Criticism Of Behaviourism Essay

Decent Essays
My main criticism of behaviourism is its limitations in student learning. In a behaviourist classroom environment the focus is the teacher and their ability to deliver the knowledge, this means I have a high talk time and it is not about the pupils learning. Behaviourists also dismiss the ‘impact that the environment and the learner’s relationship to it, and…the process of thinking or cognition’ (Curzon and Tummons, 2013) has on learning. My final criticism is that the behaviourists do not take into account social learning an individual can gain from their peers and teacher in a classroom environment.

Cognitivisim

It was in the 1960’s that the cognitivist theories replaced behaviourism as the main paradigm in learning theory. ‘Cognitivism
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They maintain that information is actively processed and learning takes place by organising and finding relationships that exist between different pieces of information.’ (Gould, 2012) ‘Cognitive approaches are not a single theory but different strands, the main principles either focus on the brain and its neural connections or those that argues the mind works like a computer.’ (Gould, 2012) These strands offer differing views but are universal in agreement that ‘it is concerned with the internal processes involved in making sense of the environment, and deciding what action might be appropriate.’ (Eysenck and Keane, 2005 as cited Gould, 2012) The main principle that binds the strands of cognitivism is that ‘learning builds upon previous experience.’ (Gould, …show more content…
The main flaw with cognitivism is that learners are not machines. ‘With its roots in mechanism; cognitivism is still subject to the reductionism that leaves no room for meaningful human action. Cognitive science may have made advances over a strict stimulus/response view of the world, but a metaphor of inputs and outputs to explain how humans think a feel does not reconcile within mechanics and physical laws how humans are self-actuating. A machine, by default has no inherent meaning or sentience, but in humans, something is doing the filtering, the creating, and the development of meaning. A science that has at its core a metaphor that assumes there is no action until acted upon cannot fully explain human behavior, mental processes, or human meaning.’ (Name,

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