[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# What is learning (L)?

## The research claim

Learning is usually defined by what it produces. Behaviourism made it a change in behaviour. Cognitivism made it acquisition — knowledge moved into a head. Constructivism made it the building of meaning. Experiential accounts made it a cycle of doing and reflecting. Each names a process or an outcome. None says what, precisely, is different afterwards. If a mental model is information times organization, then learning is change in a mental model — and there are only two things that can change. You took in information you did not have. You reorganized what you already had. Or both, which is the ordinary case. Nothing else is available, because there is nothing else in the model to change. Groups learn the same way. What changes is the model they hold in common, and it changes by those same two routes. This says nothing about whether what was learned is any good. A model can change toward reality or away from it, and both are learning. People learn things that are false, and they learn them by the same mechanism they learn things that are true. Whether a change moves a model closer to the world is a separate question with its own answer. The consequence is a diagnosis most training gets wrong. When someone does not understand, the reflex is to supply more information. If what is missing is organization, more information does not help — a fact established separately, and here it means the two kinds of learning are not interchangeable. Knowing which one is needed is the difference between teaching and repeating yourself.

## What would confirm it

Learning is a change in a mental model. For one person, a change in their model. For a group, a change in the model held in common. Read in symbols: individual learning (Lᵢ) is the change (Δ) in a mental model (𝕄). Organizational learning (Lₒ) is the change in the model held by a set of agents (𝕄_α). The delta is any change in either direction — toward the world or away from it. The subscript on 𝕄 marks who holds the model and is the only difference between the two.

## What would refute it

Learning happens with no change in a mental model, or a mental model changes and no learning has occurred. Read in symbols: there exists learning (L) where the change in the mental model (Δ𝕄) is zero, or (∨) there exists a change in a mental model where no learning has occurred. An identity fails in both directions. A case of learning with nothing different afterwards would show the definition is too narrow. A model changing in a way nobody would call learning would show it is too broad.

## The evidence, and why this status

If a mental model is information times organization, then learning cannot be acquisition. A model can change in exactly two ways and no third — information that was not there before, or reorganization of what already was — so learning has to be a change in a mental model, and the standard definitions are naming one half of it. That is a construct claim, and it is tested differently from an effect claim. Two entries do the work. The empirical one works by subtraction. Subjects were given no new content at all, only awareness of how information is organized, and their models became measurably more complex. Nothing was added. What changed was the organization, and the change was learning — which is the case the acquisition account cannot hold. The construct one is a direct comparison against the standing definitions, showing where each of them mis-sorts. That is how a definition earns its place: not by fitting the cases everyone agrees on, but by handling the ones a rival gets wrong. Underneath both sits the finding that a mental model is the product of information and organization. The two-kinds-of-learning claim is not a stipulation. It follows from the form, and these studies are initial evidence that the form is right about it. The remaining entries carry the account to organizations, where a change in a shared model has to be visible across people rather than inside one head, and review what is known about training the capacity itself.

## Supporting evidence (7 publications · 1 study)

- [Cabrera D, Cabrera L (2025). The structure of thought and reality: empirical evidence for the three universal laws linking mind, matter, and meaning. Journal of Systems Thinking.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/504)

- [Cabrera D, Cabrera L (2025). From DSRP Theory to O-Theory: The Science of Organization. Journal of Systems Thinking 5(1):1-8.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/473)

- [Cabrera D, Cabrera L (2020). Defining Learning.: Defining Learning. Handbook of Systems Thinking.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/285)

- [Cabrera D, Cabrera L, Cabrera E (2022). Fish Tank treatments. Systems (MDPI).](https://dsrpevidence.org/experiment/324)

- [Cabrera D, Cabrera L (2025). The Science of Getting on the Same Page: The VMCL Field Equation Behind Adaptive Culture. Journal of Systems Thinking 5(1):1-33.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/503)

- [Cabrera & Cabrera (2018). Flock Not Clock: Design, Align, and Lead to Achieve Your Vision. Plectica Publications.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/253)

- [Cabrera, D., Lakshmanaprasath, S., Silberman, D., & Cabrera, L. (2025). Mental fitness and the structure of adaptation: Evidence from a systematic review toward a measurable, trainable science of mental fitness. Journal of Systems Thinking,.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/478)

- [Cabrera D, Cabrera L (2018). Systems Thinking: The Crux of Organizational Learning. CRL.](https://dsrpevidence.org/paper/264)

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