What is learning? Learning is usually defined as a change in an individual caused by experience. Changes caused by development (such as growing taller) are not instances of learning. Neither are characteristics of individuals that are present at birth (such as reflexes and responses to hunger or pain). However, humans do so much learning from the day of their birth (and some say earlier) that learning and development are inseparably linked. The problem educators face is not how to get students to learn; students are already engaged in learning every waking moment. Rather, it is how to help students learn particular information, skills, and concepts that will be useful in adult life.

The systematic study of learning is relatively new. Not until the late nineteenth century was learning studied in a scientific manner. Using techniques borrowed from the physical sciences, researchers began conducting experiments to understand how people and animals learn. Two of the most important early researchers were Ivan Pavlov (Classical Conditioning) and Edward Thorndike's Law of Effect. Among later researchers, B. F. Skinner was important for his studies of the relationship between behavior and consequences (Behaviorism).

What are some principles of behavioral learning? Principles of behavioral learning include the role of consequences, reinforcers, punishers, immediacy of consequences, shaping, extinction, schedules of reinforcement, maintenance, and the role of antecedents.

THE PREMACK PRINCIPLE One important principle of behavior is that we can promote less-desired (low-strength) activities by linking them to more-desired activities. In other words, access to something desirable is made contingent on doing something less desirable. For example, a teacher might say, "As soon as you finish your work, you may go outside" or "Clean up your art project, and then I will read you a story." These are examples of the Premack Principle.

Consequences that weaken behavior are called punishers. Note that there is the same catch in the definition of punishment as in the definition of reinforcement: If an apparently unpleasant consequence does not reduce the frequency of the behavior it follows, it is not necessarily a punisher. For example, some students like being sent to the principal's office or out to the hail, because it releases them from the classroom, which they see as an unpleasant situation. As with reinforcers, the effectiveness of a punisher cannot be assumed but must be demonstrated. Punishment can take two primary forms.

The principle of extinction holds that when reinforcement for a previously learned behavior is withdrawn, the behavior fades away. Does this mean that teachers must reinforce students' behaviors indefinitely or they will disappear? Not necessarily. For example, students may initially require frequent reinforcement for behaviors that lead to reading. However, once they can read, they have a skill that unlocks the entire world of written language, a world that is highly reinforcing to most students. After a certain point, reinforcement for reading may no longer be necessary, because the content of reading material itself maintains the behavior.

Some Antecedent stimuli, events that precede a behavior, are also known as cues, because they inform us what behavior will be reinforced and/or what behavior will be punished. Other antecedent stimuli are discrimination stimuli (knowing when a behavior is likely to be reinforced and generalizations (a transfer of behaviors learned under one set of conditions to another.)

How has social learning theory contributed to our understanding of human learning? Social learning theory is a major outgrowth of the behavioral learning theory tradition. Developed by Albert Bandura, social learning theory accepts most of the principles of behavioral theories but focuses to a much greater degree on the effects of cues on behavior and on internal mental processes, emphasizing the effects of thought on action and action on thought.

Meichenbaum developed a strategy (called self-regulation) in which students are trained to say to themselves, "What is my problem? What is my plan? Am I using my plan? How did I do?" This strategy has also been used to reduce disruptive behavior of students at many grade levels. For example, poor readers have been taught to ask themselves questions as they read and to summarize paragraphs to make sure they comprehend text.

Behavioral learning theories are limited in scope, with strengths and weaknesses. This fact remains because these theories are based almost entirely on observable learning and observable behavior. It seems that social learning theories tighten the gap between cognitive theories and behavioral theories.