Skinner's theory focuses on learning and ideas based on programmed instruction

and teaching machines. Above all, this essay will then further look into Skinner’s
theories and I for one agree with his teaching machines and programmed instruction
being better than having teachers teach in front of a classroom.
Skinner was interested in psychology after he had read Pavlov’s Conditioned
Reflexes in 1927 and Watson’s Behaviourism in 1924.(Schunk, 2012,p.88).Skinner
formulated a behavioural theory that was famously known as operant conditioning in
1904-1990.A series of papers that were released by Skinner were showed results of
labouratory studies that were focused on animals in which Skinner noticed the
different components of operant conditioning in the beginning of the 1930s. He used
the “Skinner Box” whereby a rat was placed in the box ,in order for it to roam around
freely and to see if it would press the lever that automatically released a pellet of
food or water ,also presee the bar continuously to get the reward.Schunk,2012)
Skinner (as cited in Schunk,2012),Skinner summarized much of his beginners work
in his fluential book called the Behaviour Of Organisms.
Schunk(2012) stated that Skinner applied ideas upon human problems. In the
beginning of Skinner’s career, he became intrigued in education and developed
teaching machines and programmed instructions. Schunk(2012, p.88)”The
technology of Teaching (Skinner,1968) addresses instruction, motivation, discipline
and creativity”. Operant conditioning was then applied by Skinner and others in
factors such as “school learning and discipline , child development, language
acquisition, social behaviours, mental illness, medical problems, substance abuse
and vocational training. (DeGrandpre,2000, Karely and Harris, 1986, Morris 2003,
cited in Schunk, 2012).
Skinner claims that “learning is the reassortment of responses in a complex situation
“ and that conditioning refers to “the strengthening of behavior which results from
reinforcement”.( Skinner as cited in Schunk, 2012). There are two types of
conditioning which are namely Type S that is based on the Pavlovian conditioning
that was described with the pairing of the unconditioned stimulus with another
conditioned stimulus. The Type S conditioning focused more on explaining the
conditioned emotional reactions ,basically on human behaviours.Type R is the other
condition named by Skinner to elaborate more on the response aspect ,because it
links to operates on the environment which is under operant behaviour. (Schunk,
2012)
Schunk (2012, p.90). “ Reinforcement is responsible for strengthening – increasing
the rate of responding or making responses more likely to occur”.A reinforcer has
been categorized as any stimulus or an event that follows a response that has lead
to a response strengthening. The reinforcers were defined due to their
consequences which did not rely upon mental processes such as consciousness,
intentions or goals (Schultz, 2006 as cited in Schunk ,2012).Reinforcers are normally
direct , therefore it applied to individuals at a given period under given
circumstances. (Schunk,2012)
On the other hand, Skinner had basic operant models of conditioning in three terms
contingency, namely being a discriminative stimiuls, a response and a reinforcing
stimulus. A discriminative stimulus groups the event for a response to be
emitted ,initially followed by a reinforcing stimulus which speculates the increase of
the probability that the response will emit in the future in the presence of a
discriminative stimiuls. (Schunk, 2012).
According to Skinner, a positive reinforment “involves presenting a stimulus or
adding something to a situation following a response which increases the future
likelihood of the response occurring in that situation “(Schunk,2012,p.91) and the
negative reinforment included the removal of a stimulus that would increase the
future likelihood of a response occurred in that situation. To be precise ,some stimuli
always work as negative reinforcers, stimulus such as criticism , loud noise, bright
lights ,annoying people and low grades, due to their behaviors that take away them
tend to be reinforcing.However,a negative and positive reinforcements have the
similar result ,because they both increase the likelihood that the response will make
in the future in the presence of the stimulus. (Schunk,2012).
Skinner says that “extinction involves the decline of response strength due to non
reinforcement “.(Schunk,2012,p.93). Extinction is not similar to forgetting, because
forgetting simply deals with the memory loss and not remembering anything that has
happened or how it should be done ,but with extinction you do not forget ,there is just
lack of reinforcment. For example, when a bird hurts its wing, it will not fly for a while
until it heals ,but when it heals after a long time it will continue flying like it used to.
Additionally ,there is the primary reinforcer stimuli which involves food,water and
shelter and then there is the secondary reinforcer stimuli that becomes conditioned
after being paired with primary reinforcers. A secondary reinforcer stimuli occurs
when there is more than one primary reinforcer paired to it therefore its then called
the generalized reinforcer.For example, a farmer plants vegetables, orchards and
keeps live stock in order to sell to urban city businesses therefore he/she makes
money (generalized reinforcer) which he uses to buy more land and resources to
grow crops and feed to his/her livestock. (Schunk,2012)
A premack principle is a behavioural result that has reinforcing that happens when it
has been allied and seen how it affects the future behaviour. The premack principle
says that “the opportunity to engage in a Kore valued activity reinforcers engaging in
a less valued activity, where “value”is defined in terms of the amount responding or
time spent on the activity in the absence of reinforment “.(Schunk,2012,p.93).When a
contingency has been set up in such a manner they the value of the second event is
now greater than the value of the first event, an increase will be stimulated in the
probability of the occirance of the first occasion. Alternatively, if the value of the
second occasion is lesser than that of the first occasion, the likelihood of occurrence
if the first occasion will eventually decrease.To demonstrate, a child would prefer to
get home and go play with friends or watch television rather than doing homework
first ,instead we will use the television and playing with to our advantage by making
what they value most a reward for doing and finishing homework hence they will
always do homework first so that they can be rewarded to watch television or play
with friends.(Schunk,2012)
The premack principle shows what “people do when they have a choice, and order
