1.0 SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY

1.1 Definition and Theory

The social learning theory is basically known as a learning situation

that involves the relationship between a learner and his environment.

The word social itself is defined as connected with activities in

which people meet each other for pleasure (Oxford Advanced Learner’s

Dictionary) thus, it is clear to understand that social learning is a

type of learning that involves the connection between people and their

surroundings; in depth on how their surroundings affect their

achievement in learning.

According to Bandura’s theory, social learning contains three

basic elements which are individual, environment and behaviour. The

individual process refers to intrinsic motivation; environment is the

external stimulus; and behaviour is the individual’s action (Mok Soon

Sang, 2008). The interaction between these three elements formed the

social learning process in which the individual’s motivation is

affected by the environment and created a new behaviour through what

he had learned during this process. In his famous Bobo doll

experiment, Bandura demonstrated that children learn and imitate

behaviours they have observed in other people. The children in

Bandura’s studies observed an adult acting violently toward a Bobo

doll. When the children were later allowed to play in a room with the

Bobo doll, they began to imitate the aggressive actions they had

previously observed. This explains that one’s behaviour is determined

by the interaction between an individual and his environment.

The process of social learning falls in many assumptions. Bandura

stated that learning through observation is a basic form of human

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behaviour. Thus, it can be understood that observation is an integral

part of learning. Observation learning occurs when individual’s

behaviours are learned from observation of others, who are called as

models (Mok Soon Sang, 2008). The observation process creates another

learning process which is modelling. Modelling plays the vital role in

social learning which from the process, an individual can learn by

observing the others. Modelling is identified to have four basic

elements, namely attention, retention, reproduction and reinforcement.

1.2 The Characteristics of Effective Model

People are influenced by the groups and institutions to which they

belong; their identity and development are shaped by their physical

and social environment (Seefeldt et. al, 2014). To ensure the learners

follow or imitate a desirable behaviour, they must be exposed to a

good model. The effective model to be used in social learning will

typically exhibit these following characteristics including

competence, prestige and power, and behaviour relevant to the

learners’ own situation.

Competence defined as the ability to do something well (Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). Normally, we admire people who can

achieve well in their performance and tend to follow or getting know

about their environment and imitate them so that we can possibly

achieve the same thing as they do. According to Ormrod (2003),

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students will typically try to imitate people who do something well,

not those who do it poorly. For example, the learners will try to

imitate their peers who possess the high performance in school or copy

the fashions of a popular classmate rather than those of student who

is socially isolated. Such situations influenced the decision of the

pupils in regards of imitating the one who can do something well and

abandoned the one who cannot do well. The teacher should be wise in

choosing the best or effective models to be used in teaching because

the consequences of using these models are between success and

failure.

The prestige and power are one of the major factor that

influenced the learners’ behaviour. Children and adolescents often

imitate people who are famous or powerful (Ormrod, 2003). Using some

of effective models, the popular or renowned people such as the

headmaster of the school, popular academic expertise and any of other

respected professionals, the police, doctor or nurse can help in

developing the learner’s desirable behaviour. As we already know, the

western education acknowledged the importance of exposing the children

to a variety of models that they are likely to view and admire because

they are well-known among the children. For example, if we asked the

pupils about their ambition, the most answers that we can hear is to

be a teacher, policeman, firefighter, nurse and doctor. It is because

these professions are always being highlighted to be the best models

for children to imitate through the media, books and films.

Lastly, behaviour relevant to the learner’s own situation is most

likely to be as the proverb “monkey see, monkey do”. Students are

most likely to model the behaviours they believe will help them in

their own circumstances (Ormrod, 2003). For example, a boy may wear

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the same attire that his popular classmates wear when he thinks that

he can become popular too. In the classroom, there are variety of

behaviours that are accepted and not, but the learners are less likely

to perceive the relevance of modeled behaviour. It is critical to

model appropriate behaviours and not model the inappropriate ones by

getting know the learner’s learning situation and environment. As for

the situation, the boy can imitate his peers’ attire as long the

attire is appropriate to be wear in school thus creating his self-

satisfaction after realizing that he is capable to do the things that

his peers did.

