Social Learning Theories – Behavioral sciences explore the cognitive processes within organisms and the behavioral interactions between organisms in the natural world. It involves the systematic analysis and investigation of human and animal behavior through the study of the past, controlled and naturalistic observation of the present and disciplined scientific experimentation and modeling.
It attempts to accomplish legitimate, objective conclusions through rigorous formulations and observation. Generally, behavior science deals primarily with human action and often seeks to generalize about human behavior as it relates to society.
Social Learning Theories
Concept About Learning
Learning has been defined as a permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of practice or experience and not due to maturation.
A little girl, being indisposed is taken to a hospital. The nurse prepares the syringe which the little girl looks on with interest. The nurse injects the medicine and the girl feels pain. When the little girl is taken to the nurse next time, she starts screaming when the nurse takes the syringe.
She had learned by experience that injections are painful. Learning caused changes in her behavior. Learning is central to all our behavior as we learn to speak, write, think and perceive. Our attitudes and emotional expressions are also learned behaviors. There are three important factors in the definition of learning:
- Learning brings change in behavior (usually for the better)
- Change takes place through practice or experience and not due to maturation
- The change in behavior should be relatively permanent lasting for years, months or weeks.
Definition of Learning:
According to Robert Gagne
“A change in human disposition or capability that persists over a period of time and is not simply ascribable to processes of growth.”
According to Kingsley HL and Garry R
Learning is the process by which behavior is originated or changes through practice and training.
According to HP Smith
Learning is the acquisition of new behavior or strengthening or weakening of old behavior as the result of experience.
According to ML Bigge
Learning may be considered as change in insights, behavior, perception, motivation or a combination of these.
or
Learning has been defined as permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of practice or experience and not due to maturation.
or
Learning may be defined as a process of apprehension clarification and application of meanings. It is a continuous extension and refinement of meaning.
or
Learning is defined as “any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of practice and experience.
This definition has three important elements:
- Learning is a change in behavior-better or worse.
- It is a change that takes place through practice or experience, but changes due to growth or maturation are not learning.
- This change in behavior must be relatively permanent, and it must last a fairly long time.
Types of Learning /Domains of Learning:
There are three types of learning
1. Cognitive learning (knowledge)
2. Affective learning (attitudes)
3. Psychomotor learning (skills)
Conventionally learning is discussed under three domains-
1. Cognitive domain: It involves-
- Information
- Development of knowledge
- Intellectual skill
2. Affective domain: Based upon behavioral aspects, this beliefs domain incorporates.
- Attitudes
- Emotions
- Enthusiasms
- Feelings
- Values
- Appreciation
- Motivation.
3. Psychomotor domain: This skill based domain includes-
- Muscular skills
- Coordination
- Use of the motor skills areas.
Other Classification:
1. Verbal learning: It helps in speaking language as use of communication ‘devices like words, symbols, figures, sounds and pictures.
2. Motor learning: It includes learning motor skills such as walking dancing, typing, cycling and swimming.
3. Affective learning: It deals with emotional learning such as learning of habits, interests, attitudes, appreciation, etc.
4. Cognitive learning: It includes learning of concepts, ideas and problem solving. The learner acquires knowledge and information through which he forms concepts, sees relationships and arrives at generalization.
5. Serial learning: It is when the learner is presented with types of learning that exhibits some sequential or serial order. For example, children learn to master lists of materials such as alphabet, multiplication table, names of presidents and prime ministers.
6. Skill learning: A skill is a refined pattern of movement or performance based upon demands of the situation. The student nurse can learn by:
- Listening to directions and explanations.
- Reading a description
- Seeing a demonstration
- Paying attention.
The practice depends on attitude and will of the learner and eradication of mistakes.
Factors Influencing/Affecting Learning:
A. Intelligence: Learning depends upon the intelligence or mental faculty of an individual. It involves the activity of sensory adjustment and motor mechanisms of the body. The mental faculty is related to heredity, nutrition and IQ. Children with low IQ are poor learners they may not learn at all.
B. Age: The curve of learning reaches its peak between 22 & 25 years or age. After the age of 30, there is a sharp decline. It has been appropriately said. You cannot teach and old dog a new trick.