those behaviors in terms of likelihood” (Schunk,2012,p.94)even though the rule is not
permanent ,because the value of reinforces can change at a certain point.
(Schunk,2012).
Punishment was set up to decrease the future likelihood of a response to a stimulus
and may include removing a positive reinforcer or presenting a negative reinforcer
following a response. Punishment is usually brought about by the responses that are
incompatible enough to suppress it,but not remove it.(Skinner ,1953 as cited in
Schunk,2012). Schunk (2012,p.94) “punishment can condition maladaptive
behaviours, because punishment does not teach how to behave more productively”.
Generalization is a certain response that happens oftenly to a given stimulus, the
response may also happen to a different stimulus. (Skinner, 1953 as cited in
Schunk,2012). Generalization was specified to be reinforced by many different
behaviours acted out by people leading it to the final responses. In addition,
generalization does not happen automatically, it is programmed as well as every
other behavioural change.
Discrimination has been seen as a response that includes responding differently due
to what type of stimulus or feature of a situation (Rilling ,1977 as cited in
Skinner ,2102). Take the case of how a child is able to differentiate between his/her
parents,of who is the mother and who the father is. “Spence (1936) proposed that to
teach discrimination, desired responses should be reinforced and unwanted
responses extinguished by nonreinforecement”.(Schunk,2012, p.98).
In addition to all that has been said about learning, is now going to view points based
on the ideas focused on programmed instruction and teaching machines yet why I
agree with it being better then having teachers stand infront of a class and teach.
Schunk (2012) stated that programmed instruction has been presented as
instructional materials which had been made in association with operant conditioning
principles of learning (O'Day,Kulhavy, Anderson and Malozynski,1971). The teaching
machines were established by Sidney Pressey in the 1920s which were literally
meant for writing tests. Multiple-choice questions were set up for the students, so
that they could answer questions of their choice by just pressing a button that was on
the machine. On the contrary, students moved on to the next choice if only they
responded correctly, but of not, the machine would keep record or the error and they
would have to redo the item until they get it right. (Schunk, 2012).
Schunk (2012) quoted that “Skinner revived Pressey's machines in the 1950s and
modified them to incorporate instruction (Skinner,1958)”. Nevertheless, students
were introduced to teaching machines with materials of small steps. All the frames
required the pupils to make an overt response. The materials were carefully put in
order and broken into small units to make the errors less. Feedback on how they
performed was immediately given to students after each response ,in order for them
to know how they had performed . Supplementary resources where given to students
when they got incorrect answers and if the answer was right ,they would move to the
next frame.(Schunk, 2012,p. 109).
The machines were created to decrease errors and ensure that pupils typically
succeeded, but the program did have the occurance of errors(Benjamin, 1988 as
cited in Schunk, 2012). In spite of wanting students to do well ànd achieve good
results, it was not a good idea to block out errors and researchers suggested that it
was not desirable because the students had to learn from their mistakes and correct
them. It was found by Dweck(1975) that failing was increasing in a daily basis on
difficult tasks rather than increasing constant success.(Schunk,2012).
The programmed instruction did not only consider the use of the machine ,but had a
book by Holland and Skinner (1961) which was a demonstration of a programmed
instruction.The programmed instruction has now been computerized and most
computer instructional programs have installed principles of behavioural instruction
and it incorporates many different principles based on behavioural instruction(O'Day
et all.,1971 as cited in Schunk ,2012).
Furthermore ,the programmed instruction showed shaping,performance increments
were small and pupils were always close to responding correctly. Two programs
were discovered due to how the learner’s errors were treated , namely being the
linear program which dealt with the structuring in a certain way that all learners go
through them in the same order. Nonetheless the program did not considered if the
learners response was right or wrong, the students were able to move to the next
frame with or without the correct answer therefore they received their results of the
accuracy of their answer. Schunk (2012)Moreover, there is the branching program
which were put up for students’ movement through them depending on how they had
responded to the questions. Slow learners got additional help ,as for fast learners
skilled frames and bypass more of the repetition of the linear program.
Although, the branching program had its faults which they did not provide enough
repetition to make sure that all students learnt and understood the concepts. Bangert
et all.,(1983); Lange, (1972) as cited in Schunk (2012) noted that the linear and
branching programs do actually promote learning equally and that the programmed
instruction is the same and effective as conventional classroom teaching.
Consequently, the teaching machines did have its faults ,but then sooner realised
that students need to learn from their mistakes and the branching and linear program
established that. Even teachers in a classroom make errors and some particularly
very impatient with students who are slow therefore enjoy working with students who
are fast learners. With the programmed instruction, students are not rushed to finish
or discriminated, because the machine records their errors and gives them
supplementary materials when they respond incorrectly. Feedback is given back
immediately after answering à question, so that they know where and how they went
wrong.
According to Skinner’s theory was that all behaviours are learnt through experience
and that environment suppresses shape of children’s behaviour is what he believed
in.(Strickind,D, Schickedanz, J. 2009,p.7)
References
Crain, W.C. (2012). Theories of Development : Concepts and Applications. (Third
Edition). Englewood-Cliffs, New Jersey : Prentice-Hall (Chapter 8: Learning Theory:
Pavlov, Watson and Skinner).

Schunk, D.H. (2012). Learning Theories – An Educational Perspective. (Sixth

Edition). New York: Pearson (Chapter 3: Behaviourism)

Strickind, D, Schickedanz, J. (2009). Learning about print in preschool :working with

letters, words and beginning links with phonemic awareness. New York: International
Reading Association (Chapter 1: Cognitive Development)