Lesson 2: Behavioral Views of Learning

Introduction

In each of the coming eight lessons, we will discuss different theories and concepts of learning. The theories are associated with learning, motivation, and language. Each lesson contains multiple assignments to complete. Generally, you will complete a self-assessment to be completed after your readings, self-reflection exercises, and one or two scenario-based assignments per lesson that are related to a specific technology enhanced learning problem.

In the first lesson, you learned that people have been thinking about learning for many centuries. It was not until the early 20th century that researchers like John B. Watson, Edward Thorndike, and later B.F. Skinner brought the scientific approach to the study of learning by developing their behaviorist theories of learning. Watson argued that if psychology were to become a science, it had to structure itself like the physical sciences, which studied observable and measurable phenomena (Schunk, 2011). This meant that the observable phenomenon that psychologists would investigate would therefore be human behavior. Please learn more about behavioral views of learning by studying the readings of this lesson.

Instructor Notes

 

Behaviorism and learning: learning occurs when experience (including practice) causes a relatively permanent change in an individual’s knowledge or behavior (Woolfolk). This change must be brought about by experience and the interaction of a person with his or her environment. Changes that occur as a result of maturation do not qualify as learning. Some theories will focus on the change in knowledge and others will focus on the change of behavior. This lesson will focus on the behavioral view and the emphasis on external events.

Classical Conditioning

  • Learning occurs through interaction and the environment. No new behaviors are learned.
  • The environment shapes behavior.
  • Internal mental states (feelings, thoughts, and emotions) are not needed in explaining behaviors.
  • Pairing of neutral signal behavior a naturally occurring reflex (think about Pavlov’s dogs and the bell along with the reflex of salivating).
  • Contiguity is the association of two events because of repeated pairings.
  • The unconditioned stimulus is one that unconditionally, naturally, and automatically triggers a response.
  • The unconditioned response is the unlearned response that occurs naturally in response to the unconditioned stimulus.
  • The conditioned stimulus is a previously neutral stimulus that, after becoming associated with the unconditioned stimulus, eventually comes to trigger a conditioned response.
  • The conditioned response is the learned response to the previously neutral stimulus.

Operant Conditioning:

  • Skinner believed it was more productive to study the observable behaviors rather than the internal mental events. He believed to understand a behavior one needs to investigate the cause of the action and its consequences.
  • Assumptions about operant conditioning: Infants are born with species-specific reflexes. Infants are born with a “blank slate” mind. Infants are active; their nature is to emit or give out responses, not to simply react to specific stimuli.
  • Skinner added reinforcement to the Law of Effect. Behavior which is reinforced tends to be repeated; behavior not reinforced with be extinguished.
  • Positive and negative reinforcement increases the behavior.
  • Punishment temporarily suppresses the behavior but does not eliminate the preceding operant. Punishment is not the opposite of reinforcement.

Learning new behaviors and maintaining established ones

  • Shaping is the reinforcement of successively closer approximations of the target behavior.
  • Chaining is reinforcing individual responses occurring in a sequence to form a complex behavior.
  • Discrimination learning is learning to determine the settings in which a particular behavior will be reinforced.
  • Fading is the gradual withdrawal of prompts or cues that guide the performance of a complex behavior.
  • Reinforcement schedules are used to maintain behaviors with high response rates without using reinforcements for each elicited behavior: fixed interval, variable-interval, fixed-ratio, and variable-ratio.

Readings

 
  • Chapter 7: Behavioral Views of Learning, from the book: Woolfolk, A. (2015). Educational Psychology. (13th Edition). New York, NY: Pearson.
  • Burton, J. K., Moore, D. M. & Magliaro, S. G. (2004). Behaviorism and instructional technology.
  • Moore, J. (2011). Behaviorism. The Psychological Record, 61(3), 449.

Understanding

Please take the quiz below to assess your own learning and understanding of the main concepts and principles related to behavioral views of learning. They provide you with feedback that can help you better understand the reading materials and will give you a better understanding of the theories and principles you understand well and which ones you may still need to work on. Because the purpose of the self-assessment is to determine your readiness to proceed with the assignments, you will not submit it nor receive any points for completion.

Click here when you can't see the quiz below



 



Application
Assignment 2.1: Help Paul!

