Monday, September 10, 2012

Social Theories Blog Post 1


The main idea of the reading was the idea or observational learning, in which someone can learn from observing the behaviors of others.  Observational learning includes a model, which is the one doing the behavior that is then imitated by the learner.  In many cases models include parents, older siblings, teachers, and peers.  There are also symbolic models, which include celebrities.  For a learner to imitate the behavior of a model they must show relevance, the learner must be interested in learning the particular behavior, the model also needs to be able to excel in the particular behavior for the learner to want to imitate the behavior. According to Bandura’s theory the main factors in observational learning include behavior, environment, and the person (their characteristics). The major ideas of personal characteristics that contribute to observational learning include self-efficacy, which is the ability for an individual to believe in their own success, and self-regulation, which is the ability for a person to control their behaviors.  Younger children have a harder time with these concepts because they have shorter attention spans and need immediate consequences.  To improve a student’s self-efficacy it’s important to also consider the teacher’s efficacy in which the teacher believes in themselves and their ability to successfully manage their classroom.  Collective efficacy is also important because it’s the beliefs about the school system running successfully as a whole. 

How does this theory of observational learning compare and contrast from the behavior learning theory and information processing theory?

According to this theory Learning is observing a behavior through a model and being able to remember how to use that behavior in the future.  Learning through this strategy doesn’t always include a change in behavior.  It’s up to the learner to attend to the model, retain the information, be able to produce the behavior, and have the motivation to produce the behavior.  One implication for teaching is to teach in a way that students want to pay attention to the material being learned.  It’s important to engage the students and help them to retain the information so that they can produce it in the future.  The teacher should value self-efficacy so that the students have motivation to complete their homework. 

People may affect the way in which someone else learns by modeling their behavior, in which the learner wants to replicate. If a student watches and observes the way in which someone else succeeds and learns, they are more likely to replicate the behavior and use the same steps so that they’re able to succeed in learn in the same way as the model they observed. 

1 comment:

  1. One main difference of the observation learning theory is that a change in behavior does not necessarily have to occur. Observational learning can include observing a model's behaviors and gaining some kind of knowledge from observing, but not performing those behaviors. Both the behavior learning theory and the information processing theory include a change in behavior.

    The behavior learning theory and the observational learning theory both deal with experiences and things that occur within the environment. The information processing theory, however, deals with learning that takes place only in the mind. Another common characteristic between observational and behavior learning is that they both can include rewards and punishments. While operant conditioning includes punishments or rewards to decrease or increase a behavior, observation learning can include vicarious reinforcement or punishment, in which a person observes someone else's behavior getting rewarded and punished, and chooses whether or not to imitate that behavior based on the reward or punishment.

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