1.3 Implication to Teacher Roles

To create a meaningful and active learning between the learners are

rest on the roles of the teacher. Teacher should understand the basic

needs of their learners; in regards of their differences in learning.

To be alert about how they learn, think, their background and their

intelligence level is essential to every teacher in order to achieve

the objectives of successful learning. In social learning, teacher

should understand the importance of implementing this theory in the

teaching and learning process by looking through the objectives of

social learning theory that encompassed various elements and

principles.

Begin with clear understanding of Bandura’s modelling theory,

teacher should implement the elements stated in this theory, to the

teaching and learning process. The first element which is attention,

the teacher should understand the factors that affecting learner’s

attention such as the characteristics of the model, its functions and

advantages. To learn effectively, the learner must be encouraged to

pay attention to the model (Ormrod, 2003). Thus, it is important for

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teacher to find a good and attractive model to catch their attention

because learning can only occur if there were concentration effort

existed while observing.

Continue with the next element, retention, it is defined as the

ability to remember things, keeping something rather than losing it.

After paying attention, it is important for teacher to encourage his

learners to remember what the model does. According to Bandura,

actions of behaviour can be sustained in memory by using language and

imagination (Mok Soon Sang, 2008). Children at early age are most

likely interested with visual images and verbal linguistics because

pictures can deliver thousands of message and explanation helps in

creating a better understanding. Ormrod (2003), stated that learners

are more likely to remember information they have encoded in memory in

more than one way. So, it is better for teachers to take into account

of this elements as one of their teaching strategies in order to help

learners to easily remember a complex behaviour or things.

Another element is the reproduction. In addition after attention

and retention, the learner must be physically capable of reproducing

the modelled behaviour or in other words, the learners should be able

to repeat the imitated behaviour that they learn through the first two

elements. When a learner lacks the ability to reproduce an observed

behaviour, reproduction obviously cannot occur (Ormrod, 2003). Thus,

the ability of reproduction depends on the learners’ physical ability

and their memorization skills. To have learners imitate a desired

behaviour immediately, teachers should accompanied modelling process

with verbal guidance and frequent feedback. For example, the teacher

can give them the feedback that they need to improve their performance

when they do so.

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Lastly, the strongest element to create a desired behaviour from

modelling process is reinforcement or motivation. The reinforcement

belongs to two distinct group which are positive and negative

reinforcement. The learner must be motivated to demonstrate the

modelled behaviour (Ormrod, 2003). Thus, reinforcement is a different

form of providing motivation to the learners and the teacher must

understand that an individual will usually imitates and repeats the

observed behaviour if there were satisfaction as results. Teacher must

be alert when giving reinforcement to the learners based on the

model’s behaviour for example praise or reward the model’s good

behaviour and punish the model’s undesirable behaviour. Tells the

learners about what behaviours are not accapetable in the classroom

and describe the consequences that will result when those behaviours

occur. This will help the observers, the learners, to understand if

they need to repeat the desirable behaviour in contrast with the

undesirable behaviour.

To sum up this section relating to teacher roles in applying

social learning theory, when all four elements- attention, retention,

reproductive and reinforcement are present, modelling can be an

extremely powerful teaching technique that can helps teacher in their

teaching and learning process. Learning through observation and

modelling may help in increasing the ones to bring about desirable

consequences and eliminating the unproductive ones with assurance and

guidance from the teacher, as one of the learner’s closest model.

1.4 Developing the Effective Teaching and Learning in the Classroom.

Better understanding of Bandura’s modelling theory, teacher can now

simplify the social learning theory to develop or create the effective

teaching and learning environment. This framework of social learning

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encompassed the learning situation between a learner and his

surroundings. In the classroom, a learner’s surroundings includes the

classroom itself, peers and the teacher. It is a form of starting a

social-living skills where the learners are developed mentally ready

to learn skills required for them to live with a group (Seefeldt et.

al, 2014). Every learners need supports from their surroundings as

they develop their potential and abilities in learning especially for

the young learners.

