Adult education pioneer Malcolm S. Knowles [1] suggested that education is an agent’s activity to change individuals and groups. In contrast, learning is the process by which organisms change. Education focuses on the interests and methods of the educator. In contrast, learning focuses on the individual and groups in which change occurs. Understanding the distinction between learning and education can help provide a basis for understanding the strategies and methods of education institutions. Sifting through disparate perspectives clarifies the confusion about the definition, nature, and purpose of learning.

Starting with the similarities, theorists and interpreters share a common view that learning happens inside the head and involves some sort of change. The unity seems to stop here. Emerging neuroscience may help to provide an actual picture of the functions and processes of learning. But, disparate philosophical perspectives can make defining learning an “elusive phenomenon” in a “morass” of competing ideas [1, p. 16].

Learning is behavior

Some theorists define learning as a process for changing, shaping, and controlling behavior. Schunk [2] presented a definition of learning from a cognitive perspective: “learning is an enduring change in behavior, or in the capacity to behave in a given fashion, which results from practice or other forms of experience” [2, p. 2]. Schink’s definition offers three criteria for defining learning: change, endurance, and experience. Regarding change, learning involves changes in the “knowledge, skills, strategies, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors” [2, p. 1] of an individual.

Learning is product

Smith [3] proposed that learning is inferential; it is an observable product of mastering knowledge, clarifying meaning, and testing ideas; but cannot be defined. Smith said learning has not occurred regardless of the process unless the individual has observable changes in behavior or capacity. Regarding endurance, changes must last over time. Temporary changes--like slurred speech brought on by drugs or fatigue, and temporary motivation brought on by a rousing speech--do not reflect learning because of cognitive homeostasis. In other words, behavior returns to the normal state when the cause is removed. With forgetting likely to occur with all learning, it remains unclear how long a change must last to be considered learning.

Learning is change

Regarding experience, learning is the change brought on by experience in response to environmental factors, not heredity. However, the distinction between nature and nurture is not entirely clear. Schunk [2] provided an example of how humans naturally develop the capacity to speak. Still, environmental factors provide the actual language that the individual learns. Similarly, when children develop normally, they naturally learn to crawl and walk. However, environmental factors may encourage or inhibit these abilities.

Merriam, Caffarella, and Baumgartner [4] defined learning as a process “that brings together cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences and experiences for acquiring, enhancing, or making changes in one’s knowledge, skills, values, and worldviews” [4, p. 277]. In short, learning is a process that changes an individual. Merriam et al. said that focusing on learning as a process helps to understand what happens as learning occurs. The purpose of learning theory is to explain what happens in this process. Neurology starts to show how this learning process occurs by providing pictures of how experience becomes encoded in a series of neurons as learning occurs [5].

Learning is process, product, and function

Harris and Schwahn propose that learning is process, product, and function [1], as follows

Process emphasizes what happens while learning.
Function is the mechanics of learning that make change possible, like motivation, technique, and retention.
Product results from the learning experience, like new knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors.

Learning is the higher levels of human nature

Humanistic psychologists reject the view that learning is a means to control and shape behavior. Such a perspective views humans as passive pawns in their environment. It ignores the “profoundly holistic nature” of the human being [6, p. xvii]. Maslow [7] envisioned learning as a means to explore the “higher levels of human nature.” This perspective leads to methods for helping individuals make their lives better, develop self-control, and freely progress towards and transcend “full humanness” [7, p. 5].

Learning is personal

Whether defined as a product, process, function, holistic endeavor, or all the above, learning certainly appears to be a highly personal process heavily influenced by the learner’s experience and a dynamic context. Likewise, the design and implementation of learning programs seem to depend on dynamically interacting contextual factors, like the philosophical and theoretical foundation of the institution, the social agenda of the administration, the philosophical perspective of the practitioner, the needs and interests of the learner, and other factors.

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