Karl James A.

Batisla-ong
MEd ESL
Review Paper

Theoretical Roots of Learning Orientations: Behaviorism and Cognitivism

Behaviorism transfers learning when there’s a proper response - in the form of a changed
behavior - to the stimulus. The change is either the in the form or frequency of ‘observable
performance’. For instance, a high caliber teacher commending a low-esteemed student for an
excellent presentation. Thereby,the student continue to pursue commendable academic
performance.

Whereas cognitivism, contrary to behaviorism, as an approach to learning, is shifting

away from the observable behavior. Instead they emphasized on internal mental processes and
structure. Cognitivism stress learning processes and address the issues of how information is
received, organized, stored, and retrieved by the mind.

Behaviorism is based on internal events, such as thinking are described through

behavioral terms. It focuses on the importance of the consequences of those performances and
contends that responses that are followed by reinforcement are more likely to recur in the
future.

Whereas, cognitivism, learning is acquired through internal mental activities  such as

thinking, problem solving, language production, concept formation and information
processing.

If there is an observable transfer of learning to other identical situations or similar

features. It is said that this theory is the result of generalization. Therefore, any similar
situations that allows behaviors to transfer across common elements.

Cognitivist claims , if the learner understands and has the capacity to apply prior or
learned knowledge in different contexts, then transfer has occurred.

Important concepts involve in behaviorism are punishment, reinforcement, positive and

negative reinforcement.

Punishment is anything that decreases the behavior it follows. In this procedure, the
strength or probability of a response is decreased. Punishment involves the appearance or the
increase in intensity of a stimulus following the operant. Punishment happens when the
person punished receives the action in the purpose of preventing or reducing probability of
certain behaviors. For example, a classroom teacher scolds a student for not turning off his or
her cellphone during the lecture.

Reinforcement is used to help increase the probability that a specific behavior will occur
with the delivery of a stimulus immediately after a behavior is exhibited. The use of
reinforcement procedures have been used with both typical and a typical developing children,
teenagers, elderly persons, animals, and different psychological disorders (Sadowski, 2009,
para. 1).

Positive reinforcement works by presenting a motivating item to the person after the
desired behavior is exhibited,making the behavior more likely to happen in the future (para
3). To put this in simple words, the teacher may apply positive reinforcement in the classroom
to strengthen desirable behaviors of students and which is usually and widely used by many
schools
to enhance students’ learning.

Negative reinforcement involves a removal or a decrease in intensity of a stimulus

(Hamilton & Ghatala, 1994, p. 43). In other words, it involves taking away a person’s stuff,
activities, and hobbies when he or she performs an undesirable behavior. For example, a
mother bans her son from watching his favourite TV channels when he failed to finish his
homework on due date.

Whereas, cognitivism has the concepts of instruction that groundwork on a student’s

existing mental structures, or schema, to be effective. It should organize information in such a
manner that learners are able to connect new information with existing knowledge in some
meaningful way.

Analogies and metaphors are examples of this type of cognitive strategy. For example,
instructional design textbooks frequently draw an analogy between the familiar architect’s
profession and the unfamiliar instructional design profession to help the novice learner
conceptualize, organize and retain the major duties and functions of an instructional designer
(e.g., Reigeluth,1983). Other cognitive strategies may include the use of framing, outlining,
mnemonics, concept mapping, advance organizers, and so forth (West, Farmer, & Wolff ,
1991)

Environmental conditions receive the greatest emphasis for behaviorism theory.

Behaviorists assess the learners to determine at what point to begin instruction as well as to
determine which reinforcers are most effective for a particular student. The most critical
factor, however, is the arrangement of stimuli and consequences within the environment.

On the other hand, cognitivism dwells on the search for rules, principles or relationships
in processing new information, and the search for meaning and consistency in reconciling
new information with previous knowledge, are key concepts in cognitive psychology.
Cognitive psychology is concerned with identifying and describing mental processes that
affect learning, thinking and behaviour, and the conditions that influence those mental
processes.

Behaviorist perspective implies the following roles of the teacher: (1) determine which
cues can elicit the desired responses; (2) arrange practice situations in which prompts are
paired with the target stimuli that initially have no eliciting power but which will be expected
to elicit the responses in the “natural” (performance) setting; and (3) arrange environmental
conditions so that students can make the correct responses in the presence of those target
stimuli and receive reinforcement for those responses.

Whereas, cognitive emphasis imply that major role of the teacher includes: (1)
understanding that individuals bring various learning experiences to the learning situation
which can impact learning outcomes; (2) determining the most effective manner in which to
organize and structure new information to tap the learners’ previously acquired knowledge,
abilities, and experiences; and (3) arranging practice with feedback so that the new
information is effectively and efficiently assimilated and/or accommodated within the
learner’s cognitive structure.
 The advantage of behaviorism is that results can be reliably reproduced experimentally
such as in a Skinner box or similar apparatus. This evident advantage translates into several
distinct counter-arguments.

Behaviorism is criticized on active human agency, this theory does not acknowledge this
aspect. Human agency is conscious self-awareness (Chalmers, 1996) which is typically
mediated via language. Key properties of human agency are intentionality, forethought and
self-reactiveness (Bandura, 2006, p. 164-165), all of which play no role in behaviorism.

