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SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY & INSTRUCTIONAL GOALS AND OBJECTİVES

Şimal ÖNAL

Department of Foreign Language Education, Middle East Technical University

FLE200: Instructional Principles and Methods

Asst. Prof. Dr. Xiaoli YU

April 24, 2022

Social Learning Theory

Social learning theory is a theory that is initially created by Bandura and is composed

of the cognitive learning process and comprehensive behavioral theories with real-world

experiences. The students are not passive in this theory as it includes social interactions,

observation, language, and culture, which are influencing each other. Thus, behaviors do not

change but thrive in terms of observational learning and cognition. For instance, even a

student with zero knowledge about writing can observe others and at least learn how to hold a

pen and how to write some letters or numbers. This is because that student has seen others

perform this action beforehand.

Social learning theory influenced the practice of teaching at various educational

levels, as it includes four phases that effectuate the learning process without facing grade or

age differences: Attention, retention, production, and motivation. (Bandura, 1965 as cited in

John Wiley & Sons, p. 374). No matter what age they are, the learners have to give their

attention to whom they admire or find important to learn the current subject. Students

generally try to behave similarly to people who attract them, hence; the teacher plays a vital

role in being the pacemaker. In other words, teachers should be diligent at any educational

level in their behaviors in the class to avoid creating misdemeanors. After the observing

process, students repeat the actions in their brains and they need to model the behaviors and

identify the outcomes to apply them to everyday life later on. In the production step, students

apply the model behaviors they obtained from observation and repeating stages. In this step,

they may need too much effort to complete, and this starts with imitation in social learning

theory. The last step is motivation. At every level of education, teachers should praise the
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behaviors so that learners can pursue learning, apply what they have learned, and be eager to

get the right reinforcement. All the phases mentioned above show that social learning theory

can be applied proficiently to all education levels and age groups. Thanks to this theory,

teachers can raise students who can apply what they observe in education, and each student

can reach learning skills equally with social skills and communication with the classmates

and instructor, in line with his/her abilities and interests.

Apart from its features, social learning theory is connected with behaviorism in terms

of some principles such as rewarding and punishing or frequency of behavior. The more the

teacher praise the students, the more they are encouraged to learn, and the more the teacher

deprecates the wrong behavior, the more students avoid doing it. However, social learning

theory extends the traditional behaviorism in terms of interactivity because it is not a theory

that only focuses on reinforcements from teachers. In behaviorism, the main view of learning

is the right reinforcement and repetition of the subject by teachers, but in social learning

theory, it is the integration of the students, social activities, peer feedback, and the teacher.

Although reinforcement still plays a role in learning, it is not entirely responsible for the

learning process. In social learning theory, learners are more active in learning than in

behaviorism.

Cognitive theory is one of the main learning theories, which focuses on metacognition

and inside the learner’s head ( e.g., information process, acquiring, and learning) rather than

observable behaviors as in the behaviorism and social learning theory. Just like social

learning theory, it also includes an active learning process and social activities.

Understanding and developing cognitive theory needs the assistance of adults and peers, and
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thus, social interactions and cooperative learning are required. (Vygotsky, 1962 as cited in

John Wiley & Sons ) Cognitive learning theory indicates that learners set their own goals,

create their paths, and inspire themselves to learn. However, social learning theory indicates

external factors as well. Goals and motivation are defined by both students, instructors, and

the knowledge community.

In the Turkish education system, although it is composed of all of the theories

mentioned above, teachers mostly focus on behavioral and social learning theories. It is based

on observable concepts and reinforcement by the instructor or peers, and most of the

cognitive functions originate in social interactions and knowledge transmission. The learner,

peers, and the instructor collaborate in learning; hence, group works and activities are

essential and are facilitated by the teacher. The expected situation is that: The instruction is

conveyed by the teacher and the students comprehend this information and take it into their

knowledge pool. The assessments of these instructions are obtained by level of achievement,

test scores, and feedback.

In conclusion, social learning theory has the tenets of interaction, language, culture,

and observation in the process of learning. The availability of the practice of teaching at

various educational levels makes the social learning theory transmit the right reinforcement to

the learners. Moreover, since it has both common and nonmatching features with the

cognitive learning theory and the behavioral learning theory, it becomes more applicable and

compatible with other theories. This theory is one of the learning methods that educators

frequently use and students enjoy most in Turkey because it includes the concepts of social

interaction, observation, language, and culture in an effective way.

References

Bandura, A. (1969).Social-learning theory of identificatory processes, Handbook of

Socialization theory and research, 213-262.

