Scenario Evaluation Using Operant Conditioning

This article discusses the concept of operant conditioning and its application in scenario evaluation. It explores the different types of behaviors exhibited by students and provides strategies for behavior change. The article also offers solutions for classroom management.

Running head: OPERANT CONDITIONING 1
SCENARIO EVALUATION USING OPERANT CONDITIONING
Name of The Student
Institutional Affiliation
Course
Unit
lecturer
Date

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Introduction
Operant conditioning is also referred to as instrumental conditioning. The method of
learning takes place through administering punishment to the students when they behave
unbecomingly or rewarding good behaviors to encourage them to continue with the same or
even do better. It helps to make an association between a specific action and the consequence of
that particular behavior. History explains that Operant Conditioning was invented or discovered
by a behaviorist known as B.F Skinner. He believed that people should not focus on internal
inspiration and specific line of thinking as the causes of certain behaviors but to focus mainly
on the external objects of the response to explain that particular behavior. Behaviorist Skinner
focused primarily on how the consequences of people's behavior or actions would later have an
impact on their practice in general according to Ren, Ruan & Li, 2009.
Henton & Iversen, 2012 argues that, Skinner’s theory explained how people acquire the
range of learned behaviors that they exhibit in their day to day lives. Psychologist Edward
Thorndike had a significant impact on Skinner’s theory. It explained that actions that are
followed by undesirable outcomes are less likely to be repeated while those which are
accompanied by desirable acts are likely to be repeated.
The theory lies on the idea that actions that are reinforced reinforcement get
strengthened and the probability of them being repeated in future is very high. The scenario of
Teacher Jane is not exceptional. Through this reinforcement, the students will eventually get
used to the new system unconsciously, and the problem will ultimately be solved. The problem
occurs because acts that result in undesirable consequences or punishments will be weakened
and less likely to be repeated in the future in reference to Piaget, 2014.
The range of behaviors in the classroom typically displayed by the students
According to Blackman (2017), there are two different types of behaviors that Skinner
explained in his theory that Jane's students have. One of them is respondent behaviors. These

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are types of actions that occur automatically, consciously, and reflexively. The students are
most likely used to the culture of not answering questions, not completing the assignments, and
not participating in classroom discussions. They find themselves not competing in a class
entirely merely because they are used to this behavior and they find themselves not able to
control it anymore. This behavior is not learned, but it occurs solely involuntarily and
automatically, and thus it can be said that it is a behavior that was acquired from classes that
were ahead of them citing the work of Piaget, 2014.
The other kind of behavior is that teacher Jane's students are displaying is Operant
behavior. It is a type of action where the students do not participate in class activities
intentionally. They may deliberately decide not to do the assignment, answer questions and
even participate in class discussions that the teacher Jane is bringing forth due to various
reasons such as fear, arrogance or expressing their hatred for the teacher. They may do this
consciously to punish their teacher, and this mostly takes place if the teacher is doing
something that they do not like in reference to Demetriou, Shayer & Efklides, 2016.
Application of various techniques of Operant Conditioning in classroom
management for the behaviours listed in Teacher Jane's scenario.
Education Applications
One of the best and the most straightforward way Teacher Jane can use to shape the
behavior of her students is to provide feedback on their performance. The outcome includes
approval, words of affirmation, compliments, and encouragement. For instance, the best way
for Teacher Jane to encourage the students to answer the questions she asks in class is to praise
them for their attempt. At the initial stages of this strategy Teacher, Jane should praise, approve
and comment positively to the answers even if they are wrong to encourage the students. The
action should be done until the behavior completely changes and the culture of answering the

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questions is instilled in them. After this goal is achieved then only exceptional responses are
reinforced, or just the correct answers are praised. Most unwanted behaviors like not answering
questions in class are generally acquired as a result of being ignored by the teacher. Hence the
teacher praising the students can help overcome this challenge according to Azevedo et al.,
2012.
Behavior modification
The first behavior modification remedy is the behavior shaping and token economy.
Firstly, the token economy is a system in which the targeted behaviors are reinforced with
tokens. Tokens are also referred to as secondary reinforcers. The secondary reinforces later
exchanged for rewards which are also seen as primary reinforcers. An excellent example of
symbols is stickers in reference to Louis et al., 2010.
Stickers can be a perfect token that teacher Jane can use to reinforce the target behavior
in the Grade 5 class. From symbols, she can graduate to rewards whereby she will encourage
the required action by giving the students who participate in class by answering questions,
doing assignments on time and participating in class discussions, certain privileges, snacks, and
some special activities like being a level perfect or being relieved from some class duties. The
only thing that teacher Jane needs to do is that if the program or the technique works, she
should not ignore sure students in the class (Dulark et al., 2011).
The other behavior modification remedy is behavior shaping which is carried out
through successive approximations. This method becomes very useful if the tokens and the
rewards are delivered in such a way that they are aimed at moving the students closer and
closer to the desired behavior each time. Jang, Reeve & Deci, 2010 claims that the conditions
required for one to receive the reward should, therefore, shift each time the students move a
step closer to the desired behavior.
Punishment

