Behaviourism and Learning Development

I’m currently thinking again about what training for Learning Developers might look like. The day on One to One work focussed on the professional skills we need for this context, but bits kept creeping in from what I called the What of LD, rather than the How.

One of the elements I suggested might form the What of LD was an understanding of How Students Learn. To support the development of learning, a learning developer probably should understand what learning is and how it comes about! I’ve been looking back and reviewing things I learned during my PGCE, and in this and future posts, wanted to re-examine the theories I learned then, and reflect on how they might come into my work as a Learning Developer rather than a teacher. Theory is often derided as abstract and irrelevant, but to me, it’s a very practical tool to understand what I’m doing and how to do it better.

Let’s start with the Granddaddy of modern learning theory: Behaviourism.

What is it?

Behaviourism limits its approach to what can be outwardly observed, described and measured: physical behaviour. The environment acts on, that is, provides a stimulus to, the learner, which results in a physical response. It’s therefore the external environment which determines learning, not the individual learner. That resulting response or behaviour has a consequence which determines how the learner will behave in future. The definition of learning in this approach is the acquisition of a new behaviour.  A desired new behaviour, the pre-determined learning outcome, can be shaped by the teacher using what Skinner termed operant conditioning: breaking down a complex activity and rewarding behaviour which takes steps in the right direction (positive reinforcement), or punishing undesired behaviours (negative reinforcement). (Pavlov and his salivating dogs was a simpler version of this conditioning approach, looking at reinforcing on command behaviours the learner has already done before, like, well, drool…).

You can see the limitations of this model of learning in Higher Education immediately. It takes no account of learning that can’t be outwardly observed, such as understanding, conceptualising, making meaning and sense – the stuff we’re primarily interested in at University! It downplays the learner’s agency and autonomy in favour of goals predetermined by the teacher and brought about by the ‘stimuli’ they create – not really suited to adult education or student-centred, student-led learning. It also undervalues intrinsic motivation in favour of external rewards, so the ideal of the ‘independent learner’ isn’t really factored in.

How might it relate to Learning Development?

Firstly, the term ‘learning outcome’ will be very familiar to us. “By the end of this session/module, you will be able to [insert verb here]…” Learning developers work to help interpret the learning outcomes given to students in their module handbooks, and we are as teachers encouraged to develop our own learning outcomes for our workshops (I’ve written elsewhere why learning outcomes are a bit complicated in Learning Development). Despite the above limitations for Higher Education, university curricula are still fairly driven by a behaviourist approach in their focus on measurable (that is, outwardly observable) learning outcomes, which is evident in the way they are phrased as demonstrable actions. In a neoliberal age of education with the student and the employer as consumer and customer, and of greater accountability and transparency, an approach which favours the predetermined, the quantifiable, the measurable and the demonstrable makes sense. Understanding what a learning outcome actually is, how and why it’s formulated and assessed, can help us support students’ assessment literacy, understanding the ‘rules of the game’ they are required to play. It’s why we spend so much time defining those question verbs and marking criteria. Acting as mentors, we can help students reflect on their own understanding of their learning goals, and the way the curriculum conceptualises a learning outcome, we can help bridge any gap in assumptions, and support any interpretation or negotiation the student needs to undertake between the two to succeed on their own terms.

Secondly, it also helps us understand the overwhelming focus on the role of writing in learning and therefore in the work of learning developers. Writing can come to have an almost totemic importance in Higher Education, a self-evident good in and of itself, and the focus of much anxiety and shame. Understanding behaviourist approaches however helps us to see that writing is simply the means by which learning becomes externalised and therefore visible to the assessor. It is writing’s role in manifesting learning in an observable, measurable way which lends it its importance. It holds a privileged status, of course – there are other ways in which abstract learning processes can be assessed, but for both historical reasons (writing is an older technology) and expedience (it would be impractical to use the viva in increasingly large cohorts), it is preeminent. But in and of itself, writing does not inherently equal learning and there’s nothing particularly special about it.  This insight might help learning developers reassure students – often ‘non-traditional’, whose identity and self-esteem have been dented because there is apparently something ‘wrong’ with their writing. We can help them to reframe writing in its proper place in learning, understand why some elements have to be the way they are to make learning observable, and master, challenge or negotiate the elements that don’t really have anything to do with learning – or at least with the stated curriculum!

