Behaviourism

Learning theory as applied in my workplace...

Classical Conditioning

I regard classical conditioning as a suitable tool only when you’re seeking to elicit specific or limited behaviours; where there isn’t necessarily an expectation that the learner will generalize that behavior across multiple or divergent settings, or to stimuli that vary notably from the conditioning stimulus.  It is of use when the learner is not required to comprehend the task or apply insight, but merely reacts in a pre-determined way.

 

For example, in my clinical practice I use classical conditioning when assessing hearing with children between 9 and 24 months of age.  Loud sounds are presented into the room and a brightly coloured puppet is shown in a lighted puppet window.  The desired behavior is that the child will associate hearing the sound with seeing the puppet, and will be motivated to look for the puppet whenever they hear the sound, even as the intensity of sound is decreased.

It’s not a technique that I consciously employ when working with adult clinicians, who I expect to apply clinical judgment in decision making, to reflect on the success of the process and develop and apply refinements or alternative processes when the initial approach is unsuccessful.  

Operant conditioning

In our workplace we adopt a behaviouralist approach to ensuring  compliance with many regulatory requirements,  for example Workplace Health and Safety or  HR requirements.  These are areas where there are high volumes of material, which are generally highly proscribed, with low frequency of use by individual staff.  There are generally a limited number of ways a situation may present and limited room for discretion in determining acceptable outcomes. However breaches may potentially have high consequences.   Consequently, there is an identified workplace officer to assist staff when any uncertainty of interpretation arises.  Time constraints are the primary reason for adopting this approach. 

My approach in training with these materials is, wherever possible, to have a pre-training quiz.  Those employees who can demonstrate familiarity with and comprehension of the material are not required to complete any further training.  It also allows targeted training for those staff who have knowledge or performance gaps.   This acknowledgment of prior learning saves the company time and helps avoid staff disgruntlement.

However within the broad scope of material, specific areas may be selected for further activities.  They are generally chosen for having a higher probability of occurrence or for having catastrophic consequences even if the probability of occurrence is low.   For example, I employ a more social constructivist approach to addressing the topics of workplace bullying and harassment.  In contrast, emergency evacuation procedures are considered situated learning, specific to the context in which they  occur.   For this reason evacuation drills are conducted at each office rather than at centralized training days.  Feedback is immediate and specific to that environment.   The activity is directed by an authority figure, as we are aiming for competence to carry out that activity in that environment rather than a generalized capability or what, in the military, would be regarded as ‘situational appreciation’.

I may use a behavioural approach to training procedural elements of clinical service, for example  in learning how to apply electrodes,  determining if masking is required in audiometric testing and learning how to operate clinical equipment.   I also employ a behaviouralist approach to some simple manual tasks within the workplace, where the focus is purely that the task be completed, for example loading and unloading the dishwasher in the staffroom.

Another key area where I incorporate operant conditioning principles is when providing feedback,  both at an individual and group level.  For example, after a session supervising an inexperienced clinician,in addition to asking them to reflect on how they felt the session went, I provide explicit feedback, which includes positive reinforcement of the aspects they delivered well  and any improvement in emergent skills.  “ It was great that you  invited  the client to identify which symptom was most important to them. Did you notice how their body language relaxed after that? ”

Behavioural approaches, as exemplified in Bloom’s taxonomy and subsequent revisions, support a hierarchical structure of learning progression, requiring mastery of each level before progressing to subsequent levels.

Image:  File:Bloom's Rose.png - Wikimedia Commons                                        

                   https://www.flickr.com/photos/21847073@N05/5857112597/in/photostream/

I agree with those who challenge the hierarchical structure, as I believe there is the potential to be developing  competency in multiple   areas simultaneously.   I like the concept of a ‘learning spiral’,  with the implication that you are moving through different areas but aiming to perform at a higher level on each pass through the area, or of a learner oscillating between levels of learning and mastery.

I don’t think the behaviouralist approach is as successful for ‘big picture learners’ who want to grasp the context and higher level interactions  before focusing on specific details.

While observed behaviours can provide clues, when it comes to mentoring clinicians  on developing  and exercising  clinical judgment I don’t just want to see what they did,  I want to know:

• Why they did it.
• What they think and feel about what they did. 
• What if anything they will do differently the next time.

Despite the inclusion of the affective domain in the taxonomy , I generally find the behavioural approach  less effective in areas such as assessing whether a clinician is developing a sense of professionalism.   I find that when I try to write learning goals in the affective domain they can feel artificial or contrived. They tend to evolve  into either very sweeping statements that probably don’t really help the learner, or specific constrained goals that don’t really cover the scope of desired outcomes.