Analysis Behavioral Experiential

Compare and Contrast between two learning theory

Learning theories are referred as a conceptual framework which describes the way students process, gains and retain knowledge during their learning process. In this assignment, two learning theories that are Behavioural learning theory and Experimental learning theory are to be evaluated for comparing and contrasting them. The term evaluates means formation of an idea or judgement by assessing the value of a thing.

Behavioural learning theory informs that people learn from their experience which influences change in their probability to behave in a particular way in a particular situation (Schlüter et al. 2017). This learning theory can be simply reduced to be defined as A-B-C system. This means that the environment acts as an antecedent (A) that stimulates a behaviour (B) which ultimately results in the consequence of the action executed by the person (Lu and Lee, 2016). As mentioned by Olson (2015), Experimental learning theories inform that learning mainly occurs through experience and especially by learning through the way of reflection. This is therefore referred as an active process in which the learners incorporate in their real life the information that has been learned.

The benefit of behaviour learning theories is that it supports the idea of development of self-confidence and leadership traits by learning through experience and development (Berta et al. 2015). For instance, it has been found that patients who apply the theory of cognitive behaviour are able to show better attempt in bearing and managing pain and shows increased confidence to live and cope with the disease as reported by APA (www.apa.org, 2018). As commented by Cigno and Bourn (2017), benefit of behavioural theories is that it helps to increase self-belief. This is because when an individual is able to recognise the change to be made in their behaviour under particular situation learned through experience they develop self-belief that they can control themselves under any condition. As argued by Davis et al. (2015), limitation of the behaviour learning theories is that the outcome received regarding what has been learnt may not always be real. This is because of the difference in the internal reasoning power of the individuals or learner. The other limitation of behaviour learning theory is its lack of adaptability. This is because a behaviour which is learned in a certain cultural situation may not be universal enough to work in another cultural situation.

The benefit of experimental learning theory is that it accelerates the learning process and offers the student the freedom of thinking and operating differently in different situation without losing their confidence as the theory works on real-world situations (Kolb, 2014). The other benefit of the theory is that it improves teamwork and motivates the learner to learn and execute impactful activities. As criticised by Stein (2018), the limitation of experimental learning theories is that in this theory the outcomes of the learning cannot be properly predicted. Moreover, under this theory, the student receives too much entertainment which may result them to lose their focus on learning acting as a limitation in part of the theory.

Thus, it can be seen that the behaviour theories focus on external environment for changes in behaviour where the experimental theories put emphasis on the internalisation as well as reflection of experience. Therefore, behavioural learning theories can be used in situation where the learning experience of the students are to be gauged whereas the experimental theories can be used by the students as a form of subjective reflection on their learned action.

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References

• Berta, W., Cranley, L., Dearing, J.W., Dogherty, E.J., Squires, J.E. and Estabrooks, C.A., 2015. Why (we think) facilitation works: insights from organizational learning theory. Implementation Science, 10(1), p.1.
• Cigno, K. and Bourn, D., 2017. Cognitive-behavioural social work in practice. Routledge.
• Davis, R., Campbell, R., Hildon, Z., Hobbs, L. and Michie, S., 2015. Theories of behaviour and behaviour change across the social and behavioural sciences: a scoping review. Health psychology review, 9(3), pp.323-344.
• Kolb, D.A., 2014. Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. FT press.
• Lu, H. and Lee, H.I., 2016. Case study on four patterns of knowledge conversion: behavioural competency and social learning theory perspectives. Knowledge Management Research & Practice, 14(3), pp.270-279.
• Olson, M.H., 2015. Introduction to theories of learning. London: Routledge.
• Schlüter, M., Baeza, A., Dressler, G., Frank, K., Groeneveld, J., Jager, W., Janssen, M.A., McAllister, R.R., Müller, B., Orach, K. and Schwarz, N., 2017. A framework for mapping and comparing behavioural theories in models of social-ecological systems. Ecological Economics, 131, pp.21-35.
• Stein, M., 2018. Theories of experiential learning and the unconscious. In Experiential Learning in Organizations (pp. 19-36). Routledge.
• www.apa.org 2018, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Available at: