The type of learning used for varying situations is reliant on the nature of that skill and the desired outcomes of the learning process. This learning type may vary depending on the skill or situation to be taught and includes both implicit and explicit learning strategies.
It is vital when discussing learning to establish the distinction between performance and learning. Performance is the presentation of a skill and is an observable behaviour, while learning is a change in the capability to perform this behaviour resulting from practice or experience. Therefore, while behaviour may be completed explicitly, the learning process leading to this behaviour is completed implicitly. In this instance, an explicit learning strategy involves specific instruction given about the rules that underlie a stimulus or movement pattern to assist learning, whereas an implicit learning strategy involves no specific instruction, yet proficient learning of a skill. Additionally, implicit knowledge lies below the level of consciousness and is difficult to verbalise.
Implicit and explicit learning strategy research began in cognitive psychology with many psychologists suggesting that the majority of the information learned during the normal course of life is learned implicitly, not explicitly. Activities such as language learning and other complex activities are examples of implicit learning. These are activities that people can do, but that they cannot explain how they are able to do them.
Using balance as an example, explicit instruction may involve a subject being told how to position their body and limbs to achieve balance, whilst implicit instruction may involve a subject being told to balance on an object and not fall off, while being allowed to develop their own strategies to achieve this goal. Thus the subject has implicitly learnt how to balance, using biofeedback in the form of proprioception and external sensory cues.
In a practical sense, it is vital to determine the most effective method of learning and education to ensure the best possible outcome is achieved. The first clue to the most effective learning strategy is gained using an evolutionary perspective. The brain areas underlying implicit learning developed earlier in our period of evolutionary adaptiveness and are therefore more effective at learning motor skills. Additionally, with the ability to learn implicitly, new information can be acquired about the environment regardless of any compromises which may have been made to our ability to learn explicitly, such as neurological trauma etc.
Research has compared the effectiveness of implicit and explicit learning, and it has been demonstrated that learning implicitly offers:
- Better retention over time with less skill loss than explicit.
- More resistance to the effects of psychological stress, disorders and dysfunction.
- Independence of of age and IQ.
- Implicit, small individual differences, explicit, large individual differences.
Further justification for the effectiveness of implicit learning can be seen when questioning skilled performers regarding their ability to perform their chosen skill or their capacity to instruct a novice on how to perform the skill. Skilled performers often find it difficult to instruct beginners as “implicit knowledge is knowledge that is, difficult, if not impossible to verbalise.”
Much research regarding the benefits of implicit learning has been based in the field of motor control, particularly skill training. Pew, in 1974 developed a series of experiments, which have since been repeated and validated, finding that participants acquired implicit knowledge during a tracking task. It has also been suggested that implicit learning leads to more effective skill reproduction than explicit learning, as those who have been taught explicitly often use valuable attentional resources remembering their explicit instruction (Masters, 1992). Brown found that explicit learning, where the individual was given the parameters of the skill was not as effective as setting the patient a goal which required the completion of that skill to achieve the goal.