Behaviorist perspective can  not explain how people make procedural decisions or
negotiate between various types of potential rewards and goals. Most of human behavior is
not based on conditioned, convergent reflexes on a single task, but correlates to preceding
mental processes that are divergent and collaborative in nature (Funke, 2014; Eseryel et al.,
2013; Hung, 2013). Besides, divergent thinking is related to developing interpersonal trust
(Selaro et al., 2014).

Whereas, cognitive approach, has the disadvantages relying heavily on inference.

Criticism questioned experiments which pointed to the validity of the re constructive memory
hypothesis, as it is not sure that memory has changed as the researchers couldn't observe
memories, but only the answers given - which may have been the result of demand
characteristics, or even poor judgement of speed. Therefore, the cognitive approach may lack
being scientific on the basis that it is subjective in what is taken from findings. Assuming that
findings are the result of invisible processes is heavily subjective and could lead to self-
fulfilling prophecy and internal validity being raised as issues.

Also, the drawbacks of the cognitive approach is that it ignores other factors towards
behaviour that have been shown to affect behaviour. For example, Palmer and Hollin's study
into moral reasoning and decision making behaviours in criminals assumed that the difference
between why the control group weren't criminals and the experimental group were was
because of cognitive decision making differences. However, different studies such as Brunner
et al and Juby and Farrington have demonstrated that biology and upbringing, respectively,
can help to explain why people turn to crime. therefore, this approach is somewhat
reductionist as it explains behaviour as simply the result of 5 cognitive processes (thought,
attention, memory, perception and language) and disregards other factors.

Manifestations that a behaviorist is practiced in the classroom. For example, a classroom

teacher scolds a student for not turning off his or her cellphone during the lecture. The
teacher’s aim is to encourage the student to turn off the phone when coming to class. The
person scolded may feel embarrassed in front of his fellowc lassmates, thus he will try to
avoid doing the same thing in order to avoid receiving thesame treatment.

The teacher may apply positive reinforcement in the classroom to strengthendesirable

behaviors of students and which is usually and widely used by many schools
to enhance students’ learning. A “motivating item” may refer to a reward used to
encourage and motivate students in maintaining or increasing desirable behaviors, thus the
term extrinsic motivation.

According to Bainbridge (2012), extrinsic motivation refers to motivation that comes

from outside an individual. The motivating factors are external, or outside, rewards such as
money or grades. These rewards provides satisfaction and pleasure that the task itself may not
provide (para. 1). Besides physical items, positive reinforcement also can be done verbally.
For example, the teacher may praise a particular student for answering a question.

One of the common negative reinforcements used in the classroom is to take away the
student’s recess. This can be done when the student fails to complete his or her homework,
thus late submission.Therefore, the teacher may ask him or her to do the homework during the
recess. The teacher understands that recess is very important to students, especially those in
primary school. It is the time for them to play, to talk, and to have snacks.

On the other hand, instances that cognitivism approach is applied. Example of a learning
situation utilizing a cognitive approach: A manager in the training department of a large
corporation had been asked to teach a new intern to complete a cost-benefit analysis for an
upcoming development project. In this case, it is assumed that the intern has no previous
experience with cost-benefit analysis in a business setting. However, by relating this new task
to highly similar procedures with which the intern has had more experience, the manager can
facilitate a smooth and efficient assimilation of this new procedure into memory.

Cognitivism is the learning orientation where moral reasoning fits in. This theory of
learning is anchored on its interest on developing complex mental processes. Unlike in
behaviorism, it utilizes punishment which breaks the feelings of an individual for the sake of
learning. Cognitivism focuses on the mind rather than on conditioning.

However, I think that this negative reinforcement is not always effective to every
student. To some, recess is not important. Therefore, taking it away doesn’t reinforce a
change in behavior. When the teacher bans the students from doing what he does not like in
the hope they will stop or reduce some undesirable behaviors, it will not affect them in any
sense. Those students will continue to perform those behaviors. To solve this problem, the
teacher must know his students well, knowing what they like and what they don’t. Only when
the teacher can do so, can he effectively administer negative reinforcement. Also the teacher
has to keep in mind that what a student likes today, he may not like tomorrow. Therefore, the
teacher must keep the students’ information up to date by keep a record book listing down the
change in their behaviors.

Behaviorism is an effective tool used to enhance learning in the classroom.

Understanding its definition and procedures gives an unfair advantage to the teacher in both,
controlling his students’ behaviors more effectively, and helping them improve their learning
up to another degree. Applying behaviorism in the classroom involves simple strategies such
as punishment, positive and negative reinforcement. Yet all of which are extremely effective
if applied to the right person, at the right time and place.Therefore, the teacher should know
his students well enough before deciding which method to implement considering whether it
is punishment, positive reinforcement or negative reinforcement.

Metacognition essentially means cognition about cognition. In layman’s term, it is

thinking about thinking. It refers to both people's awareness and control, not only of their
cognitive processes, but of their emotions and motivations as well. A number of strategies are
described that teachers can use to facilitate children's metacognitive development and
promote the monitoring and regulation of their own cognitive enterprises.