Morrison, G.R., Ross, S.J., Morrison, J: R., & Kalman, H.K. (2019). Designing effective

instruction. John Wiley& Sons, 366-387

Instructional Goals and Objectives

Educators need a plan for the lessons and these plans for instruction starts with

course planning, unit planning, weekly planning, and daily lesson planning. Before starting

teaching and planning daily, the teacher should have an instructional goals and objectives

schedule because they have great importance in accomplishing the teaching process. In

addition to the classroom teacher’s methods, the national curriculum should be taken into

consideration for effective education.

Although they may seem the same concepts, goals and objectives are different in

terms of details. An instructional goal is broad and generalized explanations that are used

when planning instruction. Goals are determined to show what is expected from each student

in the class. Whereas it specifies the expected situation, it doesn’t indicate the performance,

but it points out the instructional objectives. Instructional objectives are more specific and

more measurable statements that can be applied to the instructional plans, and they derive

from instructional goals. In other words, instructional objectives are more like a tool for

achieving course goals, and instructional objectives play an essential role in the process of

instruction and assessment. They give guidance for effective teaching and provide guidelines

for assessing student’s knowledge and learning (Linn and Miller, 2009 as cited in Lei, S. A.,

2010) Briefly, goals mostly address higher aims and general statements the teachers use for

education, but objectives include more specifics and measurable abilities that a teacher can

evaluate to see whether the goals have been accomplished. An example from Instructional

Goals and Objectives, In Developing the Curriculum (7th Ed.). Pearson. (Olivia, P.F, 2009):
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Goal: The student will become familiar with personal computers.

Objective: The student will demonstrate skills in word processing using his or her

assigned computer by writing a one-page paper with ninety percent accuracy.

While preparing instructional goals and objectives, an educator should start by

analyzing the national curriculum and curriculum goals and objectives. Then, the educator

should specify them as instructional goals and objectives, since they derive from curriculums.

Secondly, the educator should specify three domains of learning: the cognitive, the affective,

and the psychomotor. Mostly, teachers use the cognitive domain, but it is necessary that goals

and objectives should be prepared with all three domains, and they should be relevant for

affecting the student positively. Next, the educator should decide which subject has an

important level, so that she/he can give higher importance to it. Since some of the

information is more complex, there should be a hierarchy between subtopics, which is from

the lowest to the highest. As it is stated in Bloom’s Taxonomy, it should be in this order:

knowledge level, comprehension level, application level, analysis level, synthesis level, and

finally evaluation level. Lastly, an educator should follow a few simple rules for writing to

prepare instructional goals and objectives. Since goals are broader than objectives, the goals

should be written simply and clearly without any performance details. A goal can include

more than one objective, as long as the objectives take their source from the instructional

goals. Proper instructional objectives should include the behavior expected of the students,

the conditions under which the behavior is used, and the degree of mastery. ( Olivia, P.F,

2009). Instructors should choose the correct verbs that highlight measurable and observable

subjects, such as define, formulate or justify. The teacher should avoid the verbs such as
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understand, know or learn because these verbs are ambiguous and not measurable. To arrange

conditions, the instructor should use specific statements instead of wasting time. For

example, the educator does not have to write “the students will hold a crayon and draw a

rabbit.” This hinders the clarity of the objectives. Lastly, the educator should choose the

criteria appropriately. If the criteria make a great difference in the objective, the instructors

should add it, but if it is something already expected, they should not include it in the

objectives. For instance, an English teacher in Turkey does not need to write “ translate it

from English to Turkish” as this is already expected from an English lesson.

Following the key points, the instructor should validate the goals and objectives.

Validating can be obtained by referring to textbooks, related reference books, or guides.

Besides, the teacher gives more importance to some topics and makes an order to teach them.

This could be achieved by using books and curriculum’s order to see the priority. Almost all

schools have a coterie for each lesson, so the teacher can decide how to validate the goals and

objectives together via sharing ideas or experiences.

To sum up, instructional goals and objectives are different in terms of detailed

expectations. The objectives originate from the goals since goals are more comprehensive.

Moreover, the instructional goals and objectives are derived from curriculum goals and

objectives. When preparing goals and objectives, the educator should specify the domains

and include them in the objectives and should create an order (from the lowest to the highest).

The objectives should contain the behaviors that students should acquire, the conditions in

which the behavior can exist, and the criterion to show mastery, and lastly, all of these

objectives can be validated by the related books, experts, and teachers themselves.
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References

David R. Krathwohl (2002), A Revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy: An Overview, Theory Into

Practice, 41:4, 212-218

Lei, S.A. (2010), College research methodology courses: revisiting general instructional goals

and objectives, Journal of Instructional Psychology, 37(3).

Oliva, P. F. (2009). Instructional Goals and Objectives. In Developing the Curriculum

(7th Ed.). Pearson.