History of Behaviorism

While behaviorism was formally established by John B. Watson in 1913, he often cited Ivan Pavlov and his famous experiments on feeding dogs to provide justification for his theory that humans acquire behavior through conditioning and responses to stimuli. In the late 1800s, Pavlov identified what he called classical conditioning, when he realized that dogs would begin to salivate when the people who normally fed them entered the room. Pavlov wondered if he could condition the dogs by taking a neutral stimulus, such as a tone, and having the dogs associate this with the stimulus of food, making the neutral stimulus a conditioned stimulus. Through experiments, he saw that the dogs would produce the target behavior of salivation based on only the neutral stimulus (the tone) over time. His work gave insight into the power of reinforcement and punishment and of the involuntary biological responses that drive behavior changes, and therefore learning (Stangor & Walinga, 2010).

Watson took Pavlov’s findings and developed the theory of behaviorism. To Watson, the internal cognition of people was not important to learning. Instead, peoples’ experiences and environment were what determined how a person behaved. Watson did not put importance on genetics, talents, personality, abilities, or internal motivations, and instead focused entirely on how behaviors could be learned through a change in the environment and the stimuli that people were exposed to (“Behaviorism”, para. 1).

 In the late 1960s and 1970s, psychologist B.F. Skinner discovered operant conditioning, which asserts that animals and humans learn from the consequences of their own behavior. In his famous “Skinner box” experiments, rats or pigeons would be given rewards such as food, or punishments such as electric shocks for pulling a lever at various times. Through his research, he emphasized that reinforcement strengthens behavior, and punishment will decrease the chances of unwanted behavior from reoccuring (Stangor & Walinga, 2010).

Connection to Teaching and Learning

Behaviorism has a profound impact on the connection between teaching and learning. The belief that behaviors are the result of environment and stimuli brings forth the idea that people can learn anything when they are exposed to a carefully constructed environment that elicits the target response. This can play out in any environment where learning occurs, including parenting a toddler, teaching a high schooler, training an employee, or even providing physical therapy to a patient after a stroke. In order to teach someone how to do something, behaviorism contends that the instructor must focus on determining the specific, observable behaviors that show something has been learned. Once these behaviors are determined, an environment with stimuli, including reinforcements and punishments, is set up in order to motivate the learner to demonstrate the desired responses. 

Strengths of Behaviorism in Teaching and Learning

While behaviorism can have a negative reputation as being manipulative, or can be perceived to view humans as little more than rats in a box or dogs salivating for food, these criticisms oversimplify the theory. When training adults in a corporate environment, behaviorism is a useful learning theory because it can help with writing objectives that have specific measurable behaviors. In turn, these can prove useful when it comes to introducing policies, teaching employees new software or systems, or familiarizing employees with the company’s history, mission statement, and culture. Many of these examples are objective, and there is only one correct answer or one specific approach. For example, if I were training a group of employees at a home improvement store on the store’s layout, I might use behaviorism to design the training. The layout of the store and where items are found is objective, and I would expect that by the end of the training, employees could recall sections of the store where common items could be found quickly. I might use a timer to measure how quickly it takes them to find items, and I would provide positive reinforcement in the form of feedback, a certificate, or even a monetary incentive. I might provide punishment by requiring further mandatory training for employees who are unable to quickly locate items after the initial session.

Behaviorism is also useful in corporate training because it can create an environment that feels predictable and equitable. With behaviorism, employees do not have to guess what is expected of them or wonder if they are adequately learning the knowledge and skills that are necessary to perform their job. Because behaviors are objectively quantified and feedback is an essential part of behaviorism, trainings using this model will allow employees and managers to quickly identify gaps in learning, and which areas are still confusing or need further instruction. 

Limitations of Behaviorism in Teaching and Learning

There are limitations to behaviorism in instructional design and in corporate training. In behaviorism, there is no emphasis on assessing and understanding the learner’s cognitive processes or their structure of knowledge. The learner is not able to discover knowledge through problem solving, and instead is being acted upon by their environment and the stimuli imposed by the instructor (Ertmer & Newby, 1993). In the instance of a home improvement store, a manager might want to train their employees in customer service and how to respond to customers who are unhappy with a product that they purchased. While behaviorism could be used in this training, it would have limitations because responding to customer service challenges isn’t always clear-cut. All customers are different and many situations require more nuanced problem-solving. Addressing a customer's concern and deeply listening to their needs cannot be taught in a formulaic if-then structure. Instead, employees would need to develop a range of higher level skills to process what the customer needs and how to solve problems in a manner that benefits both the company and the customer. 

Along with this, humans are social beings and behaviorism does not take this into account. People might need to learn with another person, role play, and discover how to solve complicated problems. Behaviorism does not provide these opportunities. Another limitation of behaviorism is that, “Without positive reinforcement, learned responses will quickly become extinct. This is because learners will continue to modify their behavior until they receive some positive reinforcement” (“Behaviorism”, para. 3). The instructor needs to consistently provide the stimuli that will create the desired responses. However, constantly providing these stimuli can prove burdensome and time consuming for the instructor. While computers and online training programs can help provide more of this feedback, when these preliminary trainings are complete, there needs to be continued follow up and reinforcement. An employee might feel motivated to learn information during an online training where they were receiving constant immediate feedback, but when they begin working, if this knowledge isn’t reinforced, they may have little intrinsic motivation to apply this learning. For example, a cashier might learn the location of items in the home improvement store, but they may lose this information if once they begin working, this knowledge isn’t reinforced. Instead, they might direct customers to another employee who works predominantly on the floor of the store, which could frustrate the customer.

Implications of Behaviorism for Learning Design

Despite some of its shortcomings, behaviorism has important implications for learning design. Behaviorism can help instructional designers write precise objectives with specific measurable behaviors (McLeod, 2003). This learning theory emphasizes the importance of feedback in learning design. Keramida (2015) states, “In behavioristic terms, although nobody wants to call it like this today, feedback is the simplest form of conditioning. Correct attempts are most frequently being reinforced by positive comments written on automated programmed response” (para. 13). Learners need feedback to know how they are doing with learning the material and instructional designers need to be cognizant of the importance of feedback in shaping learners’ behaviors and their progress towards mastering content. Instructional designers should consider how learners will receive feedback throughout the learning experience in order to assess their progress. This feedback should be given throughout the duration of the experience instead of only at the end of the course. 

Instructional designers can also use the theory of behaviorism to determine which information should be taught with principles of behaviorism in mind. Knowing that behaviorism has, “...generally been proven reliable and effective in facilitating learning that involves discriminations (recalling facts), generalizations (defining and illustrating concepts), associations (applying explanations), and chaining (automatically performing a specified procedure)” (Ertmer & Newby, 1993) implies that instructional designers should incorporate the learning theory of behaviorism into trainings when the learning needing to be acquired aligns to the aforementioned skills and knowledge. Instructional designers should not shy away from behaviorism and should instead embrace its principles when it is appropriate to accomplish observable learning goals. Finally, behaviorism can help instructional designers choose learning activities that will reinforce practice aligned to learning goals. They might use drills and repetition, question and answer, review, guided practice, and positive reinforcement (Western Governors University, 2020, para. 15).

Behaviorism is an important learning theory that still has its place in education, corporate training, and any space where learners need to demonstrate target behaviors or learn skills and procedures that require memorization and recall. While it may receive criticism for not analyzing a learner’s internal thinking or making learning a social activity, its emphasis on frequent feedback and clear, measurable objectives provide instructional designers important tools that they can incorporate into their instructional materials.