Edward Lee Thorndike
1874-1949
|
Thorndike was born in Williamsburg, MA, studied at Wesleyan University and Harvard, worked at Columbia University. As an educational psychologist, he studied animal intelligence, from which and based on the stimulus-response hypothesis he founded his theory of connctionism and formulated his famous laws of learning (usually identified as "law of effect"). |
His theory states that the more exercises or repetitions, the longer the
acquired behavior will be maintained; positive response can produce better
result than negative one; and the conduct units of individual predisposition
should be taken into account. In addition to his contributions to psychology,
he contributed a lot to the technology of instruction. His basic principles
of technology of instruction in Educational Psychology revealed that
the design of teaching materials and arrangement of situations should be
adapted to learners' experience and mental set; the prepared instructional
material and activities should be controlled according to learners' interests
and motivating. He also advocated strongly that instruction should persue
social goals and be quantitatively measured.
Other resources:
http://oncvx1.roc.wayne.edu/maier/it/thornd.htm
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~rsauzier/Thorndike.html