Eight Tips for More Effective eLearning: Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

How does learning happen? If the evidence that someone haslearned something is a change in that person’s behavior, what causes the changein behavior? How is the change moderated? How does it transfer to the job orbecome permanent? 

There have been many theories of learning, and there areresearch results that partially support at least some of them. But people learnall the time: through formal instruction, from other people, and from personalexperience, including trial and error. By considering the theories about howlearning happens, it becomes possible to construct methods and environmentsthat will initiate and facilitate learning, and to improve on those methods andenvironments to get better results.

In many respects, what people learn from other people, frompersonal experience, and from environmental circumstances is more significantthan what they learn through formal instruction.

“Social learning” is about more than using socialmedia to support collaboration and learning. It goes beyond how people useFacebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and other media, to consider how yourorganizational learning strategy can leverage the technology infrastructure tosupport behavioral change.

Social learning theory

Albert Bandura is a psychologist and the David Starr JordanProfessor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. Heis also one of the most influential psychologists in history. 

Bandura found that behaviorism, a widely-adopted learningtheory in the mid-twentieth century, did not adequately explain how learninghappens, and that, applied to instructional design, it did not supportsatisfactory, reliable behavioral change. Over the years from 1963 to 1977,through careful observation and reproducible investigation that produced validdata, Bandura developed what he referred to as social learning theory, orsocial cognitive theory. Social learning theory has found wide application,from management consulting practice to psychotherapy to education and training.

While social learning theory is a very complete and robustframework for explaining how learning happens, it is a framework that is noteasily reduced to sound bytes. However, it is built around a few key pointsthat are essential to understand in order to apply it in organizationalsettings.

• Learning is a cognitive process that takes placein a social context. (“Cognitive processes” in this case are higher mentalprocesses, such as perception, memory, language, problem solving, and abstractthinking.)
• Learning can take place simply throughobservation of the behavior of others or by direct instruction, even if thelearner doesn’t do anything, and even if there is no reinforcement.
• People also learn vicariously by observing rewardsand punishments. People tend to repeat or duplicate behaviors for which othersare being rewarded.
• In addition to observation, learning involvesobtaining information from those observations and making decisions aboutperformance of the behavior. The learner does not even need to demonstrate anobservable change in behavior (changes in mental processes are not oftenobservable).
• Reinforcement (recognizing and rewardingdesirable behavior in hopes that it will continue) is important, but is not theonly factor.
• Learners are not passive. Cognition (the mentalaction or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought,experience, and the senses), environment, and behavior influence each other.

Applying social learning theory to eLearning

eLearning does not exist in a vacuum. It will notnecessarily, all on its own, result in the performance and accomplishments thatthe organization desires. The designer must keep in mind that eLearning takesplace in a social context, and that the behavior of others (including what theyare rewarded or punished for), along with environmental factors such as rewardsystems and supervisory practices, can support or confound the desired results.

By building connections and support for the eLearning, throughplatforms that offer “social” features, the designer can increase theprobability of success. Social features in learning platforms may includediscussion pages, threaded discussions, chat rooms, and group pages. MOOCs(Massive Open Online Courses) are a format that can leverage social learningand that has been successful in some settings and for some topics. There arealso a number of educational social networking or peer-to-peer applications,many of them open-source or free, that can be useful.

eLearning designers should research these options for sociallearning support, and consider ways to use them.

Want more?

Social learning, learning environment design,and instructional designwill be addressed at The eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions Conference & Expo 2016 “Sharing WhatWorks” and at Ecosystem 2016 “Elevating Your Perspective,” March16-18, 2016 in Orlando. Good news: both conferences are included in theregistration!

References

Albert Bandura. SocialLearning Theory. New York: General Learning Press. 1971. Retrieved 3/1/16from https://www.esludwig.com/uploads/2/6/1/0/26105457/bandura_sociallearningtheory.pdf

Huitt, W., and David Monetti. “Social learning perspective.”In W. Darity, International Encyclopediaof the Social Sciences (2nd ed.). Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan ReferenceUSA/Thompson Gale. 2008. Retrieved 3/1/16 from https://www.edpsycinteractive.org/papers/soclrnpers.pdf

Wikipedia. “Social Cognitive Theory.” Retrieved 3/1/16 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_cognitive_theory