• From the observations of the students' learning, he thought that the cause of their failure in learning was the gaps in their knowledge of the sub-components of the tasks, i.e. the prerequisite skills. Thus, he assumes a cumulative organization of learning events based on prerequisite relationships among learned behaviors. In other worlds, instruction should provide a set of component tasks and sequence those tasks to ensure the learners' mastery of each component task and the optimal transfer of the final task
• Gagné's principal assumption is that there are different kinds of learned outcomes, and that different internal and external conditions are necessary to promote each type. Gagné's original work (Gagné, 1965) was based on the experimental learning psychology of the time, including paired associate learning, serial learning, operant conditioning, concept learning, and gestalt problem solving.
• Recent versions (Gagné, 1985) have incorporated ideas from cognitive psychology, but the essential characteristics of the original work remain.

1. Learning is cumulative. Human intellectual development is the building of increasing complex structures of human capabilities.
2. Learning is the mechanism by which an individual becomes a competently functioning member of society
3. Learning results in different kinds of human behaviors, i.e. different human capabilities, which are required both from the stimulation from the environment and the cognitive processing undertaken by the learners.

The underlying assumption derived from Gagné's ideas about learning and instruction:

1. Because learning is complex and diverse, different learning outcomes (capabilities) requires different instructions, prerequisites and processing by the learners. In other worlds, the specific operations that constitute instructional events are different for each different type of learning outcome.
2. Events of learning operate on the learner in ways that constitute the conditions of learning. The internal states required in the learner to acquire the new skills are internal conditions of learning, and the environmental stimuli required to support the internal learning process are external conditions of learning. Learning hierarchies define what intellectual skills are to be learned and a sequence of instruction.

Taxonomy of Human learning capabilities
Gagné identifies five major categories of learning: verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, motor skills and attitudes. Different internal and external conditions are necessary for each type of learning. The following matrix is abstracted from Gredler's (1997) descriptions of Gagne's condition of learning:

Gagné indicated nine events of instruction
The instructional events do not produce learning, but support the learner's internal process. Three phases of the nine events are described (Gagné & Briggs, 1974):

1. Preparing for learning: gain attention, inform objectives, and stimulate recall of prior knowledge
2. Acquisition and performance: present stimulus material, provide learner guidance, elicit performance an provide feedback
3. Transfer of learning: assess performance and enhance retention and transfer process

The nine events are:

• Gain Attention: it is related to the processing of perception
• Inform objectives: it builds up expectancy
• Stimulate recall of prior knowledge: it initiates the retrieval from working memory
• Present stimulus material: it focuses on selectively perceiving stimulus
• Provide learner guidance: it related to the encoding process
• Elicit performance: the focus is response
• Provide feedback: the focus is reinforcing response
• Assess performance: it establishes cueing retrieval
• Enhance retention and transfer: it requires generalization process

Gagné's learning theories have had a positive influence on the evolution of the systems approach to designing instruction. The features of systems model for instruction design are (Gredler, 1997):

1. Goal-directed: instruction is designed for specified goals and objectives
2. A closed-loop process: a iterative process of design, try out, and revision to achieved the desired goals.

References:

Gagné, R. M. (1965). The conditions of learning and theory of instruction ( 1st ed.). New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Gagné, R. M., & Briggs, L. J. (1974). The principles of instructional design ( 1st ed.). New York, NY: Holt.

Gagné, R. M. (1985). The conditions of learning and theory of instruction ( 4th ed.). New York, NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Gredler, M. E. (1997). Learning and instruction: Theory into practice. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

Merrill, M. D., Li, Z., & Jones, M. K. (1991a). Second generation instructional design (ID2). Educational Technology, 30(1), 7-11.

Behaviorism

• Skinner's Programmed Instruction
• Keller's Personalized System of Instruction (PSI)

Cognitivism

• Gagné's Nine Events
• Reigeluth's Elaboration Theory
• Component Display Theory (CDT)
• Instructional Transaction Theory (ITT)

Constructivism

• Anchored Instruction
• Case-Based Reasoning
• Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT)
• Jonassen's Constructivist Learning Environments (CLEs)
• Mayer's SOL
• Open-Ended Learning Environments (OELEs)
• Perkins and Unger's Teaching and Learning for Understanding (TfU)
• Problem-Based Learning (PBL)
• Situated Learning