The first criteria of developing effective teaching and learning

in the classroom is teachers as the role models in classroom. The

assumption of learning by observation can be applied by the teachers

through helping the pupils acquire new behaviours by demonstrating

those behaviours themselves. Children who observes models sharing

appear to be better able to share, and the teacher is the best model

(Seefeldt et. al, 2014). For example, the teacher can demonstrate the

appropriate ways to deal with and resolve interpersonal conflicts such

as trying to develop warm friendship with the pupils rather than

appear to be more aggressive to them.

The physical environment is also one of the determinant to create

an effective teaching and learning in the classroom. It is important

to develop relation between the pupils and their learning environment.

To do this, the teacher can arrange a conducive environment such as

placing the equipment or materials that is readily accessible to the

pupils, arrange the table in group form and providing other materials

on open shelves for them to use and share the available materials with

their peers. Seefeldt et. al (2014) stated that children will learn to

locate themselves in space, and become familiar with their environment

and develop beginning understanding of the human-environment

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interaction. This will somehow develop the exact or familiar learning

environment thus helping them to create close relationship with their

peers.

Another thing is that, teacher should encourage the pupil’s

cooperation and collaboration in the classroom. Collaboration or

cooperation is a process that gets people working together in new ways

(Woollard & Pritchard, 2010). It encompasses numbers of activities

including competition and motivation; cooperative and competitive

activity; self-selected and assigned grouping; roles and

responsibilities; peer teaching and peer tutoring; and also risk

taking and trust. All of these activities need guidance from the

teacher so it is a must for teachers to find a suitable activity to

develop the social relationship between their pupils in the classroom.

The activities are mostly require commitment of time, responsibility

and outcome thus the teacher should acknowledge that creating the

effecting teaching and learning in the classroom is not easy.

The heart of collaboration and cooperative learning can be

developed successfully through a clear defined outcome, goals,

activities, structures and planning. Slavin (1994) stated that

teachers all over the world are breaking up the rows in which students

have sat for so long, and creating classroom environments in which

students routinely help each other master academic material. It is

clear to say that, education learning nowadays are no longer is a

quiet class; teacher centered learning. The world has acknowledged

that learning is often best achieved in conversation among students.

The student team learning is one of the best way. It includes the

activities such as group discussion, role play, simulation learning

and sociodrama.

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To understand more about divide the pupils into groups, the

teacher should be alert of creating a group without any imbalance

occurs between the members, so it is better to considered and

monitored the pairings or grouping in the classroom. In the book A

Practical Guide to Cooperative Learning, Slavin (1994) suggested that

teacher should assigned the groups rather than the pupils choose for

themselves and a group in the classroom must include the students who

represent a cross section of the class in past performance, a high

performance, low performance and two average performers. The important

thing is, creating a balanced team that combine all the pupils in

regards with their learning performance will somehow encourage them to

help each other in learning. The low performance pupils will imitate

their peers in terms of mastering the material distributed by the

teacher or vice versa. The pupils will benefit more when they have a

model to be imitated and gain the opportunities to learn effectively.

Figure 1: Example of assigning pupils into group

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1.5 Enhancing Self- Efficacy.

Another extra element in social learning theory is how self-efficacy

can affects behaviour. Perceptions of self-efficacy are usually

defined as how the students typically have a good sense of what they

can and cannot do (Ormrod, 2003). Ideally, the learners are being

influenced by their environment to overrate their competence as they

believe what the others can do, they can do it too. But somehow, the

self-efficacy are need to be developed in learning because not all the

learners possess the high sense of self-efficacy thus it will need

more efforts to help them develop their own sense.

The differences between self-efficacy, self-concept and self-

esteem are based on how these terms applied for an individual. Self-

efficacy is future-oriented that concerned with judgments of personal

capabilities. Self-concept is like the consequences of external and

internal comparisons, by using other people as frames of references

while self-esteem is about is concerned with judgments of self-worth.