C. Learning situation: Physical facilities for learning, biz, institutions, teachers, text book, audio-visual aids promotes learning
D. Motivation: In order to learn effectively, there must be educate motivation. The powerful motives are encouragement. Prize reward and success. Thus stimulate learning
E. Physical health: A physically handicapped person e.g. deaf, dumb, chronically sick cannot learn.
F. Mental health: Worries, anxieties and fears interfere with learning.
Others factors which may affect learning are mentioned below:
1. Maturation: It makes speedy learning possible. The child who is physically and
mentally mature learns a subject at a faster rate.
2. Physical and Mental Development: The child affects learning. The child who is mentally and physically not developed learns at a slower rate.
3. Home Conditions and School Environment affect learning.
4. Academic Ability of the Teacher Affects learning.
5. Meaningfulness of Subject-matter makes learning easier.
6. Teaching Methods
The different level of learning.
Bloom’s original 1956 Taxonomy of Educational Objectives identified the following levels of cognitive learning (arranged from lower-order to higher-order levels of learning):
1. Knowledge – The remembering of previously learned material; this involves the recall of a wide range of material, from specific facts to complete theories.
2. Comprehension – The ability to grasp the meaning of previously-learned material; this may be demonstrated by translating material from one form to another, interpreting material (explaining or summarizing), or by predicting consequences or effects.
3. Application – The ability to use learned material in new and concrete situations; this may include the application of rules, methods, concepts, principles, laws, and theories.
4. Analysis The ability to break down material into its component parts so that its organizational structure may be understood; this may include the identification of the parts, analysis of the relationships between parts, and recognition of the organizational principles involved.
5. Synthesis The ability to put parts together to form a new whole; this may involve the production of a unique communication (thesis or speech), a plan of operations (research proposal), or a set of abstract relations (scheme for classifying information).
6. Evaluation The ability to judge the value of material for a given purpose; The
judgments are to be based on definite internal and/or external criteria
Principle of Learning:
1. Learning is continuous, dynamic and ongoing process and has no required end
2. It is an individual matter, each learner learns his own way.
3. Motivation is the key of learning
4. Relevance of learning experience should be clear to the learner and must be related to his
needs of lining. 5. The learner should be able to communicate back to the teacher what he or she has learned and as such feedback is important
6. In the learning process there should not be any authority-dependency relationship between the teachers and students; it cooperative and collaborative.
Principles of Learning According to Carl. Rogers:
1. Human beings have a natural potentiality for learning.
2. Significant learning takes place when the subject matter is perceived by the student as having relevance for his own purposes.
3. Learning which involves a change in self organization in the perception of oneself is threatening and tends to be resisted.
4. Those learnings which are threatening to the self are more easily perceived and
assimilated when external threats are at a minimum.
5. When treat to the self is low, experience can be perceived in differentiated fashion, and learning can proceed.
6. Much significant learning is acquired by doing.
7. Learning is facilitated when the student participates responsibly in the learning process.
8. Self-initiated learning which involves the whole person of the learner- feelings as well as intellect-is the most lasting and pervasive.
9. Independence, creativity and self-reliance are all facilitated when self criticism and self- evaluation are basic and evaluation by others is of secondary importance.
10. The most socially useful learning in the modern world is the learning of the process of learning, a continuous openness to experience and incorporation into oneself of the process of change.
Characteristics of Learning:
1. Learning is a fundamental process of life.
2. It is a continuous process it effects all modes of behavior.
3. Learning is change in response or behavior, may be favorable or unfavorable
4. It is a process of change not a product in the form of changed behavior.
5. Learning takes place when an organism reacts in a situation.
6. Learning is universal.
7. Learning is total reaction of the individual to the total situation.
8. Learning is transferable.
9. Learning is a process and not a product.
10. The process of learning is determined by conscious as well as unconscious experiences.
Another Answer for EQolganing
Yoakman and Simpson have described the following nine important characteristics of learning.
A. Learning is growth: The individual grows as he lives. This growth implies i both physical as well as mental development of the learner. The individual gains experiences through various activities. These are all sources of learning. The individual grows through living and learning. Thus growth and learning are inter-related and even synonymous.
B. Learning is adjustment: Learning enables the individual to adjust himself properly, with the new situations. The individual faces new problems and new situations throughout his life and learning helps him to solve the problems encountered by him.
C. Learning is purposeful: All kinds of learning is goal-oriented. The individual acts with some purpose.
D. Learning is experience: The individual learns through experiences. Human life is fall of experiences. All these experiences provide new knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes. Learning is not mere acquisition of the knowledge, skills and attitudes. It is also the reorganization of experiences or the synthesis of the old experiences with the new.
