Behaviorism
Behaviorism originates from the findings of psychology and at the beginning of the 20th century represents a critical position on the form of introspective functional psychology represented at the end of the 19th century. The main motivation for its emergence was the desire to function as a branch of scientific research, i.e. to find measurable variables for a correct scientific approach to the observation of human behavior and thus to avoid the means of introspection as speculation about the processes taking place inside the human being.
Decisive persons of behaviorism
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849 to 1936)
In 1897 Ivan Petrovich Pavlov discovered that in experiments dogs reacted to the natural stimulus of food with salivation. He called the natural stimulus provided by food an unconditioned stimulus and the salivary flow of dogs an unconditioned response. Both stimulus and response were given by nature, innate and unconditional. Pavlov added another neutral stimulus in the form of a bell tone. No response to the bell tone alone was in the form of salivation of the dogs. Pavlov combined the bell tone with the unconditional stimulus of the food and exposed the dog to this combination several times. As a result, the dogs also responded to the previously neutral stimulus of the bell tone with salivation, even if it was presented without food stimulus. Thus, an unconditional stimulus, the food and an unconditional response, the salivary flow, became a conditional stimulus and a conditional response using an additional neutral stimulus. This knowledge about the stimulus response of animals and the ability to initiate a learning process was known as classical conditioning.
John B. Watson (1878 to 1958)
A summary of some statements from an article by Watson himself from 1913 (Watson, J.B., 2013)
Watson takes up Pavlov's findings and processes them for a new approach to psychology. He wished and dedicated his scientific life to the ideal of a purely scientific psychology with full scientific recognition. To this end, he wanted to use only measurable behavioral observations. According to Watson, the path of functional psychology and introspection, the explanation of inner processes on a speculative basis, led to interdependent, circular thought processes that, in the course of their development, were far removed from real human needs. He describes the difference in dealing with research and reflection between introspection and natural science in dealing with experiments. If an experiment does not work, if an explanation for human behavior does not work, the functional psychologist considers introspection to be faulty, he calls his own thinking and interpretation faulty. If, on the other hand, an experiment in the natural sciences does not work, the experiment itself is checked for its errors. For Watson, the introspection and evaluation of observed things by the functional psychologist from his own life experience are not measurable due to the ambiguity of terms, of language, and therefore not usable for a clean scientific comparison. Watson is aware that a differentiated view of human behavior in its strictly scientific sense would claim several human lifetimes. To observe and describe every behavior in a stimulus-response procedure and then to find out the connections between different behaviors by just such experiments is time consuming and difficult. However, Watson is optimistic that this method of experimental research should be recognized and carried out. He suggests terms such as observation of habit formation or habit integration. In short, the stimulus and the response should be measurable and describable by objective values without having to use language and its interpretation possibilities.
Internal processes such as creativity, analysis and so on are not considered scientifically verifiable and comprehensible. Therefore they should be ignored, they are in the black box, the part of the behavior that takes place between stimulus and response and was not observable and therefore not objectively explainable, so that it is speculation.
Edward Lee Thorndike (1874 to 1949)
Thorndike, inspired by the experiments of Pavlov, conducted experiments with cats. While Pavlov necessarily observed associative reactions to stimuli, Thorndike was concerned with the extent to which animals can learn from the experience of their actions. Thus he applied Pavlov's findings directly to the learning process and discovered that every action that has a positive effect is repeated and learned, actions that have negative consequences are increasingly avoided. He called this observation "The Law of Effect". With this, he created the basis for further scientific research on learning as a consequence of our behavior and was there with the pioneer and provider of ideas for Skinner's idea of behaviorism (Mcleod, p. 2018).
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Skinner did not rule out the presence of a mind and consciousness, but he did not want to take them into account in psychological experiments, just as Watson did, because he too wanted to study observable behavior exclusively.
According to Saul Mcleod's 2018 summary of operant conditioning, Skinner's description of operant conditioning according to Pavlov was not sufficient to be used adapted to complex human behavior. He took up Thorndike's "law of effect", examined the behavioral changes of animals and evaluated the experiences with their learning behavior. Hereby he developed the model of "operant conditioning". Following Thorndike, he began experiments in which he divided the effects of actions into three groups.
Neutral reactions from the environment, which neither reinforce nor reduce the previous behavior of the animal, reinforcing reactions from the environment, which led to the repetition of the previous action, and punishing reactions from the environment, which led to the reduction of the previous action.
Behavioristic Learning Scenario
Learning terms from biology
Plant identification, morphology, physiology, and system contain many new concepts and word endings that must be learned at the beginning of a biology course. My suggestion is a digital memory game to memorize the terms.
Cards are covered in a fixed order. The cards are each labeled with one part of a pair of words. Term-meaning or ending - meaning = 1:1.
You turn card by card, look at what's on it, and turn it around again. So all seen cards are always covered again. As soon as you recognize the matching counterpart from a card you have already seen and clicked on both cards, both cards disappear and you gain points.