Self-efficacy is somehow concerned with judgments and believe of

personal capabilities without engaging oneself with comparisons. Thus,

to develop self-efficacy, it needs others’ accomplishments to be

modeled by an individual. Woolfolk (2007) stated that, the more

closely the pupils identify with the model, the great impact on self-

efficacy will be.

One thing is that, the learners must be encouraged to learn from

success and failures of the others. We often form opinions about our

self-efficacy by observing the successes and failures of other people,

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especially those similar to ourselves. Thus, it is good to have

students see successful peer models. Peer models are more effective in

developing self-efficacy because the learners are more likely to have

high self-efficacy to finish a task when they see their peers perform

it successfully. When students actually see others of similar age and

ability successfully reaching a goal, they are especially likely to

believe that they too can achieve that goal (Ormrod, 2003).

Another thing is that, learners are more likely to develop self-

efficacy when they learn success and failure in groups as a whole. We

acknowledge that pupils who work together rather than alone are able

to think more intelligently. They are required to accept their group

members’ flaws and ability in order to achieve the same goal in

learning. Such cooperative learning can help to develop self-efficacy

when they are not depend with their own capabilities but to think of

how they can settle a problem or task effectively by working together

and coordinate their roles and responsibilities.

When the learners develop high sense of self-efficacy, it will

then encourage them to believe that they are capable individuals who

can set goals for themselves and achieve them. With the strong sense

of self, the learners are ready to learn to live in group and share

things that they have in common. Plus, the teacher also have to

develop his own sense of efficacy by creating belief that he or she

can reach even the difficult or slow learners to help them learn,

believe in the students and their capabilities, being responsive to

the students differences so that in the end the teacher appears to be

one of the few personal characteristics of teachers that is correlated

with students achievement.

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2.0 REFLECTION

From the task given, I have learned a thing or two about the course

learning and the learner environment. I have gained a lot of things

and useful information in depth about social learning theory. I

understand that social learning theory is one of useful approaches to

be used by teachers as their teaching strategies as it helps in

moulding the pupil’s behaviour through learning that mostly assumed as

the challenging task for the teachers. It opens my eyes to see that

learning is not only about delivering and obtaining information, but

learning encompasses the whole thing that can make oneself to feel

complete and one of thing needed to achieve their self-actualization.

In attempt to finish the tasks given, I spend more time on

reading books related to learning and learner environment. When I

encountered any difficulties, I will ask my lecturer, Miss Zainab and

also had discussion sessions with my friends regarding on this topic.

Most of the time I went to the library and searching for any

information and finish the task as well. I also browse through the

internet to find anything that can classified the social learning

theory. Different from the other theories, social learning theory is

too simple yet easy to understand. That is the main reason why I

choose this theory for the academic writing. The resources in the

library such as the Educational Psychology are not enough for me

because it only explains a little bit about this theory compared to

the others. Luckily, I have found some books that related to social

learning theory, about the sample of activities and ways to applying

this theory in the teaching and learning session.

First thing that I learned in this topic is reflect on myself as

a teacher trainee. This course explains the real environment that

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every teacher will encounter in their school, the pupil’s behaviour,

and how to deal with it. I noticed that every school that I have been

and every teacher that I met so far used the social learning theory as

their teaching strategies. It is clear that the teachers acknowledged

the importance of applying the social learning theory in teaching and

learning because from what I read and learned, group work or known as

cooperative learning is more effective to be applied for students

rather than learning individually. The cooperative learning will

somehow develop the value of cooperation thus will make oneself

understand better in his interaction with his peers.

Other than that, I also realized the pupils are pure human

beings. The parents will be the one that determine the pupils’

behaviour while teacher will help in monitoring the behaviour and help

to develop pleasant behaviour through reinforcement. It is because the

process of children growth and development that occurred from time to

time had shown me details about what had happened to them in

physically and mentally way. The family, teacher and peers are the

closest person for them and that explains why they always imitate the

behaviour of these individuals and why it is important for these

individuals to show or to be a good role model especially to the young

age learners.

