Learning, Knowledge and Human Development MOOC’s Updates

Essential Update #1: Behaviorism – role of free will, teachers, intelligence tests

Author's note: Also posted on Coursera as I was confused by the instructions about Discussion Forums. ​

BEHAVIORISM

Free Will: Skinner posits that human beings have only so much agency over their behavior as they have been conditioned to respond with to external stimuli. Even to acquire such conditioning, each person has an innate, natural capacity, not more. Once triggered by a stimulus, a person shall -- they must -- respond reflexively as they've been conditioned to do so, and as much as they were able to learn within their natural limits. Operant conditioning can thus be used to control a subject's behavior, implying there's no room for free will in Skinner's framework.

Teachers: Teachers provide operant conditioning within the confines of a subject's nature. There is no further nurturing a teacher can deliver, e.g., to increase a subject's learning capacity.

Intelligence Tests: In behaviorism, an intelligence test calibrates how much a person will ever be able to learn, and potentially what they would be suited to learn. Such tests have been used -- perhaps controversially -- even in Authentic Education: e.g., students have traditionally been deemed "ready" or not for more or less rigorous colleges/universities based on their "standardized" aptitude test. This approach gives no latitude for the student's cultural, social, or linguistic endowment, and certainly none for neuroplasticity.

ABA & the "Wipsee" - a Case Study of mixed metaphors:

Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) is a counseling technique often used with autistic children. An ABA counselor guides the subject through a series of atomicized stimuli with desired responses. A canonical form of a stimulus/response is: "When presented with a fruit, Kashif will correctly identify it in 2 out of 5 trials, without prompt (aid)." Correct responses are often reinforced with cheers or a preferred activity (e.g., running up and down the hallway once). As the child gains mastery, the bar is raised and the stimuli made more complex, until the child graduates or plateaus. ABA is thus decidedly behaviorist in its pedagogy.

The progress of children taking ABA counseling is periodically measured (18-24 months) using a battery of tests. One of those is the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence test (WPPSI, commonly vocalized as "Wipsee"). This test calibrates a subject relative to their age-peers in verbal, performance, and processing speed. In that sense, the WPPSI and accompanying tests seem similar to other "IQ" tests. However, rather than impassively relegating a subject into a percentile, ABA therapists use these tests to recommend a counseling plan that helps children close the gap between their "mental age" and that of their age-peers. That is, the WPPSI finds utility as a developmentalist's building block, not just as a behavioralist's chisel. Moreover, ABA counselors can often modify the task plan with input from the family to suit the family's cultural norms (i.e., socio-cognitive adjustment).

Sources:

  • Kashif Ali
  • Jana Epke
  • Jana Epke