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Contrary to reinforcement which is designed to encourage a particular behavior,
punishment is meant to eliminate and weaken a specific action. One of the ways teacher Jane
can use to reduce or minimize the act of not answering questions, not participating in class
discussions and not doing assignments is to punish them. Each time the students are not able
to complete their tasks on time they need to get punished and most probably they will not
repeat the same mistake once again due to the fear of the punishment. The punishment can be
in the form of directly applying an unpleasant stimulus like a shock after a response or by
withdrawing specific rewards from them according to Brembs, 2011.
Strengths of Operant Conditioning Theory in comparison to Piaget Theory
Steure, Aust & Huber, 2012 says that, one of the strengths of Operant
Conditioning is that Skinner correctly estimated children cognitive skills, unlike Piaget who
stated that when children are born, they acquire intellectual abilities with their interaction
with the environment. Skinner explains that the negative behaviors that the students earn
sometimes they are just automatic, and that people or the external environment do not have a
direct influence on the children’s intellectual and also able to make their own decisions.
These children are intelligent on their own, and they can make their own decision.
The second point is that Skinner uses scientific skills to carry out his work and
coming up with the theory while Piaget did not use any scientific method to carry out work
and it was all based on observation. He made all the conclusion in his approach after
observing his children's behaviors and assumed that all children would behave the same.
Skinners theory was scientifically proven in the sense that it involves involuntary conduct
based on the pairing stimuli with biologically significant events (Richelle, 2016).
Another strength is that Skimmer took into account the necessary factors that can
affect a child's or in our case a student's behavior like social environment and culture. Piaget
identified the level of intelligence with a specific age which was not a suitable way. Skimmer

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showed that the social environment could affect a child's behavior, for instance, a teacher
being more helpful and more communicative to the student they might end up changing their
practices for good according to Poling et al., 2011.
Weaknesses of Operant Conditioning Theory in comparison to Piaget Theory
One of the gaps that Operant Conditioning has in contrast to Piaget theory is that it
does not have a powerful fundamental impact on psychology as Piaget Theory has. It does
not bring new concepts, methods and approaches that deeply develop the studies of mental
development of children as Piaget does. This reason makes it not so suitable to evaluate this
scenario which comprises of grade five students which can still be recognized as children
according to Sokolowski & Abramson, 2010.
Another weakness is that many problems arise when applying the techniques of
Operant Conditioning Theory compared to Piaget theory. A convenient example is the
punishment technique which brings about many issues like any punished behaviour is never
forgotten. This means that the student can quickly go back to their initial reaction when the
punishment is no longer present in reference to Dulark et al, 2011. It also creates fear that can
also generalise to undesirable behaviors, for example, it can result to fear of school.
Punishment does not necessarily guide one towards the expected behaviour. Unlike
reinforcement which tells an individual what to do, punishment tells an individual what not to
do according to Ruan & Ren, 2009.
The three strategies and justifications
The three strategies differential reinforcement, stimulus control, and stimulus
discrimination. Differential reinforcement takes place when there is a reinforcement of a
response in the presence of one stimulus and not reinforcing the very response once again in
another incentive. There are justifications concerning the weaknesses and strengths of the
Operant Conditional theory. There is a justification for instance, when a child is rewarded for

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good behavior, he or she is more likely to change for good but without a reward, the child
will lack the motivation to continue behaving well. The justification for weakness especially
in the rewarding part of the theory is that when a child is not rewarded any more for the right
behavior, he or she might end up not behaving as expected according to Stein & Belluzzi,
2014.
A final judgment on the suitability of Operant Conditioning as an approach for
behavioural change in this scenario
Operant Conditioning is one of the suitable methods to help Teacher Jane to have her
students' behaviors changed so that they can participate in class even more and be able to do
their assignments. The method is suitable because if applied well it will not take so much
time for them to change. A punishment which is part of this approach will be ideal if the
other methods in the plan do not work effectively. Students mostly fear, and if they are
subjected through it, they will most likely change in reference to Dulark et al., 2011.
These do not take into account whether the students will go back to their original
behaviors once the punishment is withdrawn, but the best thing with this method is that it will
transform them in that particular time and help the objectives of that particular time be
achieved. The process is suitable also because some of the students might change entirely
even after the punishment is withdrawn according to Blackman, 2017.
Rewarding which is also part of this approach will also be a suitable approach to
behavioral change in this scenario. Students do not only change their behavior on punishment
or withdrawing certain privileges from them but also on rewarding them for the little effort
that they have put like answering questions even if they are not correct. Praising them,
approving them and giving them unique gifts and activities will always motivate them to go
on with the right, and at the end of the day, they get changed completely. It will make
Teacher Jane's work more accessible and more straightforward since the students will be able

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to do the assignments, participate in group discussion and even answer the questions that they
are being asked according to Henton & Inversen, 2012.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Operant Conditioning is one of the best methods of correcting
improper behaviors and it can be carried out through various ways like rewarding the student
for the ethical practice to encourage him or her. It can also take place by administering
punishments to the student to correct the bad behavior. The two different types of responses
that Teacher Jane's students have are the respondent behaviors and Operant behaviors.
Respondent behaviors are the types of actions that occur automatically, consciously, and
reflexively while the Operant behaviors are those behaviors that occur intentionally and
knowingly. This approach or strategy has some weaknesses but remains to be one of the best
method suitable for this scenario.
References
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