(EDUC 1)
MIDTERM REVIEWER
Child and adolescent learners and learning principles
Learner Centered Psychological Principles
14 Psychological Principles that pertain to learner and
learning principles
 Cognitive and Metacognitive Factors
1. Nature of the learning process (Cognitive and
Metacognitive Factors)
 The learning of complex subject matter is most
effective when it is an intentional process of
constructing meaning from information and
experience.
 Learning in schools emphasizes the use of
intentional processes that students can use to
construct meaning from information, experiences,
and their own thoughts and beliefs.
 Intentional learning- the practice of treating every
experience as an opportunity to learn something.
Rather than being something that occurs separately,
the desire to learn should be an always-on,
instinctive approach to everyday situations.
2. Goals of the learning process (Cognitive and
Metacognitive Factors)
 The successful learner, over time and with support
and instructional guidance, can create meaningful,
coherent representation of knowledge.
 To construct useful representations of knowledge
and acquire thinking and learning strategy
necessary for continued learning success across life
span learners must generate and pursue personally
relevant goals.
3. Construction of Knowledge (Cognitive and
Metacognitive Factors)
 The successful learner can link new information
with existing knowledge in meaningful ways.
 Knowledge widens and deepens as students
continue to build links between new information
and experiences and their existing knowledge base.
4. Strategic thinking (Cognitive and Metacognitive
Factors)
 The successful learner can create and use a
repertoire of thinking and reasoning strategies to
achieve complex learning goals.
 In its simplest form, strategic thinking is an ability to
plan for the future. it's the capacity to prepare
strategies and conjure ideas that will both cope with
changing environments and consider the various
challenges that lie ahead.
 Students understand and use variety of strategies to
help them reach learning and performance goals
and apply their knowledge in novel (new, original,
innovative) situations.
5. Thinking about thinking (Cognitive and
Metacognitive Factors)
 Higher order strategies for selecting and monitoring
mental operations facilitate creative and critical
thinking.
 Successful learners can reflect how they think and
learn, set reasonable learning goals, select
potentially appropriate learning strategy, monitor
their progress and know what to do if a problem
occurs.
6. Context of learning (Cognitive and Metacognitive
Factors)
 Learning is influenced by environmental factors,
including culture, technology and instructional
practices.
 Learning context refers to students' perceptions of
the course and the teaching/learning requirements.
 Contextual learning takes place when teachers are
able to present information in such a way that
students are able to construct meaning based on
their own experiences. Contextual learning
experiences include internships, service learning
and study abroad programs.
 Motivational and affective Factors
7. Motivational and Emotional Influences on learning.
(Motivational and affective Factors)
 What and how much is learned is influenced by
learner’s motivation. Motivation to learn, in turn is
influenced by the individual’s emotional state,
beliefs, interests, goals and habits of thinking.
 (EDUC 1)
MIDTERM REVIEWER
8. Intrinsic motivation to learn (Motivational and
affective Factors)
 The learner’s creativity, higher order thinking, and
natural curiosity all contribute to motivation to
learn. Intrinsic motivation is stimulated by task of
optimal novelty and difficulty relevant to personal
interests and providing for personal choice and
control.
9. Effects of motivation on effort. (Motivational and
affective Factors)
 Acquisition of complex knowledge and skills
requires extended learner effort and guided
practice. Without learner’s motivation to learn, the
willingness to exert this effort is unlikely without
coercion.
10. Developmental Influences of learning.
(Developmental and Social Factors)
 As individuals develop, there are different
opportunities and constraints of learning. Learning
is most effective when differential development
within and across physical, intellectual, emotional
and social domains is taken into account.
11. Social influences on learning. (Developmental and
Social Factors)
 Learning is influenced by social interactions,
interpersonal relations and communication with
others.
12. Individual differences in learning. (Individual
differences Factors)
 Learners have different strategies, approaches and
capabilities for learning that are a function of prior
experience and heredity.
13. Learning and diversity (Individual differences
Factors)
 Learning is most effective when differences in
learners’ linguistics, cultural and social backgrounds
are taken into account.
14. Standards and Assessment (Individual differences
Factors)
 Setting appropriately high and challenging standards
and assessing the learner as well as learning
progress including diagnostic, process and outcome
assessment are integral parts of the learning
process.
Social Cognitive Learning Theory
 Social Cognitive Theory
— Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) describes the
influence of individual experiences, the actions of
others, and environmental factors on individual
health behaviors. SCT provides opportunities for
social support through instilling expectations, self-
efficacy, and using observational learning and other
reinforcements to achieve behavior change.
Key components of the SCT related to individual
behavior change include
 Self-efficacy - the belief that an individual has
control over and is able to execute a behavior.
 Behavioral capability - understanding and having
the skill to perform a behavior.
 Expectations - determining the outcomes of
behavior change.
 Expectancies - assigning a value to the outcomes of
behavior change.
 Self-control - regulating and monitoring individual
behavior.
 Observational learning - watching and observing
outcomes of others performing or modeling the
desired behavior.
 Reinforcements - promoting incentives and rewards
 (EDUC 1)
MIDTERM REVIEWER

