Operant and Classical Conditioning the Essay

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To achieve better results, strategies could therefore be devised to ensure that all students understand the instructions provided.

One way to do this is to encourage students to ask for help. Students who received undesirable results after their second attempt, therefore, were divided into groups where the first and second groups, who eventually achieved success, provided clarification of the instructions. This ensured peer education, where the learners were able to encourage and help each other. Each group was given the opportunity to submit one essay in which they all participated. The outcomes for these essays were consistently desirable. The final group, therefore, received direct peer instruction and could learn exactly what was meant by the instructions.

As a final strategy, a new essay topic was given to individual students, with the same basic format and premise. This resulted in undesirable results for only three students. On resubmission, these students also improved significantly.

The conditioning in the above example, as in most teaching situations, therefore occurred by design. First, desirable results primarily constitute a high mark. Secondarily, a desirable outcome is the effort level resulting from high grades at the start. Following instructions accurately therefore resulted in a high grade and a lower effort level, in terms of not having to resubmit essays once or twice.

The teacher herself then also was able to change her actions in order to achieve the desired results from students.
This is a fundamentally scientific method inherent in the behavioral sciences. The teacher observes a certain condition and outcome and modifies her actions according to the results achieved and the possible results hypothesized. This is a typically scientific method of going about practical research, particularly in the behavioral and learning sciences.

In learning, the assumption is necessarily that learners can change their behavior when certain rewards and punishments are implemented in the process (Hergenhahn and Olson, 2010, p. 4). The environment in this particular context therefore plays a more important role than the genetic, or natural, component.

While teaching does not assume that all components of the personality can be manipulated by reward and punishment, it is assumed that learning behavior can be manipulated and modified by means of rewards and punishments. The scientific method to accomplish desirable results consists of modifying rewards and punishments to achieve the maximum results.

In conclusion, the scientific method of teaching and a fundamental understanding of operant conditioning are vital in the effective teaching process and general education processes. Educators should therefore be familiar with scientific methods to modify behavior.

References

Hergenhahn, B. & Olson, M. (2011). An introduction to theories of personality (8th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice-Hall.

Kobayashi, S., Shultz, W., and Sakagami, M. (2010, Apr.). Operant Conditioning of Primate….....

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