Educational psychology

After completing this module you will be able to:

Identify the four different domains of learning

Identify two main learning theories

Distinguish between 'curriculum learning' and 'incidental learning' in the classroom

Choose an everyday example of 'educational readiness' from a list of examples

Define 'usefulness' or 'transfer' in relation to learning

The Learning Process

Learning is generally defined as relatively permanent changes in behaviour, skills, knowledge or

attitudes resulting from identifiable psychological or social experiences.

A key feature is permanence: changes do not count as learning if they are temporary. You do not learn a
phone number if you forget it the minute after you dial the number; you do not learn to like vegetables
if you only eat them when forced. The change has to last.

Learning can be physical, social, emotional or cognitive.

You do not learn to sneeze by catching a cold, but you do have to learn many skills and behaviours that
are physically based, such as riding a bicycle or throwing a ball.

You can also learn to like (or dislike) a person, even though this change may not happen deliberately.

Learning is not the same as teaching. The distinction between learning and teaching is especially
important for teachers to remember.

Teachers must be careful not to confuse their efforts (i.e. teaching) with what students get from their
efforts (i.e. learning).
The circumstances of teaching, e.g. the number of students in the classroom, can influence teachers’
perceptions of learning, and therefore also influence how they teach.

There are several major theories of learning. The two main theories that are explained in this course are
behaviourism and constructivism.

Behaviourism: This theory emphasises the links that can often be observed among overt behaviours and
the circumstances of the behaviours.

A variety of behaviourism called operant conditioning has been used by a number of educators to
explain and organise management strategies for certain students, especially those with behavioural
problems.

Constructivism: This theory emphasises the inner thoughts of learners.

There are many varieties of constructivism but the two main varieties are psychological constructivism
and social constructivism.

Psychological constructivism emphasises the independence of learners’ thinking and social

constructivism emphasises learners’ need for social connections while learning.

Teachers’ Perspective on Learning

For teachers, learning usually refers to things that happen in schools or classrooms, even though every
teacher can of course describe examples of learning that happen outside of these places.

Teachers’ perspectives on learning often emphasize the following three ideas:

1. Curriculum content and academic achievement

2. Sequencing and readiness

3. The importance of transferring learning to new or future situations

Sometimes teachers tend to emphasise whatever is taught in schools deliberately, including both the
official curriculum and the various behaviours and routines that make classrooms run smoothly.

In practice, defining learning in this way often means that teachers equate learning with the major forms
of academic achievement - especially language and mathematics - and to a lesser extent musical skill,
physical co-ordination or social sensitivity (Gardner, 1999, 2006).

In the classroom, there is a lot of learning that takes place alongside the explicit learning of the
curriculum. This is called incidental learning and it occurs without the teacher or learner deliberately
trying to make it happen.

Teachers often see this incidental learning and welcome it in their classroom. But their responsibility for
curriculum goals more often focuses their efforts on what students can learn through conscious,
deliberate effort.

The distinction between teaching and learning creates a secondary issue for teachers: educational
readiness. This concept traditionally referred to how well students were prepared to cope with or profit
from the activities and expectations of school.

At older ages, e.g. university level, the term readiness is often replaced by a more specific term:
prerequisites.

Example:

A young child is ‘ready’ to start school if he or she:

- Is in good health

- Shows moderately good social skills

- Can use a pencil to make simple drawings

- Can take care of personal physical needs

It must be noted that this traditional meaning of readiness as preparedness focuses attention on
students’ adjustment to school and away from the reverse. Schools and teachers also have a
responsibility for adjusting to students.

Example:

If a 5-year-old child normally needs to play a lot and keep active, then a teacher needs to be ‘ready’ for
this behaviour by planning an educational program that allows a lot of play and physical activity.

Another result of focusing the concept of learning on classrooms is that it raises issues of usefulness or
transfer.

This is the ability to use knowledge or skill in situations beyond the ones in which they are acquired.
Learning to read and learning to solve arithmetic problems are major goals of the initial school
curriculum because these skills are meant to be used not only inside the classroom, but outside as well.

The main points from this module are as follows:

Learning is generally defined as relatively permanent changes in behaviour, skills, knowledge or

attitudes resulting from identifiable psychological or social experiences.

Learning can be physical, social, emotional or cognitive.

Learning is not the same as teaching.

Two of the main learning theories are behaviourism and constructivism.

Behaviourism emphasises the links that can often be observed among overt behaviours and the
circumstances of the behaviours.

Constructivism emphasises the inner thoughts of learners.

Behaviorism

After completing this module you will be able to:

Identify the correct definition for 'behaviourism'

Identify the correct definition for 'operant conditioning'

Name the professor responsible for researching operant conditioning in laboratory rats

Recognise the various features of the image entitled 'Skinner Box'

Identify the 'reinforcement' in Skinner's experiment with laboratory rats

Distinguish between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

Identify the correct definition for 'extinction' in relation to operant conditioning

Identify the correct definition for 'generalisation' in relation to operant conditioning

Introduction to Behaviourism

Behaviourism is a perspective on learning that focuses on changes in individuals’ observable behaviours:

changes in what people say or do.

At some point we all use this perspective, whether we call it ‘behaviourism’ or something else.

Example:

When a person learns how to drive a car, he or she may be concerned primarily with whether he or she
can actually do the driving, not with whether he or she can describe or explain how to drive.

In the previous example about learning to drive, focusing attention on behaviour instead of on ‘thought’
may have been desirable at that moment, but not necessarily desirable indefinitely or all of the time.

