Week 2
Behaviorism
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Table of Contents
Table of Contents
What is Behaviorism?
What is Behaviorism?
A field of psychology that focuses on controlling the environment with the goal of changing or shaping a subject's observable behaviors.
Key Researchers
Key Researchers
Ivan Pavlov
(1849-1936)
Ivan Pavlov
(1849-1936)
Edward Lee Thorndike
(1874-1949)
Edward Lee Thorndike
(1874-1949)
Fig. 1. Ivan Pavlov NLM3.jpg (Source: Wikimedia Commons, 2024)
Fig. 2. Edward Lee Thorndike.png (Source: Wikimedia Commons, 2023)
Pavlov was a Swiss developmental psychologist who conducted experiments that paired the previously neutral stimuli of a tone (e.g., a bell) to the presence of food in eliciting the measurable behavior of salivation in dogs.
His work in classical conditioning demonstrated how stimuli in the environment can cause observable responses in a subject, and how the brain can associate stimuli to learn new responses, in a process called stimulus association. In his experiments, the animal subjects learned to salivate to the sound of the tone even in the absence of food. Pavlov termed this learned response a conditional reflex. (Kimmons, 2022)
Connections to Teaching & Learning
The implications of his research to teaching and learning involve the manipulation of environmental stimuli to create successful learning behaviors in students. Teachers can be sensitive and control the antecedents of learning to bring about positive behaviors and decrease unwanted behaviors. For instance, a teacher instead of using the stress-inducing ink color of red when grading papers, can decide to use a different ink color in order to put her students more at ease when receiving constructive feedback on their exams.
Thorndike was an American psychologist credited for his foundational work in operant conditioning. Operant conditioning refers to learning from the consequences of one’s behaviors.
His experiments with cats in puzzle box mazes demonstrated the law of effect--which states that behaviors leading to positive consequences will likely be increased; conversely, behaviors that lead to negative consequences will likely decrease over time. In his experiments, the cat learned that pulling the lever would lead to its freedom and an added food reward upon its exit.(Kimmons, 2022)
Connections to Teaching & Learning
The implications of operant conditioning to teaching and learning involve the use of behavioral consequences whether natural or contrived in guiding the learning process. For example, students receiving positive reinforcement in the form of verbal praise for cleaning up after play, will learn to clean up more often.
Concepts from operant conditioning can also be applied to animal training, behavior modification therapies, and reward systems in educational settings.
John B. Watson
(1878-1958)
John B. Watson
(1878-1958)
B.F. Skinner
(1904-1990)
B.F. Skinner
(1904-1990)
Fig. 3. John Broadus Watson.JPG (Source: Wikimedia Commons, 2024)
Fig. 4. Skinnerphoto2.jpg (Source: Wikimedia Commons, 2023)
Watson was an American psychologist credited for popularizing the term “behaviorism” as a field of psychology. Watson's theory of behaviorism focused on measuring and controlling for objective observable behavior. Conscious experience (i.e., thoughts and feelings) do not play a role in psychological experimentation. He was the first to use human subjects in studies of classical conditioning. He is most famous for the Little Albert experiment, where he taught a nine-month-old infant named Albert to be afraid of a rat by associating the presence of the rat with a loud noise. (Kimmons, 2022)
Connections to Teaching & Learning
An implication of Watson's body of work to teaching and learning involve a providing instructors with a framework to assess learning success through the objective measurement of observable behavior. This in turn informs the teacher on how to improve on instruction.
Skinner was an American psychologist who introduced a branch of behaviorism called radical behaviorism which believes that internal processes can also be controlled by the environment and analyzed.
Connections to Teaching & Learning
Skinner's research developed the concept of operant conditioning which he applied to education, specifically in the area of positive reinforcement.
Skinner provided practical connections of his research to education. Among them were the following (Kimmons, 2022):
1. Ensure the learner clearly understands the action or
performance.
2. Separate the task into small steps starting at simple and working up to complex.
3. Let the learner perform each step, reinforcing correct actions.
4. Regulate so that the learner is always successful until finally the goal is reached.
5. Change to random reinforcement to maintain the learner's performance.
Robert Gagné
(1916-2002)
Robert Gagné
(1916-2002)
Robert Gagne was an American psychologist who developed a sequence of nine instructional events meant to lead to successful learning and retention called Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction. The nine steps are as follows (McLeod, 2024):
1. Gain the learner's attention
2. Inform the learner of the objective
3. Stimulate learner's recall of prior knowledge
4. Present the content
5. Provide guidance (e.g., in the form of explanations, examples, demonstrations)
6. Learner practices the new skill
7. Provide feedback to the learner
8. Assess the learner
9. Enhance retention and transfer of the skill through further review, practice and application
Implications of Behaviorism for Instructional Design
Implications of Behaviorism for Instructional Design
Behaviorism has plenty of applications in the field of Instructional Design. These applications can happen in diverse educational settings. Some of these applications include the following:
Determining specific objective outcomes based on clearly stated learning objectives
Providing engaging stimuli to enhance retention of knowledge.
Simplifying learning by chunking complex knowledge or processes in the delivery of instruction
Providing reinforcement in the form of different forms of feedback throughout the learning process to assist learners in acquiring new knowledge
Behavioral modification approaches such as Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) that work toward understanding and changing a subject's behaviors.
Strengths & Limitations of Behaviorism in ID
Strengths & Limitations of Behaviorism in ID
Below are my reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of using a behavioristic approach in instructional design, with examples given in the context of teacher training and professional development:
Strengths:
1. Behaviorism provides a systematic and structured approach to address the learning of objective facts as well as standardized procedures (E.g., Teachers learning the steps of navigating a new online platform that assesses for student performance).