Based on my experience, the young learners that I ever met tend

to believe with their teacher’s words rather than listen to their

family. I saw a friend, trying to correct her younger sister when her

sister was singing a Chinese song. My friend was trying to correct her

younger sister Chinese word pronunciation and teaches another form of

action related with the song based on what my friend had learned back

then during her preschool year. The younger sister hold on resistance

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to believe and accept the comments on her pronunciation and she keep

on telling that my friend is not a teacher to her. From this, I can

see that the young learners relies their trust to their teacher and

only believe and want to imitate their teacher rather than believing

other people even though they already say the right thing. This is why

being a good role model for the pupils are needed for every individual

who choose teaching as their profession.

Plus, as a trainee teacher, I should understand the criteria to

be a good teacher and a good role model for the students. An ideal

teacher is to be very understanding in respect of the behaviour of the

children. Though the teacher and the children are a generation apart,

it would be great quality in a teacher if the teacher could understand

the woes of the children, and to help them out of their seemingly

little problems, and also feel for them. With this attitude of

friendship with the children, the teacher will win the confidence and

they will always discuss their problems. For this, I need to put

myself in the shoes of the students, understand their feelings, and

help them with all efforts. In hopes that the student will turn out to

be the exact replicas of the teachers following the picture of what a

teacher would like the students to be.

In the self-efficacy, I have read and learned about perceived

self-efficacy. The section about this important cognitive factor was

very brief, but I gained a lot out of it. Seeing that this is an issue

for me, I realize that my perceived self-efficacy about numerous

things is very low in many cases. I have learned that an individual’s

evident behavior is controlled by their belief that they can

successfully carry out a task. I think that a significance of having

knowledge of perceived self-efficacy is that an individual with

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knowledge in this area can learn to look for the good in what I would

call, “not so good” tasks or situations. I even keep on questioning

myself about my capabilities in handling the pressure in various life

activities and at the same time I have been thinking of the

consequences of not doing everything that has been assigned to me.

The thing is that, by learning this self-efficacy, I can conclude

that having myself to be questioned by me is one of a good thing. To

ask myself whether I can do this and that will somehow build my self-

confidence and enhancing my self-efficacy as time goes by and I will

be getting matured from experiences. From this, I have come to believe

that if anyone continues to see things in such a positive way, then

they will become a better individual, and everything that they wish

for will come to them if they truly deserve it. In high school, I had

the most positive stance about everything I had attempted to do. My

self-efficacy was pretty high at that point and time. Now, in this

institution, things are different. I have had a negative mind-set

about everything that I have attempted to do since I begin to

understand that everyone are competing to work more and achieve more.

Apart from that, my position as a teacher trainee now also gained

the importance of learning about social learning theory. Maybe in the

future I will meet students with various differences and capabilities,

it is an honour to help them even more after I understand what

learning is. Being a teacher also holds a big responsibility as

teacher are known to be the second parent for the children. It will be

easy for me to think of a lesson plan regarding on constructing

learning for the students at certain ages. With this precious

knowledge, I will be able to get myself ready in the future and

understand the students more than I can do. Perhaps, it will help me

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to spot possible signs of trouble and come up with solutions to help

the children. I believe if the earlier developmental problems are

detected, no matter in what situation it is, early detection and

treatment can lead to better outcomes.

As a conclusion, I am very grateful to have the opportunity to

finish the tasks given without many difficulties. In the future, for

the upcoming semester, I would like to have an opportunity again to

learn more and deep about anything related to this course. This

coursework had taught me a lot about new things and change normal

things into curiosities. It opens my mind to think broader about

teaching and learning in a very effective way. This is an improvement

for myself, in hopes that I will not stop improve from time to time

and always have time to gain new knowledge as a preparation to face

the new reality ahead.

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