WHY DO YOU THINK CONNECTIVITY OF THE BEHAVIOURISTS MAY INDUCE LEARNING?

Behaviourism has three approaches

(1)   Classical conditioning

(2)   Operant condition

(3)   Connectivity/ connectionism learning theory, readiness, exercise and law of effect by Edward Thurndike (1874-1948) challenging question   

Learning Theory

Learning theory may be described as a body of principles advocated by psychologists and educators to explain how people acquire skills, knowledge, and attitudes. Various branches of learning theory are used in formal training programs to improve and accelerate the learning process. Key concepts such as desired learning outcomes, objectives of the training, and depth of training also apply. When properly integrated, learning principles, derived from theories, can be useful to aviation instructors and developers of instructional programs for both pilots and maintenance technicians.

Over the years, many theories have attempted to explain how people learn. Even though psychologists and educators are not in complete agreement, most do agree that learning may be explained by a combination of two basic approaches: behaviorism and the cognitive theories.

Behaviorism

Behaviorists believe that animals, including humans, learn in about the same way. Behaviorism stresses the importance of having a particular form of behavior reinforced by someone, other than the student, to shape or control what is learned. In aviation training, the instructor provides the reinforcement. Frequent, positive reinforcement and rewards accelerate learning. This theory provides the instructor with ways to manipulate students with stimuli, induce the desired behavior or response, and reinforce the behavior with appropriate rewards. In general, the behaviorist theory emphasizes positive reinforcement rather than no reinforcement or punishment. Other features of behaviorism are considerably more complex than this simple explanation. Instructors who need more details should refer to psychology texts for a better understanding of behaviorism. As an instructor, it is important to keep in mind that behaviorism is still widely used today, because controlling learning experiences helps direct students toward specific learning outcomes.

Punishment is defined as anything which decreases the probability of a particular behaviour, either by the production of something unpleasant or the removal of something rewarding after the behaviour.

Table 3: A summary of reinforcement and punishment.

	Effect on Behaviour	Examples suitable for the classroom
Positive reinforcement	Increase	Praise, merit marks, sweets for good contributions to class discussion.
Negative reinforcement	Increase	Removal of threat of detention if a pupil produces past homework.
Punishment - produce something unpleasant	Decrease	Keep a child back during breaktime or give them a detention.
Punishment - remove something pleasant	Decrease	Prevent child from joining in a game at the end of the lesson.

A particularly effective way to reduce the occurrence of a behaviour is to ensure that it is not reinforced; this is known as extinction. Punishment is less effective because it only suppresses behaviour temporarily; eventual removal of punishment allows the behaviour to reappear. Skinner also added that punishment has unpleasant side-effects such as group unhappiness.

Other central ideas include:

• Secondary Reinforcers. These would not normally be reinforcing in themselves, but are recognised as steps on the way to obtaining the reinforcement. For a rat learning a route through a maze, the recognition of a particular part of the maze is reinforcing as it confirms that it is on its way to the food at the end. In this way a chain of simple behaviours can be set up to produce something more complex.
  In other instances a secondary reinforcer can be paired with more than one primary reinforcer; it is then known as a generalised reinforcer. The obvious example is money, but it could be stars in school; ten stars could be traded for a primary reinforcer, perhaps a chocolate bar(footnote 3). Other secondary reinforcers that can be used in the classroom include verbal praise, points and grades.
• Discriminative Stimuli. These antecedents signal when a particular behaviour will have a certain effect and when it won't. For example the discriminative stimulus might be the teacher; one can be baited another refuses to be.
• Reinforcement Schedules. These describe the reinforcement regime; reinforcement is presented after
  fixed or variable-
  periods of time or number of behaviour instances.
  In general using partial reinforcement ie not for each response was found to produce the most enduring learning.

CONCLUSSION