Application of Behaviourist Theory in the Classroom
Behaviourism also known as the Learning Perspective is a school of thought established by an American Psychologist called John. B. Watson, in 1913. This theory is deeply rooted in psychology and its cardinal belief is that, people’s behaviour can be measured, changed and trained. They believed that behaviour can be conditioned by series of processes known as “operant conditioning”,
hence any behaviour can be learned and unlearned, this believe has a very significant implication on education during the early days of the behaviourist movement. To this school of thought, learning is observable, measurable and it leads to change of behaviour. Other early Psychologists that promoted this idea were B. F. Skinner, Ivan Pavlov and Edward Thorndike. Their work on learning led to many revolutionary changes to education during the glorious period of Behaviourism. A new school of Behaviourism in the 21st century is springing up with particular interest in the areas of behaviour analysis through research and education.” Behaviourism”
is not dead as some people want to believe, and its contribution to education cannot be denied.
Reinforcing Effort
It is very important to reinforce students’ effort by allowing students to enjoy a measure of success in their school work, especially when the piece of work represents the student’s best effort. Pitler,[et al.]. (2007), encouraged teachers to explicitly teach students that, putting in one’s effort leads to success rather than attributing success to good luck or other extraneous factors. One of the best ways to do this is the appropriate use of reinforcement. This was demonstrated by Pavlov in rewarding his dog whenever an “appropriate selection” was made. This approach clearly supports the belief of the early behaviourists about the use of positive reinforcement to encourage frequency of desirable behavour, and negative reinforcement to discourage undesirable behaviour, however, caution is the key word when using negative reinforcement, this method are still being used by educators today, and it helps in modifying students’ behavior. This approach could easily be used with integration of technology.
Behaviourism also known as the Learning Perspective is a school of thought established by an American Psychologist called John. B. Watson, in 1913. This theory is deeply rooted in psychology and its cardinal belief is that, people’s behaviour can be measured, changed and trained. They believed that behaviour can be conditioned by series of processes known as “operant conditioning”,
hence any behaviour can be learned and unlearned, this believe has a very significant implication on education during the early days of the behaviourist movement. To this school of thought, learning is observable, measurable and it leads to change of behaviour. Other early Psychologists that promoted this idea were B. F. Skinner, Ivan Pavlov and Edward Thorndike. Their work on learning led to many revolutionary changes to education during the glorious period of Behaviourism. A new school of Behaviourism in the 21st century is springing up with particular interest in the areas of behaviour analysis through research and education.” Behaviourism”
is not dead as some people want to believe, and its contribution to education cannot be denied.
Reinforcing Effort
It is very important to reinforce students’ effort by allowing students to enjoy a measure of success in their school work, especially when the piece of work represents the student’s best effort. Pitler,[et al.]. (2007), encouraged teachers to explicitly teach students that, putting in one’s effort leads to success rather than attributing success to good luck or other extraneous factors. One of the best ways to do this is the appropriate use of reinforcement. This was demonstrated by Pavlov in rewarding his dog whenever an “appropriate selection” was made. This approach clearly supports the belief of the early behaviourists about the use of positive reinforcement to encourage frequency of desirable behavour, and negative reinforcement to discourage undesirable behaviour, however, caution is the key word when using negative reinforcement, this method are still being used by educators today, and it helps in modifying students’ behavior. This approach could easily be used with integration of technology.