E. Learning is intelligent: Mere cramming without proper understanding does not make learning. Thus meaningless efforts do not produce permanent results. Any work done mechanically cannot yield satisfactory learning outcomes. Learning therefore must be intelligent.
F. Learning is active: Learning is given more importance than teaching. It implies self-activity of the learning. Without adequate motivation he cannot work whole-heartedly and motivation is therefore at the root of self-activity.
G. Learning is both individual and social: Although learning is an individual activity, it is social also. Individual mind is consciously or unconsciously affected by the group activities. Individual is influenced by his peers, friends, relatives’ parents and classmates and learns their ideas, feelings and attitudes in some way or others.
H. Learning affects the conduct of the learner: Learning is called the modification of behavior. It affects the learner’s behavior and conduct. Every learning experience brings about changes in the mental structure of the learner. Therefore attempts are made to provide such learning experiences which can mould the desired conduct and habits in the learners.
Steps of Learning Process:
1. Motivation within the learner.
2. Goal or goals become related to the motivation.
3. Barriers of difficulties are perceived and experienced and tension rises. Strong barriers may cause excessive tension which may altogether discourage and confuse the learner.
4. The search for an appropriate solution to the problem or an appropriate line of action to reach his goal.
5. The most appropriate line of action is selected and practiced; inappropriate behaviors dropped.
Components of Learning:
Learning is a wider and perfect sense reflects as knowledge attitudes and skills development. These components of learning indicated by five C, whose meaning is expresses like as-
1. C- Comprehension- with critical understanding.
2. C-Critical -analysis leading to appropriate conclusion (critical judgments)
3. C-Competency-with practical skill development.
4. C-Creativity- Able to create in a better way.
5. C- Confidence- Developed in the learner for application of what is learn in real situation.
Styles/Ways of Learning:
Learning is a complicated concept as everyone is unique in their own way, and learns in their own way as well. That said, it is still very much possible to classify a learning style into one of seven categories. Perhaps you fall into one of the following:
1. Visual: These people prefer to use pictures, images, diagrams, colors, and mind maps.
2. Physical: These are the “learn by doing” people that use their body to assist in their learning. Drawing diagrams, using physical objects, or role playing are all strategies of the Physical learner.
3. Aural: People who prefer using sound (obviously), rhythms, music, recordings, clever rhymes, and so on.
4. Verbal: The verbal learner is someone who prefers using words, both in speech and in writing to assist in their learning. They make the most of word based techniques, scripting, and reading content aloud.
5. Logical: The people who prefer using logic, reasoning, and “systems” to explain or understand concepts. They aim to understand the reasons behind the learning, and have a good ability to understand the bigger picture.
6. Social: These people are the ones who enjoy learning in groups or with other people, and aim to work with others as much as possible.
7. Solitary: The solitary learner prefers to learn alone and through self-study.
Importance/Need of Learning for Nurses:
Modern nursing is a complicated and challenging profession. The student nurse must have clear goal interest to learn. She has to acquire a lot of information from books, lectures and discussions. There are many complicated skills she has to learn with repeated practice.
The following 25 suggestions listed by Crow, Crow and Skinner may be of practical value to the nurse in the development of the habits of effective study:
- Study with a definite purpose in mind.
- Evaluate immediate and remote goals.
- Provide a definite place for study.
- See that physical conditions are conducive to study.
- Plan and follow a definite time schedule.
- Look for the main ideas in the reading material.
- Cultivate the habit of reading rapidly and carefully.
- Outline the study material.
- Make brief, well-organized notes in your own language.
- Evaluate the difficulty of the material.
- While reading, raise significant questions on the material to be learned; then answer them.
- Study with intent to recall.
- Attend carefully to all illustrative materials.
- Complete all study assignments.
- Let active study and rest period be interspersed with each other.
- Try to learn the unit or the lesson as a’whole’when possible.’
- Concentrate on what you are studying at the time.
- Shut out all emotional distractions.
- Overlearn sufficiently so that delayed recall is possible.
- Learn to summarize and review what you have learned or read.
- Be alert to ideas emphasized by the teacher.
- Think over the statements made by the author and try to challenge them.
- Find out what the several authorities say about a topic or an idea.
- Apply subject-matter learned in as many practical situations as possible.
- Make intelligent use of the dictionary.
