Yerkes-Dodson law - Arousal
- lower for more difficult or intellectually (cognitive) tasks (the learners need to concentrate on the material)
- higher for tasks requiring endurance and persistence (the learners need more motivation).
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Arousal is a major aspect of many learning theories and is closely related to other concepts such as anxiety, attention, agitation, stress, and motivation. The arousal level can be thought of as how much capacity you have available to work with. One finding with respect to arousal is the Yerkes-Dodson law (first observed by Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson, The Relation of Strength of Stimulus to Rapidity of Habit-Formation (1908) Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology, 18, 459-482). It predicts an inverted U-shaped function between arousal and performance. A certain amount of arousal can be a motivator toward change (with change in this discussion being learning). Too much or too little change will certainly work against the learner. You want some mid-level of arousal to provide the motivation to change (learn). Too little arousal has an inert affect on the learner, while too much has a hyperactive affect. Also, there are optimal levels of arousal for each task to be learned. The optimal level of arousal is:
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Copyright 1999 by Donald Clark Created December 1, 1999 Last Update January 22, 2000 http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/history/history.html |