AN APPLICATION OF INFORMATION THEORY TO THE PROBLEM OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEANINGFULNESS OF MATERIAL AND PERFORMANCE IN A LEARNING SITUATION
Authors: Rogers Miles S. 
Published: August 2014

There is considerable evidence that rate of learning increases with meaningfulness of material. The purpose of this study vas to develop a quantitative description of this relationship.

In order to accomplish this purpose, an information theory of learning was outlined. The ooncept of information was defined as one's freedom of choice, whereas the concept of uncertainty was defined as the state of indecision produced in a learning situation by requiring a learner to make a choice. Quantitative measures of the two concepts were also defined. Learning was assumed to consist of a reduction in uncertainty with repetitions of the material on which information is produced. By specifying the way in which this reduction is accomplished, it was possible to derive a learning equation for the paired assooiates learning situation.

It was suggested that differences in performance, previously attributed to differences on a rather vague scale of meaningfuJ.ness, might in fact be shown to be related to differences in certain informational characteristics of the learning situations which are associated with different kinds of learning materials.

In order to demonstrate this point, two paired associates learning situations were developed which were found to be different on a dimension of meaningfulness when analyzed in terms of Gestalt theory or in terms of a transfer theory of meaning. On the other hand, these two situations were shown not to differ in terms of certain informational characteristics related to rate of learning. A third learning situation was also developed which was different from the other two in terms of its informational characteristics, According to a transfer theory of meaning, however, this difference ought not to affect the rate at which it was learned.

The first two s1tuations were learned by 20 high Bchool students. The first and third situations were learned by 10 high Bchool students. The order in which the situations were learned was counterbalanced among different groups of subjects.

The equations developed from this information theory of learning were fitted to the obtained performance data. A measure of goodness of fit indicated that these equations adequately described this data. An analysis of the mean rate of learning showed that: 1. this parameter increased, significantly (p < .01) from one learning session to the next when alternate forms of the same task were compared, 2. the first and second learning situations mentioned above did not differ significantly (p > .10) in terms of this parameter, and 3. the third learning situation was significantly (p < .001) more difficult than the first situation. An analysis of total errors yielded similar results. These results are in agreement with the analysis of the three learning situations based on their informational characteristics and are not in agreement with the analysis based on the criteria of meaningfulness suggested by Gestalt theory or by a transfer theory of meaning.

It was concluded that this information theory of learning, together with the concept of informational characteristics, constitutes a quantitative approach to the relationship between meaningfulness of material and performance in a learning situation which better describes this relationship for the learning tasks studied here than does Gestalt theory or a transfer theory of meaning.