Explain Skinner's theory of learning in detail along with its educational importance. Explain in detail Skinner's Theory with their educational implications. OR Critically explain Skinner's obstetric theory. Critically examine the skinner's Operant Conditioning Theory .
Skinner's Operant Conditioning Theory B.F. in stimulus-response theories. Skinner's theory is very important. Skinner was an American psychologist. This theory of his was rendered in 1938. When Skinner was a professor at Harvard University, he developed some instruments to systematically and objectively study behavior. That is why this theory of his is known by various names such as - operative contracting theory, functional contract theory, causal research theory, active optimized response theory etc. Skinner was a behaviorist, so he did many experiments on the instinctive actions of rats and pigeons. Skinner's theory is more commonly known as the obstetric contract because it is based on certain actions that a person has to perform. This theory of Skinner is different from the classical and traditional research theory of Pavlov.
According to Pavlov's theory, the dog was tied to the table and was inactive. The dog did not perform any action, but performs the action applicable in Skinner's theory, they remain active and that is why this theory is called the theory of action.
Meaning of Operant Conditioning Kriya - To understand the meaning of maternity contract, look into the past of your school life, when you used to tremble in the name of going to school, you used to get angry after seeing the rickshaw driver. You used to consider him as your enemy, did not feel like in school at all, used to cry remembering mother, father, siblings, used to keep silent when the teacher called or gave some food. Then he used to cry, he used to be silent and then this sequence continued till the school was over and you reached your home. Then the second day would come, you would again refuse to go to school and sit in anguish. He used to go to school only after loving mother very much and getting money or toffee. The day when all this is not available, they would sit on strike. Slowly you grew up and started taking interest in studies and friends. Now you yourself started going to school without any greed. According to Skinner, you went to school in both the situations, but in the first case greed took you to school while in the second case the interest in studying. The first condition is classical adaptation and the second one is obstetric adaptation. That's why Skinner says that reinforcing stimulants or artificial stimulants should not be given with or immediately after the response, but after the expected response. They again say that you let the subject respond first and if you are satisfied with his response then go ahead with reinforcement because the reward strengthens the response in the form of reinforcement and motivates to do the same action again. Finally, the learner repeats the desired behavior frequently and behaves as the other wants it to behave.
Thus, the expected response and reinforcement are the two main points of this theory and this is the reason why this theory is known as response-stimulus instead of stimulus-response. Thus the essence of learning is not the stimulus-substitution but the improvement of the response. Skinner has explained his theory by explaining two types of behavior
(1) Emitted Behavior
(2) Elicited Behavior
(1) Emitted Behavior Watson believed that without a stimulus there is no response. Skinner did not agree with this theory. According to him the responses which are due to some stimulus are called response behaviour. Examples of this type of behavior are all kinds of instinctive behaviour, such as withdrawing hands when a pin is pricked, blinking of eyelids in bright light and drooling when food is seen, etc. On the contrary , the responses which occur voluntarily ie without any stimulus , are called obstetric behavior , e.g. by the child leaving one toy and taking another , the movement of one's hand or foot by a person here and there , here and there . - To walk there and do some reading and writing etc. According to Skinner, most behaviors are obstetric, such as whether or not to respond to the ringing of the telephone depends on the person's desire. Skinner has also called these behaviors as S-type and R-type and some people are elicited and amitid. That is to say, the operative behavior does not depend on the stimulus but on the response or behavior. Here the person has to do something first, only then he gets some reward as a result and his behavior is reinforced. For example, a child finishes school assignments and soon after, the parents encourage him with a smile or praise. On the second day the child again finishes his work and he is again praised for doing good work. Skinner emphasizes this type of reinforcement and its adequate and immediate. According to him, today's teacher is not able to reinforce desirable tasks to the students quickly and adequately, which is a shortcoming of effective teaching. Active behavior occurs voluntarily and is not under the control of any provocateur.
