Behaviourists Theory

  Behaviourists believe they can analysis students when they are enduring changes in observable behavior. They also stated that, the result of mental processes is not observable so it cannot be taken into account. Based on my observation at the school canteen, I realized everyone is practicing for association as association is the result from pairing stimulus and responses. When association between stimulus and response happened, students can understand some signs given by the teachers. For the example, teacher or teacher’s instruction will become stimulate students’ responses. My friends and I did the observation based on Form 1 students and Form 2 students, which have some different in the aspects of age and their experience in the school.

For the Form 2 students, they already associated themselves well and know all the rules regulation in the school as compared to Form 1 students. Form 2 students will choose to have lunch politely at the canteen or have a group discussion with their mates. Next, Form 2 students also take a good care of the school environment as they practice to throw the rubbish in the dustbin and not to litter them around. When the break time is over, Form 2 students will queue up to enter the class automatically and as for the Form 1 and Removed students, they will wait for the teachers to urge them. Form 2 students can listen to teachers’ instruction very well as compared to Form 1 and Removed students. Form 1 and Removed students, which is just entered the secondary school, are not behave well like Form 2 students. Especially, they failed to queue up when they are trying to get their food and they keep wandering around the school during recess.

There are a big difference that can be observed in the aspect of behavior between Form 2 and Form 1, Removed students. Form  2 students entered the secondary school earlier than the Form 1 and Removed students and this cause Form 2 students know clearly about what should they do. They have been taught how to associate unconditional stimuli and neutral stimuli to produce conditional response. For example, Mahatma Gandhi said, “Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.” 

From my point of view, Form 1 students are still not associated themselves well in the aspects of rule and regulation in their school. For association process, where by linking a close relation between stimuli and responses, the students need to take time to practice discipline behavior and perform it in their daily life. Teachers in the school act as the stimuli to create responses from the students. In this case, I believe that, in the theory of behaviorism, the concept of learning does not measure the mental capacity or understanding but learning is learned through a connection of stimuli and responses.

As I take a look in an incident, where the teacher urges the students to go back into their classroom after the recess bell ring, after a time, the students’ behavior will change and respond not only to the teachers’ instruction but also towards the ringing bell. I think, the theory of behaviorism is estimated by stimuli and responses, which involved only physical elements that we can see. One of these elements included feedback from the audience or the students. Behavioral learning theories explain how we learn and focus on changes in behavior (Slavin, 2012). In the other words, behaviorism theory applying changes in the way the person behave and the result of changes in the form of attitude.

The attitude differences between Form 1 and Form 2 students can be explained by classical conditioning theory. Classical conditioning is defined as “the process of repeatedly associating a previously neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus in order to evoke a conditioned response” (Slavin, 2012, p. 117). As Form 2 students exposed to the rule and regulations of the school earlier than Form 1 and Removed students, they already associated themselves with the stimuli and provide a conditioned response. In addition, discipline also can associate in them through the theory of behaviorism where the teachers become the role model, encourage their students to provide responses and feedback for a particular event.

            As a conclusion, classical conditioning theory is a scientific theory to evaluate the behavior of a person or an animal because this theory provides evidence by doing some experiments. For the example, Ivan Pavlov makes conclusion and explains the detailed of classical conditioning after doing a well-known experiments such as make a dog salivate and response to the sound of a bell. Thus, classical conditioning theory provides the best explanation to define the behavior of the students.