Major theories of Development and Learning

No one theory has proved adequate to describe and explain learning or development. Numerous theories
of development have influenced educational practices during the 20th century (Aldridge, Kuby, &
Strevy, 1992), and currently a shift is affecting theories of child development and education. Some of
the historical and current theories that have influenced education include Gesell's (1925) maturational
theory, Skinner's (1974) behaviorist approach, Freud's (1935) psychoanalytic theory, Piaget's (1952)
constructivist theory, Vygotsky's (1978) sociohistorical approach, Bronfenbrenner's (1989) ecological
sysstems theory, and Gardner's (1983) multiple intelligences theory. More recently, critical theory (see
Kessler & Swadener, 1992) has influenced education and child development practices, even though
critical theory is not a theory of development. Finally, postmodern conceptions have changed the way
we think of children and how to educate them (Elkind, 1995,2000/2001).

Maturational Theory
The maturational theory of Arnold Gesell (1925) continues to affect what goes on in schools,
particularly in early childhood classrooms in some parts of the United States. Gesell based his theory
on three major assumptions: (a) development has a biological basis, (b) good and bad years alternate,
and (c) body types (endomorph, ectomorph, mesomorph) are correlated with personality development
(Thomas, 1992). Maturational theory strongly influenced the teaching of reading in the mid 1900s
(Morphett & Washburne, 1931). Children were not thought to be ripe for reading until they had a mental
age of six and a half years. Consequently, readiness activities were developed for children who were
not yet ready to read. Some of this nonsense still occurs in preschool, kindergarten, and even primary-
level classrooms. Today, maturational theory is partially responsible for the existence of
prekindergartens and pre first grades aimed at children who supposedly need the" gift of time," because
of immaturity or a late birthday. These classrooms tend to have a ratio of boys to girls of anywhere
from 7:1 to 10:1 (Aldridge, Eddowes, & Kuby, 1998).

Practitioners subscribing to maturational theory consider any difficulties a child experiences as being
found within the child. This oversimplistic explanation for anything from reading problems to Attention
Deficit (Hyperactivity) Disorder (AD[H]D) is extremely limiting to children and to those who work
with them. If a problem lies within a child, then what value does a supportive (or, for that matter, a
nonsupportive) environment have?
Another, perhaps unintentional consequence of maturational theory is the recently popular "late
birthday" phenomenon. Children in classrooms who are the youngest and have a "late birthday" are
often branded by the teacher as slower and less ready for instruction. Many teachers report other
instructors as saying, "I knew the child would have problems. He has a late birthday."

Behaviorist Theory
The behavioral theories of Skinner (1974) and Bijou (1989) also continue to influence what goes on in
schools, especially for some special education programs. The mechanistic theory of behaviorism
emphasizes the role of the environment on an individual's development. Preparing the environment for
appropriate reinforcement is a major goal.

Two examples of Skinner's (1974) contribution to education include behavior modification and
programmed learning. Both of these rely heavily on immediate reinforcement, in which a child has to
exhibit the "right" behavior or produce the "correct" answer in order to be positively reinforced.

Teachers using behavioral theory will consider any difficulties a child has as being found within the
environment. As with Gesell's (1925) overemphasis on nature, Skinner's (1974) overemphasis on
nurture limits our understanding of children and their differences. Applications of this theory have
resulted in an overemphasis on isolated skills and drill, as well as a heavy reliance on teacher-directed
and teacher-reinforced activities. Consequently, teachers often ignore children's curiosity and prior
knowledge.
 Many educators believe the theory behind No Child Left Behind is behaviorism. The methods reported
to be scientifically based are rooted in the behaviorist tradition, and so the methodology recommended
under No Child Left Behind is behavioral in nature.

Psychoanalytic Theory
Freud's (1935) psychoanalytic theory served as the theoretical basis for analysis of behavior disorders
during the 1920s through the 1940s. "Behavior problems displayed by children were viewed as
symbolic manifestations of unresolved conflict, often emanating from early caregiver-child
interactions" (Hinshaw, 1994, p. 10). Problems with attention and activity levels were attributed to
unconscious processes. Play therapy was the recommended form of intervention, with accompanying
therapy for the child's parents. Psychodynamic models continue to have an effect on education and
intervention for children with special needs.

One of the biggest problems with psychoanalytic theory is the inherent allocation of blame on parent-
child interactions—more specifically, on the mother's actions. Fortunately, theoretical shifts have
moved from a blame-the-parent model to more bidirectional, transactional, and interactional models of
childhood differences.

Behaviorism
• Founders and proponents: John B. Watson in the early 20th century. B.F. Skinner, Ivan Pavlov, and
others.
• Basic idea: Stimulus-response. All behavior caused by external stimuli (operant conditioning). All
behavior can be explained without the need to consider internal mental states or consciousness.
• Learner viewed as: Passive, responding to environmental stimuli.
• Behavior may result in reinforcement (increased likelihood that behavior will occur in the future); or
punishment.