(2) Elicited Behavior such as blinking of eyes when light comes on and twisting of body parts when alpin is pricked are examples of reactive behavior. In Active Conditioning, the reinforcement is strengthened by activity and weakened by Extinction.
• What is Reinforcement?
(What is Reinforcement) Reinforcement refers to an increase in the likelihood of a response being repeated over and over again. W. F . According to Hill- "Reinforcement is the result of the response, which increases the likelihood of that response happening in the future." Reinforcement helps a lot in performing the desired behavior by emphasizing the obstetric behavior. Reinforcement of a behavior or response when it occurs, refers to some kind of planning by which the probability of that type of response or behavior occurring again is increased. We can reinforce the response or behavior in two ways.
1. Positive Reinforcement - These are those stimulants that increase the possibility of active response when attached to the situation, such as food, water, sexual contact, wealth, respect, praise and social recognition etc. Receipt .
2. Negative Reinforcement - It is that stimulating. Which, when removed from the situation, strengthens the possibility of an active response, such as voice, insult, dot-reprimand, loud voice, bright flashes of lightning, scary light, loud heat and cold etc. The electric shock acts as a negative reinforcement for the rat as the shock causes pain and compels it to follow the right path.
Reinforcement can play its role well in the direction of teaching the desired behavior to the animal through verbal contract only when it is used properly. In this view, reinforcement is organized in the following four ways:
1. Fixed Ratio Schedule: In this schedule, reinforcement is given by deciding how many times the reinforcement should be given in response to the correct response. For example, giving a feed for 50 correct pecking of a pigeon or 4 : 1 means that for 4 times the correct answer is reinforced only once.
2. Fixed Interval Schedule - In this schedule the learner is given reinforcement after a certain time. This period of time interval can be a minute, hour, day, week or month. For example, in an experiment, after every 3 minutes, some part of the food is given to the mouse or the servant is given salary after a week or food is given at a fixed time etc.
3. Cent - Percent Schedule - In this schedule every correct response or behavior of the learner is reinforced. According to Skinner, by this type of reinforcement, the animal learns a response very quickly. At the same time, there is a limitation of this schedule and that is that the response also vanishes soon after the reinforcement is abolished.
4. Partial Schedule While doing reinforcement according to this schedule, right or wrong response is not given importance but reinforcement is given indefinitely. That is, sometimes the reinforcement is done in it and sometimes the reinforcement is stopped. That is to say, reinforcement can be done at any time and after any number of responses. That's why it is also called variable reinforcement. Experiments Conducted by Skinner Skinner first did his work on rats and later on pigeons. For this he made a box which is known as Skinner Box and this box is believed to be a modified form of Thorndike's tangle box.
Experiment 1 - The box made by Skinner is dark and wordless. In this box, the hungry mouse had to go through a narrow path with grills to reach the target. Before starting the experiment, the rat was kept hungry for a certain number of days and it was also undertaken to remain active in order to obtain food. There was also a lever in the box. The rat would move on the right path, its foot would fall on the liver and there would be a sound of knocking. As soon as he stepped on the liver, the light bulb would burn and with the sound of knocking, he would have got some food in the cup. The mouse runs here and there in surprise. He didn't see food for the first time. The rat continues its activities. After some time or late the mouse sees the food and eats it. The rat continues these activities. He presses the lever again and this time also with the sound of a whisper, the food falls into his cup. In further attempts, the rat presses the liver more quickly and obtains food more quickly. Here the sound of pressing the lever and the food received acted as reinforcement. The meaning of these actions is that the rat learned to press the lever to obtain food, and as the rat received reinforcement, the process of responding correctly and reaching the goal increased intensified. Skinner then modified the procedure and allowed the rat to get food when the lever was pressed, only when it was accompanied by a melodious sound. Gradually the rat normalized and began to press the lever only when there was a sound.
