Bandura - Social Learning Theory



Behaviour TheoryBehaviourism is primarily associated with Pavlov (classical conditioning) in Russia and with Thorndike, Watson and particularly Skinner in the United States (operant conditioning).?Much behaviourist experimentation is undertaken with animals and generalised.?In educational settings, behaviourism implies the dominance of the teacher - based on the structuring and guidance of the teacher; the question really concerns the engagement of the learners with the process, rather than its imposition on them.2733675219075Classical conditioning:is the process of reflex learning—investigated by Pavlov—through which an unconditioned stimulus (e.g. food) which produces an unconditioned response (salivation) is presented together with a conditioned stimulus (a bell), such that the salivation is eventually produced on the presentation of the conditioned stimulus alone, thus becoming a conditioned response.?Such associations can be chained and generalised (for better of for worse): thus "smell of baking" associates with "kitchen at home in childhood" associates with "love and care". 4227195119380Operant ConditioningThe schedule of reinforcement of behaviour is central to the management of effective learning on this basis, and working it out is a very skilled procedure: simply reinforcing every instance of desired behaviour is just bribery, not the promotion of learning.?Applied to the theory of teaching, behaviourism's main manifestation is "instructional technology" and its associated approaches: click below for useful guides.Behaviour that is positively reinforced will reoccur; intermittent reinforcement is particularly effective Information should be presented in small amounts so that responses can be reinforced ("shaping") Reinforcements will generalize across similar stimuli ("stimulus generalization") producing secondary conditioning StrengthsLimitationsScientificHighly applicable (e.g. therapy)Emphasizes objective measurementMany experiments to support theoriesIdentified comparisons between animals (Pavlov) and humans (Watson & Rayner - Little Albert)Ignores mediational processesIgnores biology (e.g. testosterone)Too deterministic (little free-will)Experiments – low ecological validityHumanism – can’t compare animals to humansReductionistBandura - Social Learning TheoryIn social learning theory Albert Bandura (1977) states behaviour is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning.2374900499110Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated during the famous bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961).403415516510The children in Bandura’s studies observed an adult acting violently toward a Bobo doll. When the children were later allowed to play in a room with the Bobo doll, they began to imitate the aggressive actions they had previously observed.00The children in Bandura’s studies observed an adult acting violently toward a Bobo doll. When the children were later allowed to play in a room with the Bobo doll, they began to imitate the aggressive actions they had previously observed.Individuals that are observed are called models. In society children are surrounded by many influential models, such as parents within the family, characters on children’s TV, friends within their peer group and teachers at school.? Theses models provide examples of behaviour to observe and imitate, e.g. masculine and feminine, pro and anti-social etc.The child is more likely to attend to and imitate those people it perceives as similar to itself. Consequently, it is more likely to imitate behaviour modelled by people of the same sex. Reinforcement can be external or internal and can be positive or negative.? If a child wants approval from parents or peers, this approval is an external reinforcement, but feeling happy about being approved of is an internal reinforcement.? A child will behave in a way which it believes will earn approval because it desires approval.? Positive (or negative) reinforcement will have little impact if the reinforcement offered externally does not match with an individual's needs.? ??While behaviourists believed that learning led to a permanent change in behaviour, observational learning demonstrates that people can learn new information without demonstrating new behaviours.The Modeling ProcessNot all observed behaviours are effectively learned. Factors involving both the model and the learner can play a role in whether social learning is successful. Certain requirements and steps must also be followed. Attention: In order to learn, you need to be paying attention. Retention: The ability to store information is also an important part of the learning process. Retention can be affected by a number of factors, Reproduction: Once you have paid attention to the model and retained the information, it is time to actually perform the behaviour you observed. Motivation:Finally, in order for observational learning to be successful, you have to be motivated to imitate the behaviour that has been modelled. Reinforcement and punishment play an important role in motivation. Humanistic TheoriesHumanistic "theories" of learning tend to be highly value-driven and hence more like prescriptions (about what ought to happen) rather than descriptions (of what does happen).They emphasise the "natural desire" of everyone to learn. Whether this natural desire is to learn whatever it is you are teaching, however, is not clear.It follows from this, they maintain, that learners need to be empowered and to have control over the learning process. So the teacher relinquishes a great deal of authority and becomes a facilitator.The school is particularly associated withCarl Rogers, andAbraham Maslow (psychologists),While the tenor of humanistic theory is generally wishy-washy liberal, its approach also underlies the more committed stance of “transformative learning” (Mezirow) and “conscientization” ( HYPERLINK "" \l "Freire" Freire).Its most fertile ground is with intrinsically motivated learners. It is not as potent now as it was in the '70s, when it often seemed to be used as an excuse for the abrogation of the realistic authority of the teacher—or perhaps we have just become more mature in our use of it. As the politicised variants show, it poses considerable challenges not only to approaches to teaching, but also to the construction of the curriculum as a whole. As society has become more fragmented and "post-modern", these challenges have become even more problematic.4924425303530Figures in Humanistic models of LearningCarl Rogers(1902-1987) Principally known as the founder of person-centred psychotherapy and almost the inventor of counselling, also a leading figure in the development of humanistic approaches to education. 