Presented by FARIDATUL-AKMAR BT AHMAD NASIRUDDIN M20082000024 VIJAYAL A/P JAGANATHAN M20082000376

INTRODUCTION Behaviourism is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behaviour can be researched scientifically without recourse to inner mental states.

One of the assumptions of behaviourist thought is that free will is illusory,and that all behaviour is determined by the environment either through association or reinforcement.

The behaviourist school of thought ran concurrent with the psycoanalysis movement in psychology in the 20th century. Its main influences were: Ivan Pavlov John B. Watson B.F. Skinner

Pavlov investigated classical conditioning John B Watson rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental laboratory methods B.F. Skinner sought to give ethical grounding to behaviourism, relating it to pragmatism

Issues in behaviourism
Some behaviourist argue that the observation of behaviour is the best or most convenient way of investigating psychological and mental process. Others believe that it is in fact the only way of investigating such process

Still others argue that behaviour itself is the only appropriate subject of psychology and that physcological terms have no referent and only refer to behaviour Those taking this point of view refer to their field of study as behaviour analysis or behavioural science rather than psychology

REFLEX OR CLASSICAL CONDITIONING PAVLOVS EXPERIMENT

The best known experiments, however, were conducted by Ivan Pavlov for which he received the 1904 Nobel prize. Pavlov studied digestive process in dogs. Pavlov noticed that after several time the experimental animal began salivating before seeing or smelling the meat. The sound of the laboratory assistants footstep triggered the salivation reaction

The research was important for two reasons:1. It demonstrated that the salivation response is a reflex, that is, it is a spontaneous reaction that occurs automatically at the sight or smell of food. 2. The research demonstrated the potential of laboratory studies to discover new knowledge.

The process by which new events or stimuli acquire the power to trigger responses became known as reflex or classical conditioning

JOHN WATSONS BEHAVIOURISM Watson organized the findings of current research into a new perspective and persuaded other psychologist of the importance of his view. Behaviourism, as Watson viewed it, should apply the techniques of animal research (i.e conditioning) to the study of human being

EDWARD THORNDIKES CONNECTIONISM

Thorndikes research also required a behavioural reaction from the subjects in the experiments. However, a major difference is that the bahaviour researched by Thorndike was not that of reflex but it was voluntary bahaviour.

Thorndike referred to his experiments as instrumental conditioning to reflect this difference. The theory is also known as connectionism because connections were established between particular stimuli and voluntary behaviours. The research was designed to determine whether animals solveda problem through reasoning or by a more basic process.

B.F. SKINNER
B. F. Skinners entire system is based on operant conditioning. The organism is in the process of operating on the environment, which in ordinary terms means it is bouncing around its world, doing what it does. During this operating, the organism encounters a special kind of stimulus, called a reinforcing stimulus, or simply a reinforcer. This special stimulus has the effect of increasing the operant -- that is, the behavior occurring just before the reinforcer. This is operant conditioning: the behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organisms tendency to repeat the behavior in the future.

SKINNERS RESEARCH
Imagine a rat in a cage. This is a special cage (called, in fact, a Skinner box) that has a bar or pedal on one wall that, when pressed, causes a little mechanism to release a food pellet into the cage. The rat is bouncing around the cage, doing whatever it is rats do, when he accidentally presses the bar and -- hey, presto! -- a food pellet falls into the cage! The operant is the behavior just prior to the reinforcer, which is the food pellet, of course. In no time at all, the rat is furiously peddling away at the bar, hoarding his pile of pellets in the corner of the cage. A behavior followed by a reinforcing stimulus results in an increased probability of that behavior occurring in the future.

Difference between Classical and Operant Conditioning

THE NATURE OF A BEHAVIOURAL SCIENCE According to Skinner(1953), the goal of any science is to discover the lawful relationships among natural events in the environments. The science behaviour must discover the lawful or functional relationships among physical changes in independent variables ( conditions or events) lead to changes in the dependent variables, behaviour.

LEARNING IN THE CLASSROOMN SETTING The specific characteristic of the educational setting differ from those of the laboratory. In the laboratory, internal states such as hunger were redefined as observable conditions or events. In the classroom, the state referred to as readiness and is defined as the set of skills already in the studentss bahavioural repertoire.

