Learning is a crucial process in people’s lives. It occurs when people can gain a mental grasp of a subject and interpret a situation in their own words. Learning is done in three stages which are; cognitive, associative, and autonomous. Everyone who wants to learn a new skill needs to go through the stages of learning. However, can one go through the learning process without being involved with the three steps of learning? In this case, it is possible since some people are fast learners, and they do not need to go through the three learning stages. Some people have experiences that have taught them the skills of learning, and they are lucky that even when they embark on the learning journey, they can only start in the stage that is considered for the learner with experience, the autonomous stage.
When learning a new skill, we may go through the three stages as it depends on their commitment to learning the complexity of the skill and our capabilities. It also depends on how many times we get exposed to the new skill and how keen we are in following the instructions (Kee, 2019). It is essential to understand that one might go through the three stages of learning when they are in the process of acquiring a new skill. The learning process requires patience as people have different learning capacities, and sometimes the skill could be hard for some to grasp faster.
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The Three Stages of Learning
The Cognitive Stage
In this stage, all learners are beginners. Everyone is new to the skill, and the entire participants do not know what to do, and they are waiting for instructions to guide them. The participants are inconsistent, and they tend to make many mistakes. As a result, they need adequate support from their instructors (Sands, 2017). They also need assurance that they are going to learn and be the best. With this, the learner can successfully process information in an attempt to understand the necessities and parameters of motor movement cognitively. Hence, this stage needs a lot of demonstration and repetition to understand the new skill with ease.
The Associative Stage
In this stage, the participants understand the skill, and they can easily learn
without any instructions as they are more consistent. There are fewer mistakes, and they can concentrate longer with them to process more complex skills, and they can focus on a specific skill. At this stage, the participants discover their new potentials and are eager to execute what they have learned. However, in some people, there may still be some struggles at this stage. The
struggles are usually occasional. Hence, this stage plays a vital role in enhancing an individual’s brain maturity. This implies that the stage is characterized by a few errors and, thus, more success.
The Autonomous Stage
The goal of every beginner is usually to make it to the autonomous stage. In this learning stage, the participants are not new to the skill, and they have a good understanding of it. They are more consistent and effective, and they can deliver their skills with accuracy without much effort. They are confident, tend to focus on complicated tasks, and deliver exceptionally in their performance (Stolar et al., 2017). Learners at this stage automatically provide responses to the instructor’s cues. Their responses are characterized by few or no errors. As a result, performing automatically at this stage signifies success in an individual’s learning. Hence, the participants in this stage can be perfect with their skills as they need little or no guidance.
Instructions Followed in the Three Stages
In the three leaning stages, the participants need different instructions depending on the stage they are in. The instructor needs to be flexible and understanding so that they can move with the learner (de Castro Ferracioli et al., 2019). In the cognitive stage, the participants need specific and straightforward instructions to help them understand their skills without so much struggle. The students in the associative stage learn well through demonstrations. Visual clues are essential in this stage for the learners to be able to understand the skills.
In the autonomous stage, the students must maintain their acquired skills by always practicing them. They need to be challenged with new skills to help them move from their comfort zone and practice it. They can also be offered auditory cues and demonstration of the new skills to help them understand better. It is crucial always to understand the stage of learning in which a student is at; to help them in their learning process because one cannot treat them equally as each stage is different (Rothwell, 2020). It is important to know that the leaning process tends to take different time frames for different individuals; hence it is crucial to take time and motivate the learner in all the three stages until they can successfully learn the new skill. It is also important to give genuine feedback to the participants to know their progress in the learning process, which will help them know where they need to improve.
Conclusively, with the three stages of learning, those students are never the same, and that the instructors should exercise patience when they are training them. It is also important for the student to be assured that despite them taking too much time to learn the new skill, they are going to emerge as the best in their learning.
References
de Castro Ferracioli, M., de Sousa Freitas, K. K., Rodrigues, L. M., & Gama, D. T. (2019). Effect of video feedback on “hoop throw” skill of rhythmic gymnastics practitioners in different learning stages. Brazilian Journal of Motor Behavior , 13 (2), 76-85.
Kee, Y. H. (2019). Reflections on athletes’ mindfulness skills development: Fitts and Posner’s (1967) three stages of learning. Journal of Sport Psychology in Action , 10 (4), 214-219.
Rothwell, W. J. (2020). Adult learning basics . American Society for Training and Development.
Sands, W. A. (2017). Stages of motor learning. In The Science of Gymnastics (pp. 228-229). Routledge.
Stolar, M. N., Lech, M., Bolia, R. S., & Skinner, M. (2017, December). Towards autonomous machine reasoning: Multi-stage classification system with intermediate learning. In 2017 11th International Conference on Signal Processing and Communication Systems (ICSPCS) (pp. 1-6). IEEE.
