In a nutshell, educational experiences rooted in the learning theory of behaviorism reward correct behavior and punish incorrect behavior as a means of reinforcing knowledge.

 

In elementary school, I learned keyboard typing from the school’s computer teacher. These seemingly endless typing lessons were deeply rooted in behaviorism for multiple reasons!

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Behaviorists regard knowledge as "a set of passive, largely mechanical responses to environmental stimuli" ("Behaviorism").  True to form, the typing program I used in computer class assessed my knowledge of typing by determining if I had correctly typed each letter.  Typing correctly indicated that I knew how to type a particular keystroke correctly, but making a mistake indicated that I did not possess this knowledge.  If the program detected enough mistakes, it made us repeat the lesson until a certain percentage of proficiency was reached.

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The program was ahead of its time in that it also incorporated gamification elements related to behaviorism.  It offered my peers and I the opportunity to play a typing "game" (typing review disguised as highly gamified practice lessons) once we had mastered enough lessons.  We were rewarded by a cut scene of a space ship moving on to the next planet in the solar system within the "game" if we correctly typed an assigned phrase but had to start over from the beginning if we mistyped the phrase.  This sort of gamification is rooted in behaviorism because it reinforces a desired behavior either by encouraging a learning outcome and rewarding it or by removing specific benefits in order to make learners try to avoid undesired consequences of their behaviors (Keramida, 2017).

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The typing program offered on our computers was not the only source of behaviorist teaching in computer class.  Our computer teacher, who monitored whether we were completing each typing lesson correctly, reinforced correct behavior by punishing students who looked at their keyboards during the lessons to cheat the system. Not only would she call out the offender in front of the entire class (saying, for example, "Mary Beth, don't look at your keys!"), but she would also reduce the offender's grade in that class by a small amount each time it happened.  Since behaviorists view positive and negative reinforcement as the means of motivating learners to respond appropriately ("Behaviorism"), her use of punishment to discourage incorrect behavior was clearly a behaviorist tactic.