Behaviorism is the worldview by some psychologists that learning is as a result of response to some external stimuli in the environment of an organism. This implies that the organism in question, or the learner, allows things to happen and does not influence them from within him/her, or rather, the organism is passive. Behaviorists do not subscribe to the existence of mental processes as being important determinants to learning, they believe that learning starts at a point referred to as tabula rasa, loosely translated as “blank slate” (Schnaitter, 1987). Behaviorists, therefore, focus on the stimuli, the response to the stimuli, and ultimately, the results or punishment from a given response to stimuli, also known as conditioning. Cognitivism portend that learning is as a result of the mental activities of an organism. According to cognitivism, learning, therefore, results from the brain as it receives, processes, stores, codes and analyze information (Ertmer, & Newby, 2013). A learner is, therefore, not programmed to react to stimuli in a certain way, but thinks and makes rational decisions. Proponents of cognitivism contend that to understand learning, it is important to explore the “black box” which is an organism’s mind.
A typical example of behaviorism is a dog that salivates when it sees a bowl used for its food if the owner makes it a habit of giving it food in that bowl at a specific time of the day. Even without food in the bowl, the dog reacts to the site of the bowl by salivating. The test in the Aesop’s Fable Paradigm is a good example of cognitivism, in the test, a crow is able to think and use stones to raise the water level in a pitcher so that it can drink. The successful application of behaviorism, i.e. systematic desensitization to treat phobias, has proven behaviorism to be a good approach to explain learning. One weakness of behaviorism is that explaining learning through behavior is limited as some behaviors are just hereditary and not as a result of environmental stimuli. Cognitivism is based on a lot of experimental results, hence is a scientific process that gives valid results with other exogenous factors controlled, however, it has a weakness in that it is a mechanical approach by trying to relate the human brain to a computer, it does not consider complexities such as emotions which also influence learning (Ertmer, & Newby, 2013). Cognitivism is appropriate for learning that involves reasoning and analysis of facts while behaviorism suffice for skills resulting from continuous practice.
References
Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism: Comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 26(2), 43-71.
Schnaitter, R. (1987). Behaviorism is not cognitive and cognitivism is not behavioral. Behaviorism, 1-12.
