Behaviorism in Learning and Teaching

There are some basic theories advanced to deseribe how language is acquired and taught. The behaviorist theory, Mentalist theory, Rationalist theory (otherwise calIed Congitive theory), Empiricist theory (Audiolingualism), and Cognitive-code theory are some of these theories. Of these, behaviorist theory and mentalist theory are mainly applicable to the acquisition of native languages while the rest can account for foreign language acquisition. Yet, the se five fundamental theories of language leaming cannot be totalIy divorced from each other, for "the objectives of second language learning are not necessarily entirely determined by natiye language competence inevitably serves as a foil against which to set second language leaming." (H.H. Stem, .1983; 30).

 Behaviorism, as a learning theory, can be traced back to Aristotle, whose essay “Memory” focused on association being made between events such as lightning and thunder. Other philosophers that followed Aristotle’s thoughts are Hobbs (1650), Hume (1740), Brown (1820), Bain (1855) and Ebbinghause (1885) (Black, 1995). Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike and Skinner later developed the theory in more detail. Watson is the theorist credited with coining the term "behaviorism."

1.                  The definition of Behaviorism

Spillane (2002) states, “the behaviorist perspective, associated with B. F. Skinner, holds that the mind at work cannot be observed, tested, or understood; thus, behaviorists are concerned with actions (behavior) as the sites of knowing, teaching, and learning” (p. 380). One of the keys to effective teaching is discovering the best consequence to shape the behavior. Consequences can be positive or negative – punishing or rewarding. “Extinction” occurs when there is no consequence at all – for example if you knock at the door and no one answers, pretty soon you simply stop knocking (Zemke, 2002).

The origins of behaviorist learning theories may be traced backed to the late 1800's and early 1900's with the formulation of "associationistic" principles of learning. The general goal was to derive elementary laws of learning and behavior that may then be extended to explain more complex situations. Inferences were tied closely to observed behavior in "lower organisms" with the belief that the laws of learning were universal and that work with laboratory animals could be extrapolated to humans. It was believed that a fundamental set of principles derived from the study of learning in a basic or "pure" form could then be applied to the broader context of learning in schools.

Three experimental approaches are related to the study of associationistic learning including:

a.                   The use of nonsense syllables and individual words to study the association of ideas

b.                   The use of animals to study the association between sensations and impulses

c.                   The use of animals to study association and reflexology

Behaviorist theory presents learning in short manageable blocks that build on previously learned behaviors. Kearsley (1994) identified three fundamental principles common in behaviorist learning:

a.                   Positive reinforcement of the desired behavior will most likely prompt the same behavior.

b.                  Learning should be presented in small manageable blocks.

c.                   Stimulus generalization of learning can produce secondary conditioning.

2.                  Behaviorism In Education Process

Behavioral learning theories have contributed to instruction and education in several significant ways. The three applications summarized here include:

a.                  Behavioral Modification

Also known as behavior therapy or contingency management, behavior modification is typically used to treat behavior problems in social, personal, or school situations. Some clinical applications include treatments for phobias, obsessions or eating disorders. Educational applications involve the treatment of schoolrelated problems such as the lack of attention, hyperactivity, temper tantrums, or other behaviors that interfere with the regular workings of a classroom. Special education teachers are typically well trained in behavioral modification. In each of these instances, the S-R-S model and its resulting principles are used to shape, modify and otherwise control behavior.

b.                  Classroom Management

While behavioral therapists and special education teachers apply behavioral learning principles to address individuals, teachers in regular classrooms may use the same principles to help manage the behavior of twenty to thirty children. For instance, teachers may set up group contingencies (a standard reinforcement given to a group) for following certain rules of conduct. A kindergarten teacher, for example, may take his/her students out to the playground 10-15 minutes early if they all pick up their things. One common means of applying group contingencies that some teachers find useful is the token economy (Ayllon & Azrin, 1968). In this system, tokens serve as conditioned reinforcers that can later be exchanged for objects or privileges. Tokens are earned for good conduct—whatever behaviors have been selected by the teacher for strengthening. Since tokens operate like money, students may also be fined for breaking the rules or engaging in undesirable behavior.

3.                  Principle behaviorism in Teaching

Behaviorism concepts can be applied to course design as well, and will be illustrated in a couple of examples. First, weighting assignments, projects and tests to correspond with the proportional amount of effort you want

students to put into these activities rewards and reinforces student effort and performance in those areas. Similarly, providing feedback during the development of projects, essays or research projects rewards and reinforces learning over time and should result in better retention and skill development. This later type of reinforcement frequently occurs at the graduate level but also can be used effectively in undergraduate offerings too.

Some things to remember when incorporating behaviorist principles into your teaching:

a.                   Write observable and measurable behavioral learning outcomes

b.                  Specify the desired performances in advance (the learning outcomes serve this purpose) and verify learning with appropriate assessments

c.                    Emphasize performance, and practice in an authentic context

d.                  Use instructional strategies to shape desired skills

e.                   Reinforce accomplishments with appropriate feedback

The principles of behaviorism can be useful in facilitating learning within the classroom. However, they do not account for the motivation or thought behind actions taken.