Experiment 2 - This second experiment was done on Skinner's pigeons. To conduct experiments on pigeons, he used another plant, which is called pigeon box. In this experiment with pigeons, Skinner set the goal that the pigeon should learn to peck at a certain place by making a complete round to the right. Just as the hungry pigeon, locked in the pigeon box, turned to the right and pecked at a certain place, he got a grain of grain. By this grain, the pigeon got reinforcement to repeat its correct behavior and it again turned to the right and did the pecking process. As a result he again got a grain of grain. In this way gradually the pigeon turned its head to the right and made a complete round and learned the method of getting grain by pecking. Similarly, Skinner taught the bird to play ping-pong. In another experiment, he taught the pigeon to play with the ball as well. He put the pigeon in a cage or closed space with a small ball, which he could move with his beak. Now he observes that under what conditions he does the movements with the ball with his beak - a full stomach, in the dark, in the light, if in the light, how in the light etc. Again, when Skinner discovered the situation in which the pigeon made more movements with the ball, he created the same situation over and over again so that the pigeon eventually learned to play with the ball. Criticism of Operant Conditioning Theory - Skinner's theory has also been criticized
Some important points of criticism are as follows:-
(1) Although learning by active adapted response is an important principle, it does not provide an adequate explanation of all types of learning.
(2) Skinner confined his study to low-level animals because their behavior is simple and the conditions around them can be controlled well, so this theory failed to explain human learning. Is .
(3) This principle states that there should be a special kind of adaptation for certain types of learning. This theory fails to explain how we do higher thoughts, reasoning and willful actions etc.
(4) Skinner does not consider the place of Insight in learning. According to him, the solution of a problem is to be simple or to have knowledge of a previously solved problem similar to it. Thus, it is necessary to adapt the present problem to the problem solved earlier.
Educational Importance of Theory:-
This theory of Skinner holds a very important place in the field of education from the point of view of creative use. Both teachers and parents can use this principle to develop desired characteristics in the behavior of children. From the point of view of educational importance, the following things can be said about this theory
(1) This principle can be used well to bring about the desired change in the behavior of the child. As soon as the child steps towards the expected behavior, immediately
It is through appropriate reinforcement that this behavior should be encouraged. When the child starts to understand that no one is paying attention to him whether he studies or not, then he becomes indifferent towards studies. Therefore, the right and proper work of the child should be reinforced by smiling, sympathy, praise or giving more marks. In small classes, the child reads writing in the greed of chocolate.
(2) According to this principle, the reinforcement of desired and good behavior should be done immediately by giving a reward. Delay diminishes the effect. The teacher who gives homework. If he sees it the next day and writes his commentary on it, the students pay attention to the homework and bring it regularly. When homework is not supervised, students become apathetic and stop doing it.
(3) This principle can be used in teaching complex tasks. Skinner, through his experiments, taught rats and pigeons responses that were beyond their normal behavior. Similarly, the behavior of a person is so complex that it is not possible to change it in the desired direction. According to Skinner, it can be transformed into a whole only by dividing it into small pieces. This belief of Skinner is very useful in teaching, especially in spelling and pronunciation.
(4) According to this theory, appropriateness of response and success of work is the best source of motivation. Food is a good motivator for rats and pigeons. And two words of appreciation to the student, knowing his correct answer, encouraging gestures of the teacher, feeling of success, more marks, rewards, freedom to do the desired work, etc. are good motivators from the student's point of view. Skinner thus places great emphasis on motivation in the field of education.
(5) Skinner attaches great importance to reinforcement in learning. The use of programmed instructional system and teaching machines in teaching is based on this principle. In this system the student learns according to his own pace and ability. The student proceeds only when he is attracted by the correct answer otherwise not. In this system the entire subject matter is divided into small sections. The student moves from one section to another only after he has learned the first section. The same is true in the teaching machine as well.
(6) According to this theory of Skinner, the knowledge of the progress of students accelerates the pace of their learning. Skinner said that there are many such tasks in our daily life, whose reward we get, not immediately but after some time. For example, artists, workers working in factories or mills. Still, they have faith that they will surely get rewarded for their work one day and in this hope, they keep their heart engrossed in their work.
