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“Self-confidence does not necessarily guarantee success, but self-disbelieuse undoubtedly generates failure.” (Albert Bandura)
Those who are new in the theory of social learning may not establish the immediate link with an individual’s beliefs on his own capacities; However, self-efficacy is a basic principle of Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. In this segment of learning theories, we make a deep dive in the psychologist Albert Bandura, his contributions to the theory of social learning, how his ideas have evolved and how teachers can capitalize on the theory of social learning to increase success and other positive results for students in the class.
The man behind the ‘Bobo Doll’
Albert Bandura was born in Canada in 1925 from immigrant parents of Polish and Ukrainian origin. He obtained his baccalaureate, master’s degree and doctoral diplomas in psychology before being hired as a professor at the University of Stanford in California. There, Bandura’s research has perfected the gaps in theories of social and behavioral learning existing by figures like BF Skinner, which did not consider the potential influence of social variables in the acquisition of new learning and responses.
Bandura is best known, perhaps, for the “Bobo Doll” experience. In this study, the researchers abused a doll – both physically and verbally – while the preschool children observed. Later, children imitated the behavior of researchers, proving the Bandura hypothesis that children can learn through the behavior of adults. Bandura’s conclusions led him to develop what was described as “social learning theory” in the 1960s.
What is social learning theory?
As originally explained in 1963, the theory of social learning was mainly aligned with previous behavioral theories – the new component was the emphasis on imitation in learning. He said the following:
- When someone witnesses a “model” performing specific behavior, as well as the consequences of this behavior, they can commit the sequence of actions in memory and recall these data to guide their future behaviors.
- People do not learn new behaviors simply by trying them, then succeeding or failing. Instead, they largely depend on the imitation of action sequences by other people.
- People choose to reproduce or reject certain behaviors depending on how they observe that others are rewarded or punished for these behaviors, or the results of these behaviors.
In other words, the monkey see, the monkey does (or ne …).
Over time, Bandura’s social learning theory has moved away from the behavioral end of the spectrum and closer to the cognitive end. He published a significant revision to his theory in 1977, which included the concept of self-efficacy at the heart of his theoretical framework. In this revision, individual choices, efforts and feelings about these choices are affected by their beliefs about their own capacities to carry out certain behaviors to achieve certain results. Bandura was the first person to establish this link, and the main pillars of the theory of social learning were revised to make the following arguments:
- Learning is both behavioral And cognitive. It also occurs in a social context.
- Learning occurs by strengthening due to the fact of observing a behavior And its consequences (which have social ramifications).
- Learning implies observation, drawing conclusions from observations and making subsequent decisions (which do not necessarily lead to a change in observable behavior).
- Although strengthening is essential to learning, it is not the only cause of learning.
- Thanks to the concept of mutual determinism, cognition, environment and behavior influence each other and the learner
Here we can connect the advanced theory of Bandura and Paulo Freire’s criticism of the “banking model” of education, in which students are considered to be passive “banks” in which teachers make “deposits” of information.
See also What is Vygotsky’s social learning theory?
After almost a decade of continuous research, Bandura again revised her theory of social learning in 1986. Now called “social cognitive theory”, Bandura claimed that, in addition to the interaction between the person, their environment and their behavior – the past experiences of a person also help to determine their actions. Such experiences are not limited to physical behavior, but also include preceding expectations, expectations and reinforcements. While other theorists attribute greater influence to one of the three areas of environment, behavior and cognition in the way a person behaves, Bandura has given them equal weight in the learning process.
At this stage, Bandura would most likely have agreed with the often repeated quotation in education: “Madness does the same thing again and again and expects a different result. “”
4 Principles: Decompose an evolving theory
Although Albert Bandura died in 2021, his contributions to psychology will continue to stimulate future research on learning in social contexts. If readers remove something from this post, learning must be directly correlated to social models, which can be observed in person or via the media. We can summarize the latest edition of Cognitive Social Theory / Bandura learning by focusing on the following four principles:
- Attention: An observer pays attention to particular social behaviors. Their ability to pay attention depends on their accessibility to what is observed, on the relevance of behavior, the complexity of behavior, the perceived value of behaviors and its own cognitive and preconceived capacities of the observer.
- Retention: An observer keeps the sequence of behavior and consequences, which they can recover for future imitations of behavior.
- Production: An observer repeats behavior in a different social context and receives comments from other observers, which they can use to adjust the way they perform behaviors in future contexts.
- Motivation: An observer is motivated to repeat behaviors according to social responses and the consequences they receive when they imitate behavior.
How can teachers use social learning theory in class?
The best question may be: is there an aspect of school experience where social learning does not apply? From the management of classrooms and collaborative learning to gamification and by providing comments, Bandura theory is largely applicable.
- Manage the class: Teachers can use a positive and negative strengthening to motivate students to carry out certain behaviors (that is to say, lift a student verbally by remaining on the task, by participating or by presenting themselves to learn to learn in a coherent way).
- Make transitions or clarifications: Teachers can use physical and / or verbal clues to arouse students’ attention (that is to say, launch a call and an answer, using a hand signal or pointing an object).
- Teaching planning: Teachers must integrate multimodal learning to help students keep new information (that is, the presentation of new content via visual, hearing and kinesthetic modes).
- Support intrinsic motivation: Teachers can use rewards and strengthening to help students develop confidence, self-efficacy and love for learning (that is, offering verbal praise or constructive comments concerning the monitoring of progress and the establishment of objectives).
- Incorporate collaborative learning: Teachers can create time in each lesson so that students can practice and learn with various students (models) in low -challenges. We know that students pay more attention to their friends and peers than to other adults. For more about it, see 8 ways to help students learn more from others than they do with you
- Try an reverse class model: In this model, students watch a video or lesson at home and observe the behavior of others during class learning activities. Thanks to strengthening, students can apply observations to their own learning. (* Refer to the reverse class article).
- Apply the principles of gamification to lessons: gamification naturally creates rewards and reinforcements for positive behavior, Increase in students’ motivation. If you want to know more about how to “gamify” your class, read our article “12 examples of gamification in class.”
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When educators have in -depth knowledge of the functioning of social learning, they can use integrate its four principles in all areas of the class to amplify the positive results for their students. One of the main criticisms of social learning theory is that it does not take into account certain environmental considerations in the learning process.
Several examples include the learning environment (noise, temperature, quantity of space), whether the basic needs of a learner have been met or not (such as adequate sleep, nutrition and health), and the impact of poverty on the ability of a student to learn. While teachers make aware efforts to amplify social learning in their classes, they can keep these considerations in mind.