Social Cognitive Learning

 Assumes that development is centered with one’s
interaction with other people
 Imitation and modeling are central in the premise of
Albert Bandura’s learning new behavior
 Involves five processes :
– Attention
– Retention
– Intention
– motor reproduction
– motivation Sources of Self-Efficacy
 MASTERY EXPERIENCES – (Most powerful)
Successful experiences
 VICARIOUS EXPERIENCES – Accomplishments
modeled by someone else
 SOCIAL PERSUASION – “pep talk” or
encouragement
 AROUSAL – Physical and psychological reactions –
excited, tense

Bandura’s Famous Experiment-Bobo Doll

 In a famous and influential experiment known as
the Bobo doll experiment, Albert Bandura and his
colleagues demonstrated one way that children
learn aggression. According to Bandura's social
learning theory, learning occurs through
observations and interactions with other people

Self-Efficacy
 “Self-efficacy is the belief in one’s capabilities to
organize and execute the courses of action required
to manage prospective situations.” (Bandura, 1986)
 What does self-efficacy do?
– The choices we make
– The effort we put forth
– How long we persist when difficulty arises
– How we feel
Results
 Children who observed the aggressive model made
far more imitative aggressive responses than those
who were in the non-aggressive or control groups.
 There was more partial and non-imitative
aggression among those children who had observed
aggressive behavior, although the difference for
non-imitative aggression was small.
 The girls in the aggressive model condition also
showed more physical aggressive responses if the
model was male, but more verbal aggressive
responses if the model was female. However, the
exception to this general pattern was the
observation of how often they punched Bobo, and
in this case the effects of gender were reversed.
 Boys were more likely to imitate same-sex models
than girls. The evidence for girls imitating same-sex
models is not strong.
 Boys imitated more physically aggressive acts than
girls. There was little difference in the verbal
aggression between boys and girls.
Conclusion
 Bobo doll experiment demonstrated that children
are able to learn social behavior such as aggression
through the process of observation learning,
through watching the behavior of another person.
The findings support Bandura's (1977) Social
Learning Theory.
 This study has important implications for the effects
of media violence on children.
 (EDUC 1)
MIDTERM REVIEWER
Vicarious Reinforcement
 Vicarious Reinforcement Bobo Doll Study
 An observer's behavior can also be affected by the
positive or negative consequences of a model's
behavior. So we not only watch what people do, but
we watch what happens when they do things. This
is known as vicarious reinforcement. We are more
likely to imitate behavior that is rewarded and
refrain from behavior that is punished.
 Reinforcement gained by watching another person
is known as vicarious reinforcement.
Chapter 4 – Perspective and Approaches in the study of
human develop0ment
Learning Paradigm
 Learning theories work on assumption that people
undergo the stages of development through the
process of interaction with one’s environment via
observation, conditioning, reward, and punishment.
 The major premise of learning theories generally
revolves around the understanding of the
relationship of stimulus and response.
A. Classical Conditioning
B. Operant Conditioning
Learning
 Learning is a relatively permanent change in an
organism’s behavior due to experience.
 Learning is more flexible in comparison to the
genetically-programmed behaviors of Chinook
Salmon, for example.
How do we learn?
 We learn by association. Our minds naturally
connect events that occur in sequence.
2000 years ago, Aristotle suggested this law of
association. Then 200 years ago the philosophers