THE PEDAGOGICAL IMPACT AND APPLICATION TO CLASSROOM PRACTICE

The impact of early behaviourist theories of learning in teaching and learning

Researchers like Pavlov and Thorndike (early 1900s), Watson(1930) and Guthrie(1935) found that animals learn through repetition and rewards. This simple form of stimulus-response was called classical conditioning. Eg: When a bell rang, Pavlovs dog salivated, anticipating food.

Thorndike (1905:202)
Emphasizes on formation of connections or bonds between stimuli and responses. When strong connections were built, a learner would automatically produce a desired response as soon as the appropriate stimulus was presented.

Skinner
Pleasant experiences (such as rewards or praises) are positive reinforcement. They cause learners to make desired connections between stimuli and responses. Unpleasent experiences (such as punnishments) are negative reinforcers. They cause learners to avoid undesirable responses to stimuli.

Skinner( continue.)
Continues reinforcement increases the rate of learning. Intermittent reinforcement contributes to longer retention of what is learned. Both positive and negative reinforcement can shape behaviour. A lack of any reinforcement can also shape behaviour. If people receive no acknowledgement of teir behaviour, they will likely change that behaviour until they receive some kind of reinforcement.

Skinner says that there are five main obstacles to learning

1.People have a fear of failure. 2.The task is not broken down into small enough steps. 3.There is a lack of directions. 4.There is also a lack of clarity in the directions. 5.Positive reinforcement is lacking.

Skinner suggests that any ageappropriate skill can be taught using five principles to remedy the above problems: Give the learner immediate feedback. Break down the task into small steps. Repeat the directions as many times as possible. Work from the most simple to the most complex tasks. Give positive reinforcement.

Principles of behaviourist theory which can help in teachiong and learning

Repetition Small, concrete, progressively sequenced task Positive and negative reinforcement Consistency in the use of reinforcement during the teaching and learning process.

Continue.
Habits and other undesirable responses can be broken by removing the positive reinforcement connected to them Immediate, consistent and positive reinforcement increases the speed of learning. Once an item is learned, intermittent reinforcement will promote retention.

USES OF PUNISHMENT
An important role for punishment in altering behaviour is identified by Guthrie (1952). Punishment, if delivered appropriately is the presence of a stimulus that elicits inappropriate behaviour and can cause the subject to do something different.

 You will often find stimulus response techniques used in computer courses

 For many years, these concepts from behavioural theory formed the basis of most of the learning theory applied in the child rearing and in classrooms.  Parents and teachers still find that individuals do learn when provided with the appropriate blend of stimuli, rewards, negative reinforcement and punishments.  More effective in small children and simpler tasks.

HOWEVER ;..
Educators began to feel that although stimulus-responses does explain many human behaviours and has a legitimate place in instruction, behaviourism alone was not sufficient to explain all the phenomena observed in learning situations. The cognitive approach began to gain attention, while the behaviourist theory went on to explore the possibilities of programmed learning for the computer age. Today, all computer- assisted instruction is solidly planted on the foundation laid by behaviourist researchers.

Critique
The structuralist account of language learning has been seriously attacked by Chomsky, who put forward the innateness and mental grammar. Chomsky argued that behaviourist account of language learning ignored the nature of language itself. A human language enables to say and understand sentences one has never heard before. The ability to create and understand novel sentences cannot be acquired by any form of Stimulus-Response learning. Chomsky states that understanding the knowledge of language is more important compared to the description of behaviour in linguistic

 . J. E. R. Staddon (The New Behaviorism, 2001) has argued the compatibilist position, that Skinner's determinism is not in any way contradictory to traditional notions of reward and punishment, as he believed

 Chomsky's criticisms were that Skinner's laboratory work could not be extended to humans, that when it was extended to humans it represented 'scientistic' behavior attempting to emulate science but which was not scientific, that Skinner was not a scientist because he rejected the hypothetico-deductive model of theory testing, that Skinner had no science of behavior, and that Skinner's works were highly conducive to justifying or advancing totalitarianism

REFERENCES
E.G. Margaret.1997 Learning and Instruction. Theory into practice.University of South Carolina.Third Edition.Prentice hall.

Mills, John A., Control: A History of Behavioral Psychology, Paperback Edition, New York University Press
Good, T. L., Brophy, J. E. (1990). Educational psychology: A realistic approach. (4th ed.).White Plains, NY: Longman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism
http://www.sil.org/lingualink/literacy/ImplimentALiteracyP rogram/Behaviourist TheoriesOfLearning.htm