Major Learning Theories: Behaviorism

Behaviorism is based on observable changes in behavior. 

Behaviorism was used as the basis for designing many of the early audio-visual materials and Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike and Skinner played an important role in developing behaviorism. 

Behaviorism focuses on a new behavioral pattern being repeated until it becomes automatic including the use of instructional cues,practice, and reinforcement. 

In learning process, the key elements are the stimulus, the response, and the association between the two. The learner is characterized as being reactive to conditions in the learning environments. 

Behaviorists place great emphasis on environmental conditions. They identify which reinforcers are most effective for learners. Therefore, the most important factor in behaviorism is the arrangement of stimuli and consequences within the environment. Behaviorists do not address memory and transfer is a result of generalization in behavioral learning theories. 

Learning involves :

• discriminations (recalling facts)
• generalizations (defining and illustrating concepts)
• associations (applying explanations)
• chaining (automatically performing a specified procedure)

Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) and mastery learning is recent examples of behaviorism. 

Instructions in behaviorism have some characteristics: an emphasis on producing observable and measurable outcomes in students including behavioral objectives, task analysis, criterion-referenced assessment, pre-assessment of students to determine where instruction should begin, emphasis on mastering early steps before progressing to more complex levels of performance, use of reinforcement to impact performance, use of cues, shaping and practice to ensure a strong stimulus-response association (Ertmer & Newby, 1993). 

The role of teacher is to:
(1) Determine which cues can elicit the desired responses, 
(2) Arrange practice situations in which prompts are paired with the target stimuli that initially have no eliciting power but which will be expected to elicit the responses in the natural setting, and 
(3) Arrange environmental conditions (Gropper, 1987)

- taken from the paper of Eun Ju Jung & Dr. Michael Orey