Locke and Hume reiterated this law.
Associative Learning:
Classical Conditioning - Learning to associate one
stimulus with another
Associative Learning -Learning to associate a response
with a consequence
Pavlov’s Experiments
 Before conditioning, food (Unconditioned Stimulus,
US) produces salivation (Unconditioned Response,
UR). However, the tone (neutral stimulus) does not.
 During conditioning, the neutral stimulus (tone) and
the US (food) are paired, resulting in salivation (UR).
After conditioning, the neutral stimulus (now
Conditioned Stimulus, CS) elicits salivation (now
Conditioned Response, CR)
Acquisition
 Acquisition is the initial learning stage in classical
conditioning in which an association between a
neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus
takes place.
1. In most cases, for conditioning to occur, the neutral
stimulus needs to come before the unconditioned
stimulus.
2. The time in between the two stimuli should be
about half a second.
Acquisition
 The CS needs to come half a second before the US
for acquisition to occur. Contiguity is the closeness
in time between the CS and US
 (EDUC 1)
MIDTERM REVIEWER
Extinction
 When the US (food) does not follow the CS (tone),
CR (salivation) begins to decrease and eventually
causes extinction
Spontaneous Recovery
 After a rest period, an extinguished CR (salivation)
spontaneously recovers, but if the CS (tone) persists
alone, the CR becomes extinct again.
Stimulus Generalization
 Tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the CS is
called generalization. Pavlov conditioned the dog’s
salivation (CR) by using miniature vibrators (CS) on
the thigh. When he subsequently stimulated other
parts of the dog’s body, salivation dropped
Stimulus Discrimination
 Discrimination is the learned ability to distinguish
between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli
that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus
Extending Pavlov’s Understanding
 Pavlov and Watson considered consciousness, or
mind, unfit for the scientific study of psychology.
However, they underestimated the importance of
cognitive processes and biological constraints.
 Learned Responses in everyday life:
Sex sells (attractive person paired with product)
Jingles (catchy advertising songs)
Celebrity endorsement
— Early behaviorists believed that learned
behaviors of various animals could be reduced
to mindless mechanisms
— However, later behaviorists suggested that
animals learn the predictability of a stimulus,
meaning they learn expectancy or awareness of
a stimulus (Rescorla & Wagner, 1972)
Higher Order Conditioning
 Also called second order conditioning, higher order
conditioning is classical conditioning with an extra
conditioned stimulus.
Another form of Associative Learning:
Operant Conditioning
 Learning to associate a response with a
consequence
Operant & Classical Conditioning
1. Classical conditioning forms associations between
stimuli (CS and US). Operant conditioning, on the
other hand, forms an association between
behaviors and the resulting events.
2. Classical conditioning involves respondent behavior
that occurs as an automatic response to a certain
stimulus. Operant conditioning involves operant
behavior, a behavior that operates on the
environment, producing rewarding or punishing
stimuli (consequences). Operant conditioning can
also be known as instrumental conditioning or
Skinnerian conditioning.
 (EDUC 1)
MIDTERM REVIEWER
Skinner’s Experiments
 Skinner’s experiments extend Edward Thorndike’s
thinking, especially his law of effect. This law states
that rewarded behavior is likely to occur again
 The law of effect can lead to superstitious behaviors
- actions that are only incidentally tied to good
results.
Operant Chamber
 Using Thorndike's law of effect as a starting point,
Skinner developed the operant chamber, or the
