Bandura’s theory

Bandura

Bandura’s theory has many implications for education. You may recall that Bandura believes that anything that can be learned by direct experience can also be learned from observation. Bandura also believes that models are most effective if they are seen as having respect, competence, high status, or power. Thus, in most cases, teacher can be highly influential model. Through careful planning of what is presented, teacher can be teach not only routine information and skills but also problem-solving strategies, moral code, performance standards, general rules and principles, and creativity. Teacher can model conduction, witch is then internalizes by student and thus becomes the standarts for self-evaluations. For example, internalize standard become the basis for self-criticism or self-praise. When students act accordance with their own standards, the experience is reinforcing. When the actions of students fall short of their standarts, the experience is punishing. Thus, for bandura, as for the gestalt theorists and Tolman, intrinsic reinforcement is far more important than extrinsic reinforcement. In fact, says Bandura, extrinsic reinforcement can actually, reduce a student’s motivation to learn. Reaching a personal goal is also reinforcing, and thus teachers should help students formulate goals that are neither to easy nor too difficult to achieve. This formulation, of course, need to be done individually for each student.

To say that student students learn what they observe is an oversimplication since observational learning governed by four variables that must be taken into consideration by teacher. Attentional processes will determine what is observed by the students, and the such processes will vary as a function on both maturation and the student’s previous learning experience. Even if something is attended to and learned, it must be retained if it is be of any value; thus retention processes are important, According to Bandura, retention is largely determined by one’s verbal ability. A teacher must, therefore, take the verbal ability of the students into consideration when planning a modeling experience. Even if something is attended to and retained, the student may not have the motor skills necessary to reproduce  a skill after it has been learned. Thus, a teacher must be aware of a student’s behavioral production processes. Lastly, even if students attend to and retain what has been observed and are capable of behaviorally producing their observations, they must have an incentive for doing so. Thus the teacher must be aware of motivation processes. At this point extrinsic reinforcement may be useful. For example, student maybe willing to demonstrate what they have learned if they are offered points, stars, grades, or the admiration of the teacher. Note, however, that extrinsic, reinforcement is being used to influence performance rather than learning.

            

We see that observational learning has many educational implications, but to use it effectively in the classroom the teacher must take into consideration the attentional, retentional, motor and motivational processes of each student. With this things in mind, film, television, lectures, slides, tapes, demonstrations, and displays, can all be used to model effectively a wide variety of educational experiences.