EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY communicate an expected result.

Statements work
better than questions.
LESSON 7: BEHAVIORAL VIEWS OF LEARNING • Enactive learning: Learning by doing and
OBJECTIVES:
experiencing the consequences of your actions.
• Extinction: The disappearance of a learned response.
• Define and explain learning from a behavioral perspective, • Functional behavioral assessment (FBA):
including the processes involved in learning through Procedures used to obtain information about
contiguity, classical conditioning, operant, and observational
antecedents, behaviors, and consequences to
learning.
determine the reason or function of the behavior.
• Apply behavioral approaches to modifying behavior in and
out of the classroom using applied behavioral analysis • Good behavior game: Arrangement where a class is
approaches to encourage and discourage behaviors, shaping, divided into teams and each team receives demerit
positive practice, contingency contracts, token points for breaking agreed- upon rules of good
reinforcement, group consequences, and the appropriate use behavior.
of punishment. • Group consequences: Rewards or punishments given
• Apply functional behavioral assessment, positive behavioral to a class as a whole for adhering to or violating rules
supports, and self- management techniques of conduct.
• Interval schedule: Length of time between
reinforcers.
Teachers must learn how to teach ... they need only to be • Learning: Process through which experience causes
taught more effective ways of teaching.” permanent change in knowledge or behavior.
-B. F. Skinner • Negative reinforcement: Strengthening behavior by
removing an aversive stimulus when the behavior
occurs.
• Neutral stimulus: Stimulus not connected to a
Key Terms
response.
• Antecedents: Events that precede an action. • Observational learning: Learning by observation and
• Applied behavior analysis: The application of imitation of others—vicarious learning.
behavioral learning principles to understand and • Operant conditioning: Learning in which voluntary
change behavior. behavior is strengthened or weakened by
• Aversive: Irritating or unpleasant. consequences or antecedents.
• Behavior modification: Systematic application of • Operants: Voluntary (and generally goal-directed)
antecedents and consequences to change behavior. behaviors emitted by a person or an animal.
• Behavioral learning theories: Explanations of • Positive behavior supports (PBS): Interventions
learning that focus on external events as the cause of designed to replace problem behaviors with new
changes in observable behaviors. actions that serve the same purpose for the student
• Classical conditioning: Association of automatic • Positive practice: Practicing correct responses
responses with new stimuli. immediately after errors.
• Conditioned response (CR): Learned response to a • Positive reinforcement: Strengthening behavior by
previously neutral stimulus. presenting a desired stimulus after the behavior.
• Conditioned stimulus (CS): Stimulus that evokes an • Precorrection: A tool for positive behavior support
emotional or physiological response after that involves identifying the context for a student’s
conditioning. misbehavior, clearly specifying the alternative
• Consequences: Events that follow an action. expected behavior, modifying the situation to make the
problem behavior less likely, then rehearsing the
• Contiguity: Association of two events because of
expected positive behaviors in the new context and
repeated pairing.
providing powerful reinforcers.
• Contingency contract: A contract between the
• Premack principle: Principle stating that a more-
teacher and a student specifying what the student must
preferred activity can serve as a reinforcer for a less-
do to earn a particular reward or privilege.
preferred activity.
• Continuous reinforcement schedule: Presenting a
• Presentation punishment: Decreasing the chances
reinforcer after every appropriate response.
that a behavior will occur again by presenting an
• Cueing: Providing a stimulus that “sets up” a desired
aversive stimulus following the behavior; also called
behavior.
Type I punishment.
• Effective instruction delivery (EID): Instructions
• Punishment: Process that weakens or suppresses
that are concise, clear, and specific, and that
behavior.

