Lernfunktion

Lernfunktion is not an established term with a single definition; it is used in German-language texts to denote a function that describes the development of knowledge or skill as a result of learning.

In education research, the concept is used to model how a learner's proficiency evolves with practice, feedback, and instruction over time or with accumulated experience. Typical formulations describe growth curves, for example linear, logarithmic, or logistic shapes, and can incorporate individual differences, task difficulty, and instructional methods. The learning function is often estimated from empirical data such as test scores across sessions.

In cognitive science and educational psychology, the learning function is related to the schedule of practice and the spacing effect, and may be integrated into broader models of cognitive change, such as skill acquisition or memory consolidation. In this sense, it helps quantify the effectiveness of teaching strategies and the time required to reach a given proficiency.

In the context of machine learning, the term Lernfunktion is less common; the analogous concept is the hypothesis function that a model aims to learn, mapping inputs to outputs. The learning process optimizes a loss function (Verlustfunktion) that measures discrepancies between predictions and data, guiding the model's parameters toward approximating the target function.

Etymology: derived from lernen and Funktion.