Theories/Modes of Learning:
1. Learning by conditioned reflex: It is well known that when doxy food, they begin to salivate. This is an inborn reflect. Pavlov, the Russian psychologist discovered that if a bell has run when the dogs were fed, eventually salvation could be induced by the ringing on the bell alone this is called the conditioned reflex.
2. Trial and errors: The lower animals (Apes & cats) learned by trial and error method. We also learn a good deal by this method. A child tries and tries again using a number of approaches until accidently the ideal approach became obvious.
3. Learning observation and imitation: A child copies or imitates gesture, facial expression and movements such as walking. He learns language by observation and imitation. Observation is an important element medical examination.
4. Learning by doing: Here there is coordination of muscular responses with sensory impulses. Nursing skills e.g. (bed making, applying bandaging, giving birth) are leant by doing.
5. Learning by remembering: We also learn by memorizing- remembering dates, events, memorizing a poem, remembering faces etc.
6. Learning by insight: When we are faced with problem, we solve it by insight or mental exploration. When the doctors makes a diagnosis, some amount of insight is involved. It appears that human beings learn by a combination of methods.
7. Demonstration: Here a procedure is carried out step by step, slowly and accurately before and audience, the demonstrator ascertaining that the audience understand how to perform it. The demonstration involves the audience in discussion, when possible.
8. Field experience: It involves a series of activities for diagnosis problem, pianning procedures to solve them and implementing and evaluating thus programs. It provides opportunities to acquire with number of skills.
9. Problem solving.
Trial And Error Method/Theory of Learning Mentioned by Edward Lee Thorndike.
Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1947), the American psychologist, considered as the father of educational psychology conducted a series of experiments (1911) on trial and error method of learning by animals.
Experiment
A hungry rat was set free at the entrance of a wooden maze which contained many pathways from the entrance to the center. But all the ways except one were blocked somewhere in the middle. A piece of bread was placed in the center of the maze. Seeing the bread, the hungry rat rushed to get it. It happened to enter the wrong path which was obstructed in the middle. Consequently it had to return to the entrance but only to try other paths till it reached the bread.
The next day, it made less errors. The experiment continued for several days till the rat was able to identify the right path at the very first glance without trying out other parts. Thorndike conducted similar experiments on a number of animals, e.g. monkeys, dogs, hens and cats. The errors were reduced as the trials were repeated, i.e. SR connections were made. From, the rat’s experiment and several other similar experiments. Thorndike formulated certain laws of learning. According to Thorndike all learning is trial and error.
Laws of Effective Learning:
A. Law of effect: Any response followed by a reward (Food) will be strengthened. Any response which is unsuccessful will be weakened.
B. Law of exercise: The law of exercise states that there is a direct relationship between repetition and the strength of the stimulus-response bond. The law of exercise is based on the law of use and law of disuse.
As per the law of use, any task that is repeated shows a tendency for the strengthening of the bond and as per the law of disuse any task that is not repeated shows a tendency for the weakening of the bond. The learned activity (reading, writing, typing, singing, drawing, dancing, etc.) is learned by constant practice over a long period.
C. Law of readiness: Learning takes place best when a person is ready to learn. If a person is ready to act, acting gives him satisfaction. A person cannot learn if he is not ready to learn. Readiness includes motivation, inclination, attitude or mindset.
Thorndike ignored the role of intelligence and insight learning. Many scientific discoveries have taken place suddenly without any prior trial and error. Quite often individuals learn suddenly by insight rather than by trial and error which is a very time consuming process.
Time When the Trial and Error Theory May Be Used:
The method of trial and error is used when:
1. The learner is completely motivated and sees the goal clearly. The rat tries to enter the maze only because it is hungry and knows that there is food inside the maze.
2. When perception or learned activities alone are not sufficient.
3. When the learner fails to find the solution to the problem through perception, understanding, intelligence and language. Then he proceeds blindly, tries in various directions, commits errors; eliminates them and finally arrives at the correct response.
4. Human beings learn most of the simple motor skills by trial and error.
Effective Learning:
Effective learning may be defined as the “Learning that reflective activity which enables the learner to draw upon previous experience to understand and evaluate the present, so as to shape future action and formulate new knowledge”
or
Learning is: –
- an activity of construction,
- handled with (or in the context of) others,
- driven by learner’s agency.
Effective learning is all of these at their best, Plus the monitoring and review of whether approaches and strategies are proving effective for the particular goals and context.
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