Approaches to Learning
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• The Behaviourist
Approach
• Sometimes known as the
Transmission model
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Behaviourism
• Behaviourists are interested in studying
behaviour
• They are only interested in what can be
observed
• Behaviourists look for scientific,
demonstrable explanations for simple
behaviours
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Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
• Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who was interested
in the digestive system.
• He carried out experiments on the gastric function of
dogs where he collected and examined saliva.
• During this experiment he noticed that the dogs
salivated before the food reached their mouths;
‘psychic secretion’ he called it.
• He then set out to see if he could pair the response
with something else.
• He began to ring a bell as he brought the dogs food
until eventually the dogs associated the bell with food
and the sound of the bell alone made them salivate.
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Behaviourist approach
• Pavlov and his
experiment on making
dogs salivate to the
sound of a bell
introduced the idea of
‘classical conditioning’
• This means that the
pairing of the bell with
the food conditioned
the response to salivate
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Burrhus F.Skinner (1904 – 1990)
• Skinner, an American psychologist, took
Pavlov’s concept further with the experiments
he did on rats
• He placed the rats in a maze with a number of
levers.
• Some levers when pressed produced food,
others a small electric shock.
• With time and experience the rats returned
to the levers with food and avoided the other
levers.
• Skinner called this shaping of behaviour
‘operant conditioning’
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Operant Conditioning
• Positive Reinforcement – This is when you get
something positive that encourages you to
repeat the behaviour. E.g. the rats returned
to the levers that produced food
• Negative reinforcement – this is an action you
do that helps you to avoid something. Because
you avoid it, you have escaped the situation
and so are more likely to repeat the same
action again. E.g. the rats avoided the levers
with shocks
• Punishment – this is something that stops
behaviour. E.g. the shock
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Behaviourist approach
• Through his
experiments Skinner
found that he could
reinforce the
animals behaviour
known as ‘operant
conditioning’
• ‘Positive
reinforcement’
‘Negative
reinforcement’ and
‘punishment’
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Behaviourist approach
• This approach suggests that learning can occur in the
same way:
• What fears do you have?
• How did you learn these?
• What reinforces them?
• Phobias can develop and be strengthened through
negative reinforcement. E.g. by consistently avoiding
your fear you reinforce that it is fearful and that
your avoidance behaviour is a good escape from it.
• Treatment for phobias is often to counter-condition,
where they are systematically desensitized to the
object of their fear
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Basic principles of Behaviourism
o Repetition is important (e.g. Pavlov had to ring bell with food
more than once to condition dogs response)
o Small, concrete, progressively sequenced tasks
o Positive and negative reinforcement
o Consistency in the use of reinforcers during the teachinglearning process
o Habits and other undesirable responses can be broken by
removing the positive reinforcers connected with them.
o Immediate, consistent, and positive reinforcement increases the
speed of learning.
o Once an item is learned, intermittent reinforcement will
promote retention. (If Pavlov carried on ringing the bell without
food, eventually the dogs would stop salivating)
How are these used in your setting?
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Watson & Rayner (1920)
Fear and conditioning
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In the 1920s, Watson and Rayner taught an infant to fear white rats.
11 month old Albert B. was not previously afraid of the laboratory's
white rats
Watson & Rayner taught him to be terrified of white rats.
They used classical conditioning, pairing a neutral stimulus (the rat)
with a negative effect. Whenever Albert reached for one of the rats,
they created a terrifyingly loud noise right behind him.
Not only did Albert learn very quickly to fear the white rats, crying and
moving away whenever he saw one, but he also started to cry in the
presence of other furry animals and a Santa Claus mask with a white
beard.
Like Little Albert's fear of white rats, a person's fear of dogs is most
likely a conditioned response. Perhaps he was bitten by a dog when he
was three years old. Twenty years later, the person's brain (the
amygdala in particular) still associates the sight of a dog with the pain
of a bite. (Green.C., 2008., Layton.J.2008)
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Activity
Examples of how the behaviourist approach has
influenced learning or behaviour in schools.
Rewards and punishments
Small achievable targets that follow a
sequence and rewards for children’s learning
Repetition of tasks
Use of praise for learning and behaviour
Ignoring unacceptable behaviour - by ignoring
we remove the reward (i.e. attention) and so
the behaviour will stop
Consistent approaches to dealing with
behaviour to reinforce conditioned behaviour
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Operant conditioning Game
Work in pairs and put the following
examples of operant conditioning under
the right headings;
• Positive reinforcement
• Negative reinforcement
• Punishment
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Shooting games where
children get points for
a kill
Arrested for stealing
Completing coursework
so tutor doesn’t nag
Employee incentives/
bonuses
Going to work so you
don’t get sacked
Medals for athletics
Not paying a bill and
being cut off
Flight simulators in
RAF; responding to red
‘danger’ light
EMA
Fire drills
Being grounded by your Running away from a
parents
wasp
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Answers to game
Positive Reinforcement
• Some argue that shooting games condition children to shoot to kill. In
games they get rewards or points
• Employee incentives/bonuses
• Medals for athletics
• EMA
Negative reinforcement –
• Completing coursework so tutor doesn’t nag
• Flight simulators in RAF; responding to red ‘danger’ light
• Fire drills
• Going to work so you don’t get sacked
• Running away from a wasp
Punishment
• Not paying a bill and being cut off
• Arrested for stealing
• Being grounded by your parents
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Unit 7, Task 1
• P1 Describe the ways in which children
learn with reference to the major
learning theories of learning
• M1 with reference to the major
theories of learning, explain how
children learn
• D1 evaluate the major theories of
learning, using examples from work
placement
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Reference list
• Green.C. (date unknown) Classics in the history of psychology,
available at: http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/emotion.htm
accessed 13/2/09
• Layton.J., 2008. How Fear Works available at:
http://health.howstuffworks.com/fear4.htm accessed 13/2/09
• LinguaLinks Library, (1998), Behaviourist theories of learning, SIL
International available at:
http://www.sil.org/lingualinks/Literacy/ImplementALiteracyProgram/B
ehavioristTheoriesOfLearning.htm accessed 18/11/08
• Miell,D., Pheonix,A., Thomas.K., (2002) Mapping Psychology 1,
Milton Keynes: The Open University
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