Cognitivism
• Founders and proponents: Replaced behaviorism in 1960s as dominant paradigm. Noam Chomsky.
• Basic idea: Mental function can be understood
• Learner viewed as: Information processor
• Cognitivism focuses on inner mental activities — opening the “black box” of the human mind. It is
necessary to determine how processes such as thinking, memory, knowing, and problem-solving occur.
People are not “programmed animals” that merely respond to environmental stimuli; people are rational
beings whose action are a consequence of thinking.
• Metaphor of mind as computer: information comes in, is being processed, and leads to certain
outcomes.
Constructivism
• Founders and proponents: John Dewey, Jean Piaget, Jerome Bruner, Lev Vygotsky, others.
• Basic idea: Learning is an active, constructive process.
• Learner viewed as: Information constructor.
• People actively construct or create their own subjective representations of objective reality. New
information is linked to to prior knowledge, thus mental representations are subjective.
Humanism
• Founders and proponents: Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, others.
• Basic idea: Learning is a personal act to fulfill one’s potential.
• Learner viewed as: One with affective and cognitive needs.
• Emphasis on the freedom, dignity, and potential of humans.
Learning is student-centered and personal, facilitated by teachers, with the goal of developing self-
actualized people in a cooperative, supportive environment.
Cognitivism
The cognitivist paradigm essentially argues that the “black box” of the mind should be opened and
understood. The learner is viewed as an information processor (like a computer).
 CONTENTS

Contributors
Key Concepts
Resources and References
CONTRIBUTORS
• Marriner David Merill (1937 – )
• Charles Reigeluth (1946 – )
• Robert Mills Gagné (1916 – 2002)
• Jerome Bruner (1915-2016)
• Roger Schank (1946 – )

KEY CONCEPTS
The cognitivist revolution replaced behaviorism in 1960s as the dominant paradigm. Cognitivism
focuses on the inner mental activities – opening the “black box” of the human mind is valuable and
necessary for understanding how people learn. Mental processes such as thinking, memory, knowing,
and problem-solving need to be explored. Knowledge can be seen as schema or symbolic mental
constructions. Learning is defined as change in a learner’s schemata[1][2].
A response to behaviorism, people are not “programmed animals” that merely respond to
environmental stimuli; people are rational beings that require active participation in order to learn, and
whose actions are a consequence of thinking. Changes in behavior are observed, but only as an
indication of what is occurring in the learner’s head. Cognitivism uses the metaphor of the mind as
computer: information comes in, is being processed, and leads to certain outcomes.
Constructivism
Constructivism as a paradigm or worldview posits that learning is an active, constructive process. The
learner is an information constructor. People actively construct or create their own subjective
representations of objective reality. New information is linked to to prior knowledge, thus mental
representations are subjective.
CONTENTS
Contributors
Key Concepts
Resources and References
CONTRIBUTORS
• Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (1896 – 1943)[1]
• Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980)[2]
• John Dewey (1859 – 1952)
• Jerome Seymour Bruner (1915 – 2016)

KEY CONCEPTS
A reaction to didactic approaches such as behaviorism and programmed instruction, constructivism
states that learning is an active, contextualized process of constructing knowledge rather than acquiring
it. Knowledge is constructed based on personal experiences and hypotheses of the environment.
Learners continuously test these hypotheses through social negotiation. Each person has a different
interpretation and construction of knowledge process. The learner is not a blank slate (tabula rasa) but
brings past experiences and cultural factors to a situation[3][4].
NOTE: A common misunderstanding regarding constructivism is that instructors should never tell
students anything directly but, instead, should always allow them to construct knowledge for
themselves. This is actually confusing a theory of pedagogy (teaching) with a theory of knowing.
Constructivism assumes that all knowledge is constructed from the learner’s previous knowledge,
regardless of how one is taught. Thus, even listening to a lecture involves active attempts to construct
new knowledge.
Vygotsky’s social development theory is one of the foundations for constructivism.
 Bandura - Social Learning Theory
By Saul McLeod, updated 2016