Skinner box, to study operant conditioning.
 The operant chamber, or Skinner box, comes with a
bar or key that an animal manipulates to obtain a
reinforcer like food or water through trial and error.
The bar or key is connected to devices that record
the animal’s response.
Shaping
 Shaping is the operant conditioning procedure in
which reinforcers guide behavior towards the
desired target behavior through successive
approximations. Chaining can be used to combine
learned behaviors
Reinforcement: Any event that strengthens the
behavior it follows. A heat lamp positively reinforces a
meerkat’s behavior in the cold.
Punishment - an aversive event that decreases the
behavior it follows
PRIMARY AND SECONDARY REINFORCERS
 Primary Reinforcer: An innately reinforcing stimulus
like food or drink.
 Conditioned Reinforcer: A learned reinforcer that
gets its reinforcing power through association with
the primary reinforcer.
Punishment
 Although there may be some justification for
occasional punishment (Larzelaere & Baumrind,
2002), it usually leads to negative effects.
a) Results in unwanted fears.
b) Conveys no information to the organism.
c) Justifies pain to others.
d) Causes unwanted behaviors to reappear in its
absence.
e) Causes aggression towards the agent.
f) Causes one unwanted behavior to appear in
place of another.
Reinforcement Schedules
 Continuous Reinforcement: Reinforces the desired
response each time it occurs.
 Partial Reinforcement: Reinforces a response only
part of the time. Though this results in slower
acquisition in the beginning, it shows greater
resistance to extinction later on.
Ratio Schedules
 Fixed-ratio schedule: Reinforces a response only
after a specified number of responses. e.g.,
piecework pay.
 Variable-ratio schedule: Reinforces a response after
an unpredictable number of responses. This is hard
to extinguish because of the unpredictability. (e.g.,
behaviors like gambling, fishing.)
Interval Schedules
 Fixed-interval schedule: Reinforces a response only
after a specified time has elapsed. (e.g., preparing
for an exam only when the exam draws close.)
 Variable-interval schedule: Reinforces a response at
unpredictable time intervals, which produces slow,
steady responses. (e.g., pop quiz.)
Cognition & Operant Conditioning
 Evidence of cognitive processes during operant
learning comes from rats during a maze exploration
in which they navigate the maze without an obvious
reward. Rats seem to develop cognitive maps, or
mental representations, of the layout of the maze
(environment).
 (EDUC 1)
MIDTERM REVIEWER

Latent Learning
 Such cognitive maps are based on latent learning,
which becomes apparent only when an incentive is
given (Tolman & Honzik, 1930).

Intrinsic Motivation
 Intrinsic Motivation: The desire to perform a
behavior for its own sake.
 Extrinsic Motivation: The desire to perform a
behavior due to promised rewards or threats of
punishments

Biological Predisposition
 Biological constraints predispose organisms to learn
associations that are naturally adaptive.
 Breland and Breland (1961) showed that animals
drift towards their biologically predisposed
instinctive behaviors (instinctive drift).

Skinner’s Legacy
 Skinner argued that behaviors were shaped by
external influences instead of inner thoughts and
feelings. Critics argued that Skinner dehumanized
people by neglecting their free will.

Applications of Operant Conditioning

 Skinner introduced the concept of teaching
machines that shape learning in small steps and
provide reinforcements for correct rewards.
 Reinforcers affect productivity. Many companies
now allow employees to share profits and
participate in company ownership.

Applications of Operant Conditioning

 At Home
- In children, reinforcing good behavior increases
the occurrence of these behaviors. Ignoring
unwanted behavior decreases their occurrence.
 (EDUC 1)
MIDTERM REVIEWER