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 • Ratio schedule: Reinforcement based on the number • They disagreed with Freud's theories on the
of responses between reinforcers. unconscious mind.
• Reinforcement: Use of consequences to strengthen • Only observable behavior had meaning to them.
behavior. • Environmental determinism - theory which states our
• Reinforcer: Any event that follows a behavior and environment shapes every aspect of who we were, who
increases the chances that the behavior will occur we are, and will be.
again.
• Removal punishment: Decreasing the chances that a
behavior will occur again by removing a pleasant Behavioral learning processes:
stimulus following the behavior; also called Type II
punishment. • Contiguity learning
• Reprimands: Criticisms for misbehavior; rebukes. • Classical conditioning
• Respondents: Responses (generally automatic or • Operant conditioning
involuntary) elicited by specific stimuli. • Observational learning
• Response: Observable reaction to a stimulus.
• Self-management: Management of your own
behavior and acceptance of responsibility for your a. Contiguity
own actions. Also, the use of behavioral learning • Association of two events because of repeated pairing
principles to change your own behavior. (learning by association)
• Self-reinforcement: Controlling (selecting and • Stimulus occurs (event that activates behavior)
administering) your own reinforcers. • Response follows (observable reaction to stimulus)
• Shaping: Reinforcing each small step of progress
toward a desired goal or behavior.
• Social isolation: Removal of a disruptive student for 5
b. Classical Conditioning
to 10 minutes.
• Association of automatic responses with new stimuli
• Social learning theory: Theory that emphasizes
(contiguity involved)
learning through observation of others.
• Pair a new stimulus with a response
• Stimulus: Event that activates behavior.
• Stimulus eventually elicits automatic response
• Stimulus control: Capacity for the presence or
absence of antecedents to cause behaviors. Discovered by Pavlov,
• Task analysis: System for breaking down a task
hierarchically into basic skills and subskills. Russian physiologist, 1920's
• Token reinforcement system: System in which • Observations with dogs
tokens earned for academic work and positive
classroom behavior can be exchanged for some
desired reward.
• Unconditioned response (UR): Naturally occurring
emotional or physiological response.
• Unconditioned stimulus (US): Stimulus that
automatically produces an emotional or physiological
response.

Understanding Learning

• Learning
o Process in which experience causes
permanent change in knowledge, behavior, or
• Classical Conditioning in the Classroom
potential for behavior.
o If a student associates negative emotional
o Must be brought about by experience
experiences with school, then this can
obviously have bad results, such as creating a
school phobia.
Behavioral perspective - theorized that thoughts, or cognition
played NO role in behavior.

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 • Guidelines • Negative Reinforcement (Subtraction of Stimulus)
o Strengthen behavior by removing
Applying Classical Conditioning (subtracting) an aversive stimulus after the
• Associate positive, pleasant events with learning tasks behavior occurs
o Make reading pleasant by creating ▪ Aversive: Irritating or unpleasant
comfortable reading corner with pillows, o Example: Child fears giving report, gets sick,
colorful displays of books misses report
▪ Punishment Process that weakens or
• Help students to risk anxiety-producing situations
suppresses behavior
voluntarily and successfully
▪ Behavior Punisher
o Allow student with fear of public speaking to
Weakened/decreased behavior
present to small group first
o Presentation punishment: Decrease
• Help students recognize differences/similarities
behavior by adding an aversive stimulus
among situations so they can generalize.
following the behavior. An example could be
o Must avoid strangers who offer gifts, rides;
the spanking of a child after misbehaving.
may accept favors from adults when parents
are present

c. Operant Conditioning: Trying new Responses

• Operants: Voluntary, generally goal-directed
behaviors emitted by a person or an animal
• Operant conditioning: Strengthen or weaken
voluntary behavior by consequences or antecedents
• Concept developed by B. F. Skinner, 1953
o Based on view that classical conditioning Extinction
accounts for small portion of learned • Disappearance of a learned response (when
behavior reinforcement is removed)
• Occurs in classical conditioning when conditioned
stimulus appears but unconditioned stimulus does not
• Antecedents: Events that precede the behavior follow
• Consequences: Events that follow it • Occurs in operant conditioning if the usual reinforcer
is withheld long enough

Methods for Encouraging Behaviors

• Reinforcing with teacher attention

o Praise good behavior, ignore misbehavior
o Effective praise must be systematic,
believable
• Guidelines for using praise appropriately:
o Clear, systematic; tied directly to appropriate
behavior
o Appreciative, not evaluative; praise action,
not person
• Positive Reinforcement (Addition of Stimulus) o Based on individual abilities and limitations;
o Strengthen behavior by adding desired focused on student’s progress, not
stimulus after the behavior (response) occurs comparison to others
▪ Compliments received when you
wear a new outfit; you likely wear
outfit again Selecting Reinforcers: The Premack Principle

• Principle named for David Premack, 1965

• States that a more-preferred activity can serve as a
reinforcer for a less-preferred activity

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 o Sometimes called Grandma’s rule: First, do
what I want you to do, then do what you want.
• Less-preferred activity must happen first
• Ideas for reinforcers in classroom application of rule
o Time to talk, sit with friend, use computer,
make a video, play games

Challenges to Early Behavioral Approaches

• Albert Bandura challenges behaviorism, develops new

theories
• Social learning theory, Bandura’s early work
• Distinguishes between enactive and observational
learning
o Enactive: Learn by doing, experience
consequences of your actions –
Observational: Learn by observation,
imitation of others
• Distinguishes between knowledge and performance
o One can know and wait for appropriate
situation to perform/demonstrate the learning
• Social cognitive theory, Bandura’s later work

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