In social learning theory, Albert Bandura (1977) agrees with the behaviorist learning theories
of classical conditioning and operant conditioning. However, he adds two important ideas:
1. Mediating processes occur between stimuli & responses.
2. Behavior is learned from the environment through the process of observational learning.
Observational Learning
Children observe the people around them behaving in various ways. This is illustrated during the
famous Bobo doll experiment (Bandura, 1961).
Individuals that are observed are called models. In society, children are surrounded by many influential
models, such as parents within the family, characters on children’s TV, friends within their peer group
and teachers at school. These models provide examples of behavior to observe and imitate, e.g.,
masculine and feminine, pro and anti-social, etc.
Children pay attention to some of these people (models) and encode their behavior. At a later time they
may imitate (i.e., copy) the behavior they have observed.
They may do this regardless of whether the behavior is ‘gender appropriate’ or not, but there are a
number of processes that make it more likely that a child will reproduce the behavior that its society
deems appropriate for its gender.
First, the child is more likely to attend to and imitate those people it perceives as similar to itself.
Consequently, it is more likely to imitate behavior modeled by people of the same gender.
Second, the people around the child will respond to the behavior it imitates with either reinforcement
or punishment. If a child imitates a model’s behavior and the consequences are rewarding, the child is
likely to continue performing the behavior.
If a parent sees a little girl consoling her teddy bear and says “what a kind girl you are,” this is rewarding
for the child and makes it more likely that she will repeat the behavior. Her behavior has been
reinforced (i.e., strengthened).
Reinforcement can be external or internal and can be positive or negative. If a child wants approval
from parents or peers, this approval is an external reinforcement, but feeling happy about being
approved of is an internal reinforcement. A child will behave in a way which it believes will earn
approval because it desires approval.
Positive (or negative) reinforcement will have little impact if the reinforcement offered externally does
not match with an individual's needs. Reinforcement can be positive or negative, but the important
factor is that it will usually lead to a change in a person's behavior.
Third, the child will also take into account of what happens to other people when deciding whether or
not to copy someone’s actions. A person learns by observing the consequences of another person’s
(i.e., models) behavior, e.g., a younger sister observing an older sister being rewarded for a particular
behavior is more likely to repeat that behavior herself. This is known as vicarious reinforcement.
This relates to an attachment to specific models that possess qualities seen as rewarding. Children will
have a number of models with whom they identify. These may be people in their immediate world,
such as parents or older siblings, or could be fantasy characters or people in the media. The motivation
to identify with a particular model is that they have a quality which the individual would like to possess.
Identification occurs with another person (the model) and involves taking on (or adopting) observed
behaviors, values, beliefs and attitudes of the person with whom you are identifying.
The term identification as used by Social Learning Theory is similar to the Freudian term related to the
Oedipus complex. For example, they both involve internalizing or adopting another person’s
behavior. However, during the Oedipus complex, the child can only identify with the same sex parent,
whereas with Social Learning Theory the person (child or adult) can potentially identify with any other
person.
Identification is different to imitation as it may involve a number of behaviors being adopted, whereas
imitation usually involves copying a single behavior.

Mediational Processes
 SLT is often described as the ‘bridge’ between traditional learning theory (i.e., behaviorism) and the
cognitive approach. This is because it focuses on how mental (cognitive) factors are involved in
learning.
Unlike Skinner, Bandura (1977) believes that humans are active information processors and think
about the relationship between their behavior and its consequences.
Observational learning could not occur unless cognitive processes were at work. These mental factors
mediate (i.e., intervene) in the learning process to determine whether a new response is acquired.
Therefore, individuals do not automatically observe the behavior of a model and imitate it. There is
some thought prior to imitation, and this consideration is called mediational processes. This occurs
between observing the behavior (stimulus) and imitating it or not (response)

There are four mediational processes proposed by Bandura:

1. Attention: The extent to which we are exposed/notice the behavior. For a behavior to be imitated, it
has to grab our attention. We observe many behaviors on a daily basis, and many of these are not
noteworthy. Attention is therefore extremely important in whether a behavior influences others
imitating it.
2. Retention: How well the behavior is remembered. The behavior may be noticed but is it not always
remembered which obviously prevents imitation. It is important therefore that a memory of the behavior
is formed to be performed later by the observer.
Much of social learning is not immediate, so this process is especially vital in those cases. Even if the
behavior is reproduced shortly after seeing it, there needs to be a memory to refer to.
3. Reproduction: This is the ability to perform the behavior that the model has just demonstrated. We see
much behavior on a daily basis that we would like to be able to imitate but that this not always possible.
We are limited by our physical ability and for that reason, even if we wish to reproduce the behavior,
we cannot.
This influences our decisions whether to try and imitate it or not. Imagine the scenario of a 90-year-
old-lady who struggles to walk watching Dancing on Ice. She may appreciate that the skill is a desirable
one, but she will not attempt to imitate it because she physically cannot do it.
4. Motivation: The will to perform the behavior. The rewards and punishment that follow a behavior will
be considered by the observer. If the perceived rewards outweigh the perceived costs (if there are any),
then the behavior will be more likely to be imitated by the observer. If the vicarious reinforcement is
not seen to be important enough to the observer, then they will not imitate the behavior.

Critical Evaluation
Social learning theory is not a full explanat
The social learning approach takes thought processes into account and acknowledges the role that they
play in deciding if a behavior is to be imitated or not. As such, SLT provides a more comprehensive
explanation of human learning by recognizing the role of mediational processes.
However, although it can explain some quite complex behavior, it cannot adequately account for how
we develop a whole range of behavior including thoughts and feelings. We have a lot of cognitive
control over our behavior and just because we have had experiences of violence does not mean we have
to reproduce such behavior.