When we hear the word “Behaviorism”, most of the people remember the time in school or at the University from the scientific experiment with the bell and the dog. The behavior of the dog when the bell was ringing. It was the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s who discovered the phenomenon of Stimulus - Food > Response - Salivate. Pavlov realized that a change of behavior must be a result of learning (Conditioning).
„Classical conditioning (later developed by John Watson) involves learning to associate an unconditioned stimulus that already brings about a particular response (i.e. a reflex) with a new (conditioned) stimulus, so that the new stimulus brings about the same response.” (McLeod, published 2007, updated 2013).
“Behaviorism is built on this assumption, and its goal is to promote the scientific study of behavior. The behavior, in particular, of individual organisms. Not of social groups. Not of cultures. But of particular persons and animals.” (Graham, 2015)
Science has evolved in the last century and announces new aspects concerning Behaviorism. We will summarize most of them to have an overview of this complex topic.
(Graham, 2015) structured three types of Behaviorism:
In Methodological behavior, psychology should concern on the behavior of organism and not with mental states, which are private entities that give necessary publicity to science but do not create empiric study.
Psychological behaviorism explains human and animal behavior concerning the physical stimuli, responses, learning histories and reinforcements.
Analytical or logical behaviorism explains the behavior tendencies, how a person behaves in a situation different from another. The term belief, as a state of mind, is prevailing.
Behaviorism is widely spread in our society application. Psychology, Education, Philosophy, Economy, etc. use behaviorism in its foundation when they create new computer programs, advertisements, scientific studies, set new organizations or institutions and creating new education systems.
When we use computers for learning or automation processes, programming machines, the structure is definitely behaviorism based e.g. on - off, wright – wrong, 0 – 1, NOT – AND – OR structures. In these scenarios, we focusing on pre-established learning outcomes.
In behaviorism, the assumption is that knowledge is objective. That means there is a specific approach to follow or only one correct answer to give.
The simplest form of conditioning is feedback. Correct attempts reinforced most frequently by positive comments, written on automated programmed responses, are positive motivations. Punishment, negative criticism and negative scores are negative reinforcements, and certainly not appropriate.
“Even if we may not realize it, as eLearning professionals, we all use behavioristic principles extensively in our instructional design for eLearning. This happens because behaviorism, no matter how much out-of-date it sounds, without any doubt, is deeply rooted in human subconscious. Instinctively, it’s part of our actions and reactions.” …Humans are social beings; we learn from the environment, we learn from each other. We evolve all the time. We are rational beings. We are clever. If we are given the right incentives, we are able to construct knowledge in learning that meets our personal interests and needs. (Marisa Keramida, 2015)
In most cases is a mixed approach that combines the best of behaviorism, cognitivism and constructivism the right solution. Those concepts that meets the needs of each learning objective and offers the audience the best possible eLearning experience should be applied.
When applied to education as a learning theory, behaviorism indicates that the role of the teacher/instructor is to promote learners’ positive or desired responses (behaviors) by providing appropriate stimuli and continual positive reinforcement. This type of instruction typically requires much repetition, memorization, question-and-response, and external motivators such as grading and praise resulting in operant conditioning. (Hansen, 2017)
Graham, G. (2015). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/
Hansen, D. (2017). LDT100x Instructional Design and Technology: Learning Theories. Retrieved from https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:USMx+LDT100x+2T2017_2/courseware/af6f94204b4e45d5b379307159328e23/52aae5693be2443e99a4f10df5496f40/?child=first
Marisa Keramida, (. (2015, May 28). Behaviorism In Instructional Design For eLearning: When And How To Use. Retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/behaviorism-in-instructional-design-for-elearning-when-and-how-to-use
McLeod, S. (published 2007, updated 2013). Pavlov's Dog. Retrieved from Simplypsychology: https://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html
© 2017, Andreas Holzer - Learning Theories