{"id":523,"date":"2017-09-22T13:39:58","date_gmt":"2017-09-22T19:39:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/?p=523"},"modified":"2017-09-22T13:40:36","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T19:40:36","slug":"behaviourism-in-the-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/behaviourism-in-the-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"Behaviourism in the workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Photo Credit: Brevity Comics.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the last several months I have been exposed to many different learning theories. Two recent articles Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism<\/a>\u00a0(Ertmer & Newby, 2013) and\u00a0First principles of instruction<\/a>\u00a0(Merrill, 2002) have led me to reflect on which of these theories I agree or do not agree with.<\/p>\n

My theoretical position<\/h3>\n

In general, I agree with the authors’ stance on learning theory outlined in both articles. That is, one theory may be better suited to a specific context than another, so limiting yourself to just one may limit\u00a0your effectiveness as an instructional designer (Ertmer & Newby, 2013). Further, you can call a learning\u00a0theory whatever you want, but the underlying principles of learning do not change (Merrill, 2002).<\/p>\n

Exploring Behaviourism<\/h3>\n

I have come across cognitivism and constructivism quite a bit in my readings, but I have not yet read much about behaviourism, so keeping my general position in mind, I’m going to look at how that theory relates to my own work in more detail below.<\/p>\n

Behaviourism at work<\/h5>\n

As an instructional designer who works with large companies in the private sector, my work is driven by a client’s business needs. In the past, this has included fulfilling regulatory compliance obligations, showing employees how to use proprietary in-house technologies, and helping various operational departments be more productive through business process training. All of these business needs are focused on specific behaviours that my clients need their workers to take.<\/p>\n

As much as my clients value the mental processes that enable learning (constructive and cognitive viewpoints), what they are really looking for is tangible, observable results. Enter: behaviourism.<\/p>\n

Characteristics of behaviourism<\/h5>\n

Ertmer and Newby (2013) define behaviourism as “learning with changes in either the form or frequency of observable performance” (p. 48). For better or worse, many of my clients are less interested in how their workers learn; they are more interested in how to get workers to perform the actions required of them.<\/p>\n

This is exactly the view behaviorism takes on learning. Training developed\u00a0through a behavioural lens focuses on how best to stimulate a learner to take a particular action, such as allowing for repeated practice of a task and positive reinforcement for correct behaviours (Ertmer & Newby, 2013).<\/p>\n

Underlying principles of behaviourism<\/h5>\n

Merrill (2002) does not focus on behaviourism explicitly, but several underlying principles support the theory. Merrill (2002), outlines five phases of learning, one of which is activation. The author says,”Activation also involves stimulating those mental models that can be modified or tuned to enable learners to incorporate the new knowledge into their existing knowledge” (2002, p. 47). \u00a0Stimulating correct responses in learners is a key element of\u00a0behaviourism, so it is not a significant leap to see how activating previous experience and knowledge can help trigger desired behaviours. In the application phase of learning, Merrill (2002) also discusses how providing learners with multiple opportunities to practice what they have learned, especially using real-world scenarios, can improve learning outcomes.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Merrill (2002) acknowledges that this behavioural focus is often missed by many, saying:<\/p>\n

It is astounding that with this almost universal agreement on the importance of applying knowledge to real-world tasks, so much instruction merely includes a few multiple-choice questions that are labeled practice. Such remember-what-you-were-told questions do little to promote learning. (p. 49)<\/p>\n

My takeaway from behaviourism is this: I need to remind my clients that if they want to see observable behaviours in the workplace, they need to provide their workers with the time and opportunity to practice the tasks that will be expected of them after training is complete.<\/p>\n

References<\/h5>\n

Ertmer, P., & Newby, T. (2013).\u00a0Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective<\/a>.\u00a0Performance Improvement Quarterly<\/i>,\u00a026<\/i>(2), 43-71.<\/p>\n

Merrill, M. D. (2002).\u00a0First principles of instruction<\/a>.\u00a0Educational Technology Research and Development<\/i>,\u00a050<\/i>(3), 43-59.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the last several months I have been exposed to many different learning theories. Two recent articles Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Constructivism\u00a0(Ertmer & Newby, 2013) and\u00a0First principles of instruction\u00a0(Merrill, 2002) have led me to reflect on which of these theories I agree or do not agree with. My theoretical position In general, I agree with the authors’ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":63,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt523"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/63"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":569,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523\/revisions\/569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0019\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}