The game is played until there are no more items on the table. In the end, the terms you didn't know for sure are left. By looking at them again and again while trying them out until you’re done with the game, you’re getting more and more familiar with them.
The faster you finish the game, the more points you gain because of a speed-multiplication-factor to gained points. There are trophies that are acquired with increasing speed and safety, so that after the first round of the game the motivation to practice and repeat is given.
Thus, lessons that brought a reward or only positive reactions for the animal's actions were described as positive reinforcement. A negative reinforcement ensured that a negative influence on the animal was eliminated when the animal acted. Punishment is a reaction that adds something negative to the animal because of the actions before.
Skinner further studied the learning effect of positive reinforcement by varying the frequency and regularity of reward delivery and defining the intensity and duration of the learning effect as the response rate and extincion rate.
If the reinforcement occurred at variable intervals, the behavior was rapidly and intensely reinforced, and was the slowest to forget or extinguish.
If the reward or positive reinforcement was not given until after an unpredictable period of time after the correct behavior, this had an equally positive effect on learning.
Regular and predictable reinforcement measures led to less intense reaction and faster erasure of the learned.
Skinner's idea was to influence people's behavior through reward and punishment, even in complex contexts.
Learning from the reactions of the environment is the driving force in the learning and behavior of both humans and animals. There are no major differences between humans and animals in the way they are viewed.
He founded radical behaviorism, a form of behavioral observation and experimental behavioral analysis, which did not deny the field of mind, consciousness, the mental, but excluded it from the investigations.
Neo-behaviorism and today's technical possibilities of neurology and neuro-psychology
The transition to cognitivism by the neo-behaviorist Edward Chase Toleman (1886-1959), who described himself as a behaviorist, changed the approach in favor of a simpler handling of behaviorism by grouping individual reactions into reaction forms, thus enabling him to study complex human reactions. However, he became a member of the Behaviorists because he always wanted to observe human behavior objectively and operationally.
In neuropsychology today, reactions to stimuli can be measured that were not yet accessible to Skinner due to a lack of technical possibilities. Thus, the idea of a scientific approach to psychology can be continued by a further development of technology.
Thus, Watsons process of scientifically recording the human inner life, which could take several human ages, can perhaps be shortened by new methods and techniques.
Dealing with favoritism or criticism
.. as in an article by Marisa Keramida (2015).
Behavioristic learning theory is considered obsolete because it does not describe and include the development of higher-level skills such as problem solving, decision making, and information analysis. Cognitivism and constructivism are preferred today. However, if we take a closer look at the means of instruction and pedagogical feedback in teaching, it is noticeable that simple instructional principles such as feedback, testing, and evaluation use at least the percentage of positive reinforcement of operant conditioning by default (Keramida, M. 2015).
Behaviorism is also well applicable in learning situations where there is one answer to each question. Here, the simple principle of right wrong results in a clear observability and objectivity of the assessment of learning success. Thus, for example, behavioristic principles are well usable for processes that are easier to learn, in which a chain of action steps must be practiced and for all learning scenarios in which question and answer can be one to one, such as learning vocabulary, categories, systematics, among other things, also well applicable in games.
Accordingly, the most sensible way to deal with behaviorism as well as with other learning theories is to use them in a way that is tailored to the learning objective required by the topic. Thus, it makes sense to consider and develop e-learning environments or e-learning courses taking into account the full potential of all learning theories in terms of their didactic possibilities for the desired learning goals.
References:
Keramida, M. (2015, Mai 28). Behaviorism in instructional design for eLearning: When and how to use it. elearning industry. 2020, October 15 retrieved from https://elearningindustry.com/behaviorism-in-instructional-design-for-elearning-when-and-how-to-use
Mcleod, S. (2018, Oktober 8). Pavlov’s Dogs. SimplyPsychologie. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html. 2020, October 12
Mcleod, S. (2018a). Edward Thorndike - Law of Effect | Simply Psychology. SimplyPsychology. Retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/edward-thorndike.html. 2020, October 12
Mcleod, S. (2018, Januar 28). Skinner - Operant Conditioning. SimplyPsychologie.retrieved from https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html. 2020, October 12
Watson, J. B. (1913). Psychology as the Behaviorist Views it. Psychological Review Company.20, 158-177
There are also rankings of the participating players. The teacher can keep an eye on the success of the learners because he can observe who plays a lot and successfully and who does not, and he can react accordingly. The desired goal is to securely imprint terminology in learners memory.
Stimulus: The task of finishing the game, getting faster and better, stimulating playful ambition with a ranking.
Response: The player’s effort to find all term pairs, increase speed and safety by repeating
Positive reinforcement: finish the game, score, increase points, rankings.
Negative reinforcement: with the effort of the player, it is prevented that the game has to be cancelled.
Pro for this game: Pure learning of terminology, which many students find strenuous, is much more fun as a game and takes the seriousness of the situation. So it facilitates learning. Frequent repetition becomes a pleasant experience through external incentives. Game is best imagined as a supplement in learning environments which also make the meaning of plant systematics, processes of physiology and the exact morphological description of plant parts available, offered in form of other learning theories.