Thirdly, behaviourist approaches take no account of unintended learning outcomes and accidental learning. Nor do they value or measure the process of learning per se, only the product, which often only incompletely or obliquely reflects the process of learning. Learning developers can often see this for example in lecturer feedback which comments on features of the writing, but cannot see that this is a result not of writing skills at all but of reading and note-taking or assessment literacy (formative, scaffolded assignments can help with this) or even incidental, unexpected and exciting insights which seem to the student too good to be left out! Behaviourist approaches don’t foster an intrinsic interest in learning for its own sake, but rely on external reinforcements such as marks or feedback as rewards, promoting a surface approach. Learners can start to feel rather disenfranchised from their own experience of learning – the iterative, often messy process they went through, the unexpected insights and flashes of inspiration they reached, the excitement and pleasure they might have felt – as it is either not visible or not valued by the behaviourist approaches which still influence the curriculum and assessment. This learning doesn’t conform, but is no less valuable ‘learning’ for that. Recognising that assessment can only be a very partial snapshot of their learning, and reflecting with a learning developer on their own, very valid experience of their learning can help them feel that it’s valuable and boost intrinsic motivation, foster deep rather than surface learning, and interest in their studies for their own sake.

Fourthly, we can help students better understand their own understandings of learning and how learning happens. Drawing on past experience, students may conceive of learning in quite a surface way, focussing on learning as the acquisition of knowledge, to be assessed by testing whether it’s remembered or forgotten, correct or incorrect (see Saljo 1979). They may also have picked up on more behaviourist style drilling and testing from school pedagogies as the ‘right’ way to learn (it’s reassuringly traditional!). Applying this understanding of learning and these methods of going about learning may not serve them well at Higher Education, and learning developers can help them to articulate these assumptions and consider a broader range of techniques and possibilities.

How might we teach it to students?

We can help students themselves to apply behaviourist approaches to resolve some of the issues they may encounter in their studies. Procrastination, perfectionism, and just being overwhelmed by the complexity, unfamiliarity and quantity of what they’re asked to do are common issues that learning developers deal with. Acting as coaches, we can introduce students to techniques of breaking down complex activities into smaller steps and building them up, using rewards to reinforce habit forming, and articulating and monitoring their own work in discrete, concrete terms which can help combat magical thinking and anxiety. Operant conditioning techniques can be useful for some kinds of learning in HE – anything where a response or skill needs to become more immediate, intuitive or fluid, and can help, for example, in rote learning, revision for exams or mastery through overlearning (although it won’t necessarily help with understanding).  Recasting the student in the behaviourist roles of both teacher and learner can, in contrast to the dependence that behaviourism implies, support them in taking control of their own studies and become an independent learner.

How can we apply it ourselves in the classroom?

I’m not sure we’d ever really apply it as a teaching principle ourselves- maybe very subtly in classroom management to promote a good learning environment although we’re not really with students long enough to really shape behaviours!

To sum up, behaviourism sits rather oddly with the aims of a Higher Education curriculum, but still very much influences it. Learning developers can play a role in helping students resolve the tensions that naturally arise out of this. Understanding behaviourist learning theory can help learning developers interrogate the way things are, understand why they are that way and challenge the assumption  that ‘that’s just the way things naturally are, the way they have to be’. Given that we’re often tasked with supporting widening participation and retention, this insight can be married with our commitment to social justice to help us empower students to better understand how higher education works, and value and negotiate the role of their learning within it, possibly even help to change it. We can also teach students some behaviourist principles to help them shape their own study practices in a productive way. – but it’s certainly a useful tool in working with students and part of our expert knowledge as Learning Developers.