURVE

Learning curve is a term commonly used to determine how long it takes for a learner to acquire a knowledge, attitude, or motor skill. To understand the learning curve concept as it relates to the process of teaching and learning. One must refer to educational psychology literature. The learning curve has been described as basically nothing more than a graphic depiction of changes in performance or output during a specified time period (McCray 8t Blakemore, 1985). A learning curve shows the relationship between practice and performance of some type of a skill. It provides a concrete measure of the rate at which a person learns a task. Cronbach (I963) defined a learning curve specifically as it relates to psychomotor skill development as “a record of an individual's improvement made by measuring his ability at different stages of practice and plotting his scores" (p. 297).

According to Cronbach (I963), the learning curve theory is divided into six stages (see Figure 10-2):

1. Negligible progress: This “pre—readiness" period is when the learner is not ready to perform the entire task, but learning is taking place, such as developing attention, manipulation, and perceptual skills. This period can be relatively long in young children who are developing physical and cognitive abilities and in older adults who may have difficulty in making key discriminations.
2. Increasing Gain: Rapid gains in learning occur as the learner grasps the essentials of the task. Scores rise rapidly as the learner becomes aware of cues to attend to, goals to attain, or ways to effectively organize responses. Motivation to perform a skill increases when the learner has interest in the task,  receives approval from others or experiences a sense of pride in discovering the ability to perform.
3. Decreasing gains: In this period the rate of improvement in mastering a task slows down and additional practice does not produce much, if any, gains. Learning occurs in smaller increments as the learner incorporates changes by using cues to smooth out performance.
4. Plateau: No substantial gains are made. This “leveling of?’ period is characterized by a small rate of progress in performance. During this stage, the learner is making minor adjust-menu in mastering a skill. However, the belief that this is a “period of no progress" is considered false. Gains in skills can occur even though overall performance scores remain stable.
5. Renewed gains: During this period, additional progress can be made after the plateau period has ended. If gains occur, they are usually due to growth in physical development, renewed interest in the task, a response to a challenge, or the drive for perfection.
6. Approach to limit: Progress at this point becomes negligible. The ability to perform has reached its potential. The “limit” is a hypothetical stage only because there is never certainty that a learner cannot improve further.