4.                  Management Instruction

Behavioral principles have proved useful, not only for managing student behavior, but also for managing the way instruction is delivered. The most prominent examples of how behavioral learning theories have been applied to the management of instruction include the development of behavioral objectives, contingency contracts, and personalized systems of instruction (PSI).

Behaviorists, as well as others, argue that the only evidence of learning comes from the study of overt behaviors. How can one be sure that a student acquired knowledge or a skill unless we can see them actually do something with that knowledge or skill? Thus, to assess the degree to which a student achieved an objective, it is important to specify desired instructional outcomes in terms of clear, observable behaviors (behavioral, instructional, learning, or performance objectives). An instructional application that often makes use of both behavioral modification and instructional objectives is the contingency contract. Used with individual students, the contract sets out the terminal behavior the student is to achieve, along with the conditions for achievement and the consequences for completion (or noncompletion) of assigned tasks. Keller (1968) proposed a whole new approach to college instruction based on behavioral principles known as the personalized system of instruction (PSI). PSI calls for course materials to be broken up into units, each with a set of behavioral objectives. Students tackle course materials on their own, often aided by study guides which provide practice on unit objectives. To proceed, students are required to demonstrate mastery by taking a unit quiz. Students receive feedback immediately and if they pass, they can go on to the next unit. If they fail, they must remediate and take the quiz again, but with no penalty.

5.                  Behavioral Approach

The behavioral approach to learning and development, which has for the most part dominated the psychology of curriculum design and educational technology, has evolved from relying on a few basic principles. Despite various behavioral theories that extend from the simple classical conditioning of Ivan Pavlov to elaborated operant conditioning of B. F. Skinner, all share common basic principles that have been used successfully in designing educational materials. The behavior psychologists believe that instruction should have a specific goal(s), and they strongly support sequencing of instructional materials by first presenting simple facts and then moving into more complex information. They believe that if teachers present and sequence instructionalm materials and evaluate students’ achievements, then students will learn more effectively. To have a good understanding of the behavioral approach and its implication for developing multimedia-learning environments, it is beneficial to first look at the work of Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) and his influence on Thorndike (1874-1949) and Skinner (1904-1991). Such a historical understanding of the evolution of the behavioral approach will assist us in the discussion of the application of behavioral theories to the design and development of multimedia learning.

6.                  Pavlov's Classical Conditioning

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian scientist, in his work on the digestive system of dogs came upon an interesting idea that changed the history of psychological research. He was well aware of the fact that dogs salivate as a natural response to stimuli such as food. In his laboratory he created a situation where a bell was sounded a few seconds before a hungry dog was to be fed. After several attempts repeating the same process of sounding a bell before feeding, the dog began to salivate simply at the sound of the bell. Pavlov called the process by which the dog learned to respond to an artificial stimulus to provoke natural responses classical conditioning. The bell that originally had no meaning to the dog was referred to as conditioned stimulus because of its association with food, and the salivation as the response to the sound of the bell as the conditioned response. In his later works, Pavlov found that once a dog is conditioned to respond to the sound of a bell, it would also salivate to other sounds such as a siren or horn. He referred to this extended conditioned response as stimulus generalization.

7.                  Thorndike's Connectionism Theory

In the U.S., John B. Watson (1878-1958) and E.L. Thorndike (1874-1949) were influenced by Pavlov’s classical conditioning and applied it to educational environments. Of these two American scholars, the work of E.L. Thorndike in the area of applying a behavioral approach to education dominated educational practices in the United States for several decades in the twentieth century. Thorndike’s theory of learning has come to be known as connectionism because he posited that learning was a process of forming a connection between stimulus and response. Thorndike based his theory on an experiment he conducted on animals. He placed a cat in a cage where a string was hanging from the door into the cage. Food as a reward was placed outside the cage behind the door. The cat was placed in the cage and after extended trial and error found that pulling the string would open the door. By opening the door the cat had access to food or his reward. The process was repeated over and over again till the cat connected that pulling the string would open the door, which resulted in a reward in terms of food. Based on this experiment on animals, Thorndike defined learning as habit formation, or forming a connection between stimulus and response.

Thorndike applied his connection theory directly into educational planning. He developed two major laws of learning that are influenced by reward: law of effect, and law of exercise. The law of effect simply states that when a connection is created between stimulus and response and is followed by reward, the connection is strengthened (Thorndike, 1913).

“When a modifiable connection is made between a situation and a response and is accompanied or followed by a satisfying state of affairs, the strength of that connection is increased. When an annoying state of affairs goes with or  follows aconnection, the strength of that connection is decreased. (p. 71)”

The second important principle posited by Thorndike for educational purposes was the law of exercise. This principle simply states that the strength of a stimulusresponse connection is directly proportional to the number of times it has been repeated. In other words, the more practice the stronger the connection between the stimulus and response and the less practice the weaker the connection between the stimulus and response.

