GREATNESS AND MISERY IN THE TEACHING OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING

Overshadowed by more popular disciplines, the study of learning seems to have lost its prominent place in the undergraduate psychology curri culum. In the first part of this essay, we argue that one reason for t his state of affairs is the current content of psychology of learning courses, namely, its disproportionate emphasis on facts, procedures, a nd everyday examples at the expense of functional and conceptual inves tigations. In the second part of the essay, we outline an alternative approach to the teaching of learning, one that emphasizes basic conten ts such as the conceptualization of learning as a biological adaptatio n or the study of temporal regulation, critical methodological issues such as the logic of experimental designs or the difficulties of measu ring behavior, and broad epistemological problems such as the role of hypothetical constructs, the advantages of quantitative reasoning, or the origins of knowledge and its integration. By using learning as a m eans towards more fundamental ends, the splendor of the discipline and its prominent place in the undergraduate curriculum may be restored.