Even as a beginner, there are times when it is more important to be able to describe how to do an
activity rather than actually be able to do it.

Focusing on behaviour is not necessarily less desirable than focusing on students’ inner changes such as
gains in their knowledge or their personal attitudes.

Focusing on behaviour is merely looking at one form of learning: outward learning.

If you are teaching, you will need to attend to all forms of learning in students, whether inward or
outward.

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning is one of many behaviourist perspectives. It focuses on how the consequences of
behaviour affect the behaviour over time. It begins with the idea that certain consequences tend to
make certain behaviours happen more frequently.

Example:

If a teacher compliments a student for a good comment made during a discussion, there is more of a
chance that the teacher will hear further comments from the student in the future.

The original research about this model of learning was not done with people, but with animals.

One of the pioneers in the field was a Harvard professor named B.F. Skinner, who published numerous
books and articles about the details of the process.

J.F. Skinner

He also pointed out many parallels between operant conditioning in animals and operant conditioning in
humans (Skinner, 1938, 1948, 1988).

Skinner observed the behaviour of some tame laboratory rats. He and his assistants put them in a cage
that only contained a lever and a tray just big enough to hold a small amount of food. The image shows
the basic set-up, which is sometimes nicknamed a ‘Skinner Box’.
At first the rat would sniff and ‘putter around’ the cage at random, but sooner or later it would find the
lever and eventually happen to press it. The lever released a small pellet of food, which the rat would
promptly eat.

Gradually the rat would spend more time near the lever and press the lever more frequently, getting
food more frequently. Eventually the rat would spend most of its time at the lever and eating its fill of
food. The rat had ‘discovered’ that the consequence of pressing the lever was to receive food.

Skinner called the changes in the rat’s behaviour an example of operant conditioning, and gave special
names to the different parts of the process. He called the pellets the reinforcement and the lever-
pressing the operant (because it operated on the rat’s environment).

Skinner and other behavioural psychologists experimented with using various reinforcers and operants.

They also experimented with various patterns of reinforcement (or schedules of reinforcement) as well
as with various cues or signals to the animal about when reinforcement was available.

It turned out that all of these factors - the operant, the reinforcement, the schedule and the cues -
affected how easily and thoroughly operant conditioning occurred.

Examples:

Reinforcement was more effective if it came immediately after the crucial operant behaviour, rather
than being delayed.

Reinforcements that happened intermittently (only some of the time) caused learning to take longer,
but also caused it to last longer.

Operant Conditioning and Students’ Learning

Since the original research about operant conditioning used animals, it is important to ask whether
operant conditioning also describes learning in human beings.
There are countless classroom examples of consequences affecting students’ behaviour in ways that
resemble operant conditioning. However, the process certainly does not account for all forms of student
learning (Alberto and Troutman, 2005).

Consider the following examples showing operant conditioning in action. In the examples, the operant
behaviour tends to become more frequent on repeated occasions.

Examples:

A young boy makes a silly face (the operant) at another child sitting next to him. Classmates sitting
around them giggle in response (the reinforcement).

A child who is usually very restless sits for five minutes doing an assignment (the operant). The teacher
compliments him for working hard (the reinforcement).

The process of operant conditioning is widespread in classrooms - probably more widespread than
teachers realise. This fact makes sense, given the nature of public education.

To a large extent, teaching is about making certain consequences (like praise or marks) depend on
students’ engaging in certain activities (like reading material or doing assignments).

Learning by operant conditioning is not confined to any particular grade, subject area or style of
teaching. By nature it happens in every imaginable classroom.

Teachers are not the only persons controlling the reinforcements. Sometimes they are controlled by the
activity itself or by classmates.

Finally, it must be noted that multiple examples of operant conditioning often happen at the same time.

As operant conditioning happens so widely, its effects on motivation are quite complex.

Operant conditioning can encourage intrinsic (internal) motivation, to the extent that the reinforcement
for an activity is the activity itself.
Example:

When a student reads a book for the sheer enjoyment of reading, he is reinforced by the reading itself,
and we can say that his reading is ‘intrinsically motivated’.

Operant conditioning can also encourage extrinsic (external) motivation. This is when another part of
the reinforcement comes from consequences or experiences not inherently part of the activity or
behaviour itself.

In the example about the boy who made a face at another classmate, the boy was reinforced not only by
the pleasure of making a face but also by the giggles of his classmates.

There is sometimes an impression of operant conditioning as ‘bribery in disguise’ and that only the
extrinsic reinforcements operate on students’ behaviour.

It is true that extrinsic reinforcement may sometimes alter the nature or strength of intrinsic
reinforcement, but this does not necessarily mean that it destroys or replaces intrinsic reinforcement.

Further Key Concepts about Operant Conditioning

There are further key concepts associated with operant conditioning.

These can be confusing because the ideas have names that sound rather ordinary, but have special
meanings within the framework of operant conditioning.

Extinction

Generalisation

Discrimination

Schedule of reinforcement

Cues

Extinction
Extinction refers to the disappearance of an operant behaviour because of lack of reinforcement.

Examples:

A student who stops receiving gold stars or compliments for prolific reading of library books may
extinguish (i.e. decrease or stop) book-reading behaviour altogether.

A student who used to be reinforced for acting like a clown in class may stop clowning around once
classmates stop paying attention to the antics.

Generalisation

Generalisation refers to the incidental conditioning of behaviours similar to an original operant.

Example

If a student gets gold stars for reading library books, then she may read more of other material as well,
e.g. newspapers, comics, even if the activity is not reinforced directly.