Although connectionism no longer enjoys the popularity it once had in

educational practices, one can easily observe the influence of Thorndike today in educational multimedia-learning environments. The use of gold stars, points, and other extrinsic motivational tools as a reward system that was first introduced by Thorndike is now a milestone of educational multimedia-learning environments. Also the common process of practice and drill in educational software and multimedia titles, especially in tutorials and practice and drills, is a direct influence of the law of exercise.

8.                  Skinner's Operant Conditioning

Like other behaviorists, B. S. Skinner's learning and developmental theory, known as operant conditioning, was based on animal research. While other behaviorists experimented on dogs and cats, Skinner used rats and pigeons to carry out his experiments and then applied his animal behavior findings to human learning processes. As to be discussed in later chapters, the application of animal psychology to human learning may not always be a suitable ground for educational multimedia-learning environments.

Skinner's behavior theory, however, differed in two major ways in relation to other behavioral theories. First, Skinner's theory differed in respect to stimuli-responses and second, his theory differed in the treatment of reward. In both treatments, Skinner's theory became more akin to explaining higher psychological functions that are uniquely human. Skinner, like other behaviorists, believed that stimuli could cause responses in human behavior. However, he differs in his treatment of response in behavioral theory. Unlike Thorndike and Watson who believed that there is only one type of response, Skinner posited two different responses to explain human behavior as opposed to animal behavior. The two types of response are called respondent and operant. Respondents are responses that occur to specific stimulus. This type of response is very similar to the way other behaviorist treated the definition of response. These types of response represent elementary needs. For example, you drink water (response) when your are thirsty (stimulus). However, a majority of human learning behavior, according to Skinner, is of the operant response type. Operant responses occur for no apparent reason and they are uniquely human. For example reading a book, playing, or paying attention are operant responses that occur at random. It is the operant responses that form the basis of Skinner’s operant conditioning theory. According to Skinner there are certain responses that a human child has the innate propensity to acquire. These responses he referred to as operant responses. If the operant responses are properly reinforced, then they become rooted in human behavior. This is why Skinner refers to his theory as operant conditioning. Conditionings of the operant response become the goal of learning and education. For example, when a child in the first grade pays attention or reads a book and the teacher smiles every time the student is paying attention or reading a book, then such behaviors are positively reinforced and become part of the behavioral repertoire of the student. Learning to pay attention or reading a book, as the result of smiles, is uniquely human behavior. Skinner, very much like Thorndike, believed reward was the most important factor in the learning process. Skinner, however, preferred the term reinforcement in lieu of reward. To Skinner, reinforcement was a process that increased the probability of responses. Skinner (1968) states: " A reward is compensation or remuneration for services performed and is seldom immediately contingent on behavior. We reward people; we reinforce behavior (p.106).”

Table 3.1 shows there are two types of reinforcement and two types of punishment. The reinforcements can be either positive or negative. Positive reinforcement occurs when in following a particular response an action is performed to strengthen the response. For example, when a student performs a task in school and the teacher would reinforces the performance by saying "Good Job," then the student is being positively reinforced. Negative reinforcement on the other hand occurs when in following an unpleasant response an action is taken to strengthen the response. For example, whenever there is a test and a student always feigns illness and wishes to go to the nurse and the teacher allows this, the student is being negatively reinforced. This is because the student is getting his/her way by creating an unpleasant situation in the class and the student’s action is being reinforced by the teacher’s response.

There are also two types of punishment. Punishment decreases the probability of bad behavior. For example, in punishment 1, if a teacher says to a student who is constantly talking “You can not use the computer if you keep on talking,” the teacher is punishing the student. Thus, decreasing the occurrence of bad behavior. In punishment 2, if a student who is constantly talking in a classroom is told by the teacher: “Will you please shut up?” the teacher is reprimanding the student. Punishing the student by reprimanding weakens bad behavior.

Table 3.1 Two types of reinforcement and two types of punishments

Increase Responses	Decrease Responses
Positive: Strengthens pleasant responses and increases the probability of response occurring.	Punishment 1: Weakens responses. It decreases bad behavior.
Negative: Strengthens unpleasant responses and increases the probability of response occurring	Punishment 2: Weakens responses. Reprimand

Skinner is probably the most influential behaviorist. Numerous behavioral modification and instructional programs including mastery learning, educational

software, program instruction, and computer-assisted instruction have been based on his operant conditioning and programmed instruction philosophy. In particular Skinner’s contributions can be seen in the area of applied behavioral analysis and development of schedule of reinforcement.

REFERENCES

Demirezen, Mehuıet (1988). Behaviorist Theory and Language Learning.Hacettepe Vniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, pp. 135 - 140

Gillani. Behavioral. Chp. 3

Driscoll, M. P. (2000). Psychology of learning for instruction (2nd ed.). Boston:

   Allyn and Bacon.

http://www.cs.ucy.ac.cy/~nicolast/courses/cs654/lectures/LearningTheories.pdf

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikimedia/en-labs/5/5a/Learning_Theories.pdf