3081655300355MaslowAbraham Maslow wanted to understand what motivates people. He believed that people possess a set of motivation systems unrelated to rewards or unconscious desires. Maslow (1943) stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. When one need is fulfilled a person seeks to fullfil the next one, and so on. ConstructivismJerome Bruner A major theme in the theoretical framework of Bruner is that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas or concepts based upon their current/past knowledge. The learner selects and transforms information, constructs hypotheses, and makes decisions, relying on a cognitive structure to do so. Cognitive structure (i.e., schema, mental models) provides meaning and organization to experiences and allows the individual to "go beyond the information given". As far as instruction is concerned, the instructor should try and encourage students to discover principles by themselves. The instructor and student should engage in an active dialog (i.e., socratic learning). The task of the instructor is to translate information to be learned into a format appropriate to the learner's current state of understanding. Curriculum should be organized in a spiral manner so that the student continually builds upon what they have already learned. Constructivism is the label given to a set of theories about learning which fall somewhere between cognitive and humanistic views. If behaviourism treats the organism as a black box, cognitive theory recognises the importance of the mind in making sense of the material with which it is presented. Nevertheless, it still presupposes that the role of the learner is primarily to assimilate whatever the teacher presents. Constructivism — particularly in its "social" forms — suggests that the learner is much more actively involved in a joint enterprise with the teacher of creating ("constructing") new meanings."cognitive constructivism" is about how the individual learner understands things, "social constructivism", which emphasises how meanings and understandings grow out of social encounters—Vygotsky Vygotsky4057650154940"Zone of Proximal Development" (1962) (ZPD). "Proximal" simply means "next". He observed that when children were tested on tasks on their own, they rarely did as well as when they were working in collaboration with an adult. It was by no means always the case that the adult was teaching them how to perform the task, but that the process of engagement with the adult enabled them to refine their thinking or their performance to make it more effective. The common-sense idea which fits most closely with this model is that of "stretching" learners.1905016847It is common in constructing skills check-lists to have columns for "cannot yet do", "can do with help", and "can do alone". The ZPD is about "can do with help", not as a permanent state but as a stage towards being able to do something on your own. The key to "stretching" the learner is to know what is in that person's ZPD—what comes next, for them. 2944495-167640Gestalt: (Plural ?Gestalten”) is German for “pattern”, “figure”, “shape”, or “form” In learning, opposed to the reductionism of behaviourism, it concentrates on the way in which the mind insists on finding patterns in things, and how this contributes to learning, especially the development of “insight” – it is linked to Piaget’s work00Gestalt: (Plural ?Gestalten”) is German for “pattern”, “figure”, “shape”, or “form” In learning, opposed to the reductionism of behaviourism, it concentrates on the way in which the mind insists on finding patterns in things, and how this contributes to learning, especially the development of “insight” – it is linked to Piaget’s workCognitive TheoriesCognitive theory is interested in how people understand material, and thus in;?aptitude and capacity to learn (thus fringing onto psychometrics and testing),?and learning styles (the reference is to one of the few apparently valid styles: It is also the basis of the educational approach known as constructivism, which emphasises the role of the learner in constructing his own view or model of the material, and what helps with that.It all starts with Gestalt theories originally theories of perception, interested in the way the brain imposes pattern on the perceived world, Gestalt moved into problem-solving learning.?Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a biologist who originally studied molluscs but moved into the study of the development of children's understanding, through observing them and talking and listening to them while they worked on exercises he set.His view of how children's minds work and develop has been enormously influential, particularly in educational theory. His particular insight was the role of maturation (simply growing up) in children's increasing capacity to understand their world: they cannot undertake certain tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so. -35560033020He proposed that children's thinking does not develop entirely smoothly: instead, there are certain points at which it "takes off" and moves into completely new areas and capabilities. He saw these transitions as taking place at about 18 months, 7 years and 11 or 12 years. This has been taken to mean that before these ages children are not capable (no matter how bright) of understanding things in certain ways, and has been used as the basis for scheduling the school curriculum. Whether or not should be the case is a different matter.Classic Gestalt imageA vase or two faces? It's easy to see one or the other: almost impossible to see neither, or indeed both at the same time.?Gestalt acknowledges the “knack” element. It thus underpins all the cognitivist theories.Experimental work on Gestalt learning is primarily about the problem-solving capacities of animals: chimps spontaneously pile up boxes in order to climb on them to reach bananas, for example (K?hler, 1925). The learning element is shown by their ability to repeat the action later, without apparently having to pause and think about it as they did the first time.Situated LearningSituated learning, is primarily social rather than psychological and originates from Lave and Wenger (1991).3390900804545Based on case-studies of how newcomers learn in various occupational groups which are not characterised by formal training, they suggest that legitimate peripheral participation is the key. The case-studies include traditional midwives in Yucatan, tailors in Liberia, butchers in supermarkets, and quartermasters in the US Marine Corps. It is legitimate because all parties accept the position of “unqualified” people as potential members of the “community of practice”Peripheral because they hang around on the edge of the important stuff, do the peripheral jobs, and gradually get entrusted with more important onesParticipation because it is through doing knowledge that they acquire it. Knowledge is situated within the practices of the community of practice.The inadequacy of the diagram is that the whole situation is seen as fluid: there is no one boundary to the community of practice, and the position of “master”. Note that communities of practice overlap, so that someone who is “central” in one may be peripheral in another. The model has a number of implications:Knowledge is defined as what is done, It suggests that in terms of the hidden curriculum, and the distortion of knowledge which takes place in making it learnable within a curriculum It is not always clear how legitimate peripheral participation differs from occupational socialisation, and it is well-established that such socialisation does not necessarily embody best practice (e.g: "canteen culture" in the police)3343275104140Communities of PracticeWenger (1998) has built on and elaborated the idea of the community of practice, depicting its elements co-existing rather like yin and yang:He unpicks?the interplay between features of the community, including that between its participative aspect and its structural or "reified" aspect, where the products of interactions and negotiations take a fixed form in documented rules and procedures and products. The reified side of the community dictates how the participation operates; the participative interprets the reified, sometimes in supporting and sometimes subversive ways. This provides an illuminating perspective on the relationship between the institutional setting of learning, including its physical setting through to its curriculum and accreditation, and the practice of teaching and learning within the community. ................
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