When you are cramming for an examination, what do you do? Do you look over your notes and your text, trying to get all the information inside your head? Do you test yourself with flashcards? The factors affecting learning will help you understand exactly how to make the most of your learning process and how you can improve your studying in order to get good grades in school, if you should be blamed for the poor score.

Important Factors Affecting Learning

It is important to recognize the various factors related with learning; only with thorough understanding of that, you can truly become a good and quick student.

1.    Intellectual Factors

This refers to the individual way that people learn. Your school success is usually related to your IQ or your level of intellect. People with low IQs end to have more difficulty in mastering their studies. People may get bad scores because they have identified or unidentified cognitive disabilities.

For example, if you score poorly in one subject but better in others, you might have a problem in a specific area of learning. If you score poorly in all subjects, it might be a matter of having a low IQ so that learning can be difficult.

2.    Teaching and Learning Methods

You may have not gained mastery over things that have been taught to you because you do not have the proper ways the information has been taught to you. It is important to teach things in ways that the vast majority of students can catch on to the material being taught.

For example, if the school is teaching things too quickly and doesn't check to make sure you are actually learning the material, you may fall behind and will not have the opportunity to catch up. You will miss things and will have a hard time learning new material because you haven't learned the knowledge well in older materials. This is especially true of mathematics. You need to learn the basics before you can go on further to learn the new material.

3.    Physical Factors

This includes things such as your overall health, nutrition, hearing and physical deficiencies, glandular problems, and physical development. If you are in poor health, you won't be able to learn the things presented to you in school. This is one of the factors affecting learning that most people underestimate.

If, for example, you have a child that is suffering from a hearing problem, vision problem, or other physical handicaps, they will have difficulty in learning things like spelling and reading. Things like pituitary gland dysfunction and thyroid disorders will affect a child's behavior and they will not be able to learn properly.

4.    Mental Factors

Attitudes are important to learning. This is different from your emotions and is very definite. Your attitude toward learning will play a big role in how your mind is organized and in the behavior you do for learning.

For example, your attitude strongly affects your personality development. Attitudes affect your open mindedness, your degree of prejudice around learning, how cheerful you are, and your interest in learning. Just how efficient you are in the learning process determines how quickly you are able to catch on to new information.

5.    Social and Emotional Factors

Things like social factors, instincts, and emotions can relate directly to your motivation for learning. If you cooperate with others and engage in some healthy rivalry, you will learn faster and will have more fun in learning new things.

There are destructive and constructive tendencies a person may have. The students may, for example, will not like a particular subject because they don't see it as valuable or may not have the foundation to really learn the subject. This can negatively affect the students' emotional state. Other students may not want to risk the disapproval of their classmates or their teacher. This, too, can negatively affect the learning process.

6.    The Teacher's Personality

Each teacher has his or her own personality that can strongly affect the individual's learning environment. The success or failure of the student can depend on the teacher's personality. The teacher's personality may mesh or not mesh with the student's personality and will affect how the student is taught.

For example, if the teacher and student do not get along, the student may refuse to learn from the teacher and learning will not happen. They don't have to like each other but they should at least respect one another. Even so, students do not learn well from teachers who are grouchy but learn better from cheerful, sympathetic, and happy teachers. The teacher who loves their work and their students will teach better and the students will learn better.

7.    Environmental Factors

You need to have the proper environmental conditions in order to learn. The classroom must be conducive to good learning and the texts, equipment, and school supplies must be of a good quality so that the student can learn as easily as possible. These are factors affecting learning in just about any environment.

If the home and school environment are poor places to learn, the student will not learn. Everything must be set up to be favorable to learning so that the student can best learn the material in an environment that is conducive to learning.

People Say It May Be Related With…

Learning affects people in different ways. People may have different tendencies about what will be the most important factor for their learning. Let's see what some people may say.

• I think that some of it is related to the purpose behind your learning. If you want to be able to learn, you need to know what it is you want to learn and what your learning strengths are. There are two constraints to learning. These include the environment, and task-related behaviors. How self-organized you are, as well as how you work with your environment, is really important. Other factors include the teacher/student interaction, which determines how creative the learning environment is for the individual learner.
• I don't think that learning is a linear thing. There are constraints placed on the learner that are also affected by the teacher or coach. We can't measure learning by a static approach. Learning is dynamic and is an ongoing process. You can learn by being exposed to new experiences and by acquiring new skills.
• I believe that the best learning comes from having a good attitude and the aptitude to follow through on the learning process. If you have a good attitude, you will approach learning in a positive way. If you have a good aptitude, learning will come easier for you in the long run. These are the most important factors affecting learning.

After learning all possible factors with learning, you may just want to know how to learn faster. The following video can be helpful.