Paul is teaching a five week online workshop for faculty on the use of Photoshop at the University of Teaching and Learning. Every Monday night, Paul lectures for approximately 45 minutes using Adobe Connect and then assigns the class a related homework assignment that they should complete individually throughout the rest of the week. They are asked to submit the assignment by Friday. Paul will then grade all assignments before the next lecture and also provides each of the workshop participants with feedback. Faculty can obtain 5 points for the completion of each assignment. Paul deducts half a point for every assignment that was submitted late. Throughout the five weeks Paul states that he checks attendance during 3 of the 5 sessions, but does not tell the faculty upfront which sessions he will be checking. Paul finds attendance to his workshop crucial, so for each time that Paul checks attendance, faculty can earn 25 points for attending the session. The faculty need to obtain at least 80 points in order to receive certificate of completion for the course.

Even though Paul loves to teach the workshops and tries to make the content in the course interesting and relevant for his learners, he feels as if the faculty are not engaged while he teaches his workshops. He sometimes asks questions during his lecture and he does not receive many responses from the faculty. When he does, it is always from the same one or two people. He wonders if the participants may be busy doing other things while he lectures, such as surfing the web or checking their respective Facebook pages. He does not dare to directly confront the workshop participants about this though. He also notices that many of the faculty submit assignments late and that some students do not even complete all assignments that he assigns to them. He wonders if they may simply have forgotten about them or if there are any other reasons for this. Regardless, most faculty members in his course do actually successfully complete the workshop by obtaining at least 80 points, even though Paul is not sure that they really learned much.

 
  1. Does Paul (unconsciously) apply classical conditioning or operant conditioning in his workshop? Explain why.
  2. Which reinforcement type(s) (such as positive/negative reinforcement, (removal punishment) and reinforcement schedules does Paul use (such as continuous or intermittent, interval or ratio, fixed or variable)? Please explain how.
  3. How could Paul change his reinforcement types and schedules and how he could differently use other behaviorist principles to his advantage in order to:
    1. Prevent workshop participants from doing other things (such as surfing the web) while he lectures.
    2. Prevent workshop participants from submitting assignments late or not at all.


Submitting Your Assignment
You will submit this assignment together with assignment 2.2 at the end of this lesson. Prepare both assignments for this lesson (2.1 and 2.2) into a single Word file. Make sure the Word file is named "Assignment2". At the top of this document you should have the lesson name, and underneath that should be your name, email address, and the date. Below, write "Assignment 2.1" and type out your responses to this assignment. Do not submit this assignment until you have also completed assignment 2.2.

Grading Criteria
 
  • Explained the type of conditioning that was applied in the workshop and why (2)
  • Explained which reinforcement type(s) were used by Paul and how (2)
  • Examined how Paul could differently apply his reinforcement types, schedules and other behaviorist principles to prevent participants from doing other things. (2)
  • Examined how Paul could differently apply his reinforcement types, schedules and other behaviorist principles to prevent workshop participants from submitting assignments late or not at all. (3)

Points: 9



Assignment 2.2: Paul Needs More Help...

Paul wants to receive all assignments by email in Microsoft Word. To his surprise, he noticed that about 5% of his workshop participants do not have the computer skills needed to successfully complete any assignments. He therefore wants to develop an online tutorial for these few students. He wants these students to independently complete the tutorial before the start of the workshop. He wants these students to be able to embed saved images from their computer into Microsoft Word and to add arrows and other shapes into Microsoft Word pointing at specific parts of the images. Paul also wants to motivate students to actually complete the tutorial.


 
  1. Envision how you can create this online tutorial in line with behaviorist theory and principles. Please explain how your tutorial would be structured and how you would apply behaviorist principles to teach the above skills. Choose at least five behaviorist concepts such as extinction, stimulus control, effective instruction delivery (EID), cueing, prompting, the Premack principle, shaping, positive practice, contingency contracts, token reinforcements, and response cost.

Submitting Your Assignment
Under your last assignment (2.1) in your Word file, write “Assignment 2.2” and type out your responses to this case study. When you have completed both assignments of this lesson, save the document on your computer and make sure the file is named “Assignment2”. After you have saved your file, go to the student interface and submit your assignment for grading. Click here if you need additional information regarding submission of your assignment.

Grading Criteria
 
  • The way the tutorial would be structured aligns with behaviorist principles (3)
  • Explained how at least five different behaviorist principles were applied (3)

Points: 6