2. A behavioristic approach can help learners discriminate whether a concept or an example falls under a specific category or not. (E.g., Online drag-and-drop exercises can provide engagement and immediate feedback for teachers learning how to discriminate whether a student's observed behavior falls under a certain defined stage of development)
3. Positive reinforcement through rewards and recognition can enhance the learning experience and make it memorable. (E.g., Online game-based learning platform like "Kahoot!" have user-created real-time multiple-choice format quizzes that provide immediate feedback to users when reviewing concepts learned from a workshop. Reinforcement is provided to top responders who get their names showcased and celebrated on the screen)
Limitations:
A behaviorist approach may not be the best approach when the goal is to develop a learner's higher-order thinking skills when engaging in problem solving tasks. These include the ability to analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information.
Likewise, A behaviorist approach focuses on objective and observable behaviors and facts, and may not be the choice approach when the goal is to examine and reflect on a learner's intrinsic motivations, personal biases, and mental processes when completing a set task.
Behaviorism Learning Scenario
Behaviorism Learning Scenario
Purpose:
This scenario describes a professional learning experience designed to train Prekindergarten educators in the use of a new assessment tool. The teachers must demonstrate the ability to observe child behavior and accurately categorize it using the assessment tool. The experience consists of a combination of synchronous and asynchronous online learning activities.
Learning objectives:
Teachers will know when to conduct an observation,
Teachers will know how to categorize a specific behavior based on the assessment.
Teachers will know how to record the results into the online portal.
Unit 1:
Borrowing concepts from Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction, the first unit will introduce teachers to the objectives of the course and why observing a child in his natural environment is important to teaching. Teachers will have the chance to tap into their background knowledge by reflecting on their current practices of taking observations of children in a classroom setting. Connected to this would be a discussion on when during the instructional day they can observe for particular developmental skills; for instance, when best to observe for a child's ability to follow directions, and when best to observe for a child's initiative. An online stimulus-response learning activity in the form of a drag-and-drop task where on one side can be found children skills, and on the other side particular parts of the preschool day (e.g., breakfast, story time, etc.) Participants will categorize skills by dragging them to the part of the preschool day that they can best be observed. Once the matches have been made to an assigned number of items, participants receive immediate feedback after clicking a "submit" button. They are shown which responses were correct and which incorrect and they get multiple chances to try again until they get all matches right. A score of 100 percent is required to continue on in the unit. This is a form of positive reinforcement where the participant is rewarded for a successful completion of the exercise by his ability to continue onto the next unit.
Unit 2:
The second unit will have teachers accurately determine a child's developmental stage based on observations of the child interaction with his/her environment. Teachers will be provided a scaffold in the form of an observation guide. The guide will contain a rubric describing skills characteristic of each stage in a particular development area. Example scenarios of child behavior exhibiting these skill will also be given. This is characteristic of the fifth step Gagne's Nine Events of Instruction: Provide Guidance.
What happens next describes an application of Gagne's sixth step: Eliciting Performance. Teachers will then watch a video of a child in action. They will practice their observation skills along with the use of the guide to determine the stage of the child in the video. For example, in the area of "Classroom Rules, Routines, and Materials", teachers will determine whether a child's displayed behaviors fall under the stages of:
1. Emerging to 3 years old
2. Emerging to 4 years old
3. Emerging to 5 years of
4. By 5 years of age
Right after watching a video (which in this case is the stimuli), teachers will answer an online multiple-choice quiz containing the above described stages (i.e., their response). They provide their response by selecting the button of what they think is the stage demonstrated by the child in the video. If their answers are correct, they are positively reinforced by the chance to continue on to the next video on the quiz. Conversely, if they answer incorrectly, they are not allowed to continue (i.e., a form of negative punishment). They are then provided with feedback in the form of a prompt, such as "did the teacher give a general reminder or a specific one-step instruction to have Carlo put his things away?", to help them further analyze the scenario and select the correct response.
Unit 3:
The third and final unit will have teachers recording the results of their observations on a new assessment portal. Specifically, it will show them the steps involved from logging safely into the portal to selecting the stage the child demonstrated for a given developmental area. An online video will be used to explain each step at a time, and the teachers will be prompted to try the explained step, before continuing through the rest of the video. This will provided needed practice. Finally, an online sequencing activity will test to see if teachers are able to sequence the steps of accessing and entering results onto the assessment portal.
Once teachers have successfully completed all three units of the training session, they are given a link to download a certificate of completion. They can submit this to the school district's early childhood learning office as proof that they have completed the training. The office will then issue them a stipend. This would be a form of positive reinforcement to complete the training.
Licenses & Attributions
Licenses & Attributions
Images
Ivan Pavlov NLM3.jpg. (2024, August 5). Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved 01:11, February 19, 2025 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Ivan_Pavlov_NLM3.jpg&oldid=906557438
John Broadus Watson.JPG. (2024, July 26). Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved 01:18, February 19, 2025 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:John_Broadus_Watson.JPG&oldid=903334640.
PSM V80 D211 Edward Lee Thorndike.png. (2023, September 24). Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved 01:17, February 19, 2025 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:PSM_V80_D211_Edward_Lee_Thorndike.png&oldid=804323979.
Skinnerphoto2.jpg. (2023, June 2). Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved 01:19, February 19, 2025 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Skinnerphoto2.jpg&oldid=769852875.
Text
Kimmons, R. (2022). Education Research Across Multiple Paradigms. https://doi.org/10.59668/133
McLeod, S. (2024, February 1). Gagne’s Conditions of Learning Theory. Simple Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/conditions-of-learning-gagne.html
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