Reflections on Behaviorism learning theory

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Reflections on Behaviorism

“Behaviorism can’t die. It doesn’t matter how matter it refuted and how fully it’s refuted. It comes back right to live, it’s kind of like genetic somehow” Noam Chomsky.

Eight years ago, I was talking to my young sister trying to convince and encourage (Stimulus) her to read while she is on the school bus. She used to stay in the bus for two hours daily, five days a week. At the beginning, she wasn’t so interested, but I promised her with some gifts (Positive reinforcement) if she did so, and I asked her to try it for one week (Shaping). She started reading, and I gave her the freedom (positive reinforcement) to choose some of her books. She read 73 books that year! (response)

Three years later, I tried to convince her to start reading in both English (shaping) and Arabic, as she used to read Arabic books only. It wasn’t easy, but reinforcement worked well. Since that time, she has more than 500 books!

Looking back, I can connect the dots. Seemed I found the right stimulus for her, used shaping, and of course positive reinforcement. Her response was up to the level.

A few months ago, my younger brother sat for the secondary school exam and will start his computer science bachelor after few weeks. In his six months holiday, I started teaching him programming. With my previous successful story, I thought the same model would work with him too. I used both reinforcement (positive and negative) and punishment (negative). We had some successes but not compared to the time and effort I spent. Unfortunately, as soon as I traveled to the US, he stopped! (no intrinsic motivation, but only extrinsic).

Now I can see that I didn’t use the right reinforcement/punishment, and what worked with someone (my sister) may or may not work with someone else (my brother). I can tell that I need to spend more time finding the right stimulus and reinforcement technique.

Reading and understanding instructional theories based on behaviorism is very useful and will help me in current and future activities. I’m currently designing smart phone application. The application targets secondary school students and is following the Sudanese curriculum. Skinner’s technique, Programmed Instruction will be of great value and I will follow it. Instead of linear program, I will be using branching technique (thanks to Crowder and Martin for their work). Following the branching program will be challenging from content preparation point of view, but through successive enhancements and continuous development we can design a great and useful application.

I agree with what Noam said, “Behaviorism can’t die”. I also knew that it doesn’t explain everything, there are some shortages that I hope other theories will cover and explain.