Development and Learning Perspectives

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Development and learning perspectives
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The City and State where it is located
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Development and learning perspectives
Learning and development involve behaviourism and the social constructivism.
Behaviourism has several approaches to learning, which are classified into different types that
include social learning theory, classical conditioning, and operant conditioning theories. These
theories play their own roles in the understanding the learning development and give a major
influence on the school. The classical conditioning is a reflective learning mechanism in which
the stimulus acquires the ability to suggest a response that had been initially suggested by
another stimulus according to (Goubert et al, 2011, pp.167-174). The classical conditioning is
not a voluntary behaviour rather it is based on an automatic or reflective response. For instance,
the subject, which can be the human beings or animals, can acquire the behaviour that they did
not want to exhibit through a training or through a temporary motivation that leads into a
temporary response.
Concisely, another behaviourism learning is the operant conditioning invented by B.F
Skinner, who attained that one, should focus on the observable or external causes of a behaviour
who was supported by Walker (2017). The operant conditioning process attempts to modify the
behaviour by invoking a negative or positive support to the participant. In this process, a link is
established between the particular behaviour and the anticipated consequence through operant
conditioning. Contrary to the classical conditioning, the operant conditioning is a voluntary
process where the participants get to understand the consequences of observing a particular
behaviour or the consequences of foregoing the expected behaviour (Blackman, 2017). For
instance, this can be observed in a school set up where the students are awarded points for
behaving well in class as a form of a positive support that will influence others to change their
behaviour. Another example is a restraining order for leaving the class during the break for

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students misbehaving in class as a form of a negative punishment that would help to maintain
order in class.
Moreover, another behaviourism learning theory is the social learning theory. Allan
(2017) acknowledges that people can learn a different behaviour through watching and
observation of a certain performance related to a certain behaviour. It is also referred to as
observational learning, which is mostly exhibited in children as their main source of learning as
they heavily rely on observation and imitation to acquire new behaviour. For instance, Bandura
did an experiment with the Bobo Doll regarding the social learning theory (Bandura, 2018, p.63).
An adult was included in the experiment who was to be very aggressive towards the doll as the
children observe. Afterwards, Bandura allowed the children play in a closed room with the doll.
Surprisingly, the children were observed to do the exact thing the adult did to the doll as they
aggressively acted towards the doll the same way the adult did. However, after the experiment, it
was able distinguish the three basic observational learning models. These included a Live Model,
which involves an actual person performance a particular behaviour. A verbal model of
instructions explained by (Debiec and Jacek, 2017, pp.546-555), where the details and
descriptions of a certain behaviour are clearly outlined, and a Symbolic Model that includes a
real or virtual character that demonstrates a certain behaviour through literature such as books,
articles, and electronic materials such as the radio and the television among others.
Additionally, Bandura helped to understand that not all the external behaviour could be
observed and learned successfully. He also claimed that learning cannot always result in
automatic behavioural changes and that the modelling process has steps to be observed for the
social learning process to be effectively successful supported by (Backhouse et al., 2017, pp.7-
22). The first step is attention. The social learning theory dictates that for a person to learn, they

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must pay attention and avoid any form of distraction for the learning from the model be
successful. The next step is retention of the newly acquired behaviour. This is important, as it
would enable the participant to observe the behaviour without the need to go back to the model
for observation once again. The third step was identified as the reproduction step. This is to help
the participant to demonstrate the behaviour after observing and retaining it. Finally, the last step
is motivation, which helps to repeat the behaviour or maintain a certain expected trait in the
human behaviour over a given period or permanently. Moreover, this is where the support and
punishment are brought in to reinforce the expected mode of behaviour (Pansini et al., 2018).
This is what behaviourism entails, it is based on conditioning and most importantly, that comes
from other people.
Another learning and development theory is the social constructivism. This theory
implies that people learn and develop their behaviour through the social and cultural set up that
revolves around them. According to (Freidus and Helen, 2017, pp.103-116), learning is depicted
to be a continuous process that advances from the existing cultural and social environment as
nothing is learnt from scratch. The theory focuses the successful learner as the one who creates
and comes up with new ideas from the old ideas and utilizes the new experience in understanding
the human behaviour. Therefore, the social constructivism learners’ usually view the world they
live in as a subjective tool to enable them to acquire knowledge. According to this theory, the
learners are expected to develop their own way to view the world. Furthermore, the social
constructivism theory maintains that knowledge acquisition in real life is through the adaptive
problem based learning where people share their experiences through discussions, where the
problem is matched with the new ideas through group communications (Loseke, 2017). Learning
is not seen as a passive experience in response to certain external forces but rather a significant