Exploring Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory

When analyzing the different mechanisms that the students use at the time of learning, there is a factor that is present in most of them and that should be considered by the instructors at the time of teaching: the students’ curiosity and capacity to observe.

Bandura, on his social learning theory, talks about the importance of having in the schools teachers that are role models and that provide to the students examples and situations that can be observed, understood, and learnt by modeling among students. Bandura refers to human behavior as a continuous reciprocal interaction between behavioral, cognitive and environmental influences. In order to achieve learning among students, teachers should present the best possible activities and tools to make these influences positive and productive, with the intention of creating a positive impact in the students’ behavior.

The main focus of Bandura’s social learning theory is the observational learning method. This approach consists in the ability of learn concepts based on the act of observing someone else’s behavior, attitudes, or emotional expressions. Bandura clarifies that in this method that the student does not need to imitate the behavior, but just process and learn it. The author established four conditions necessary to make possible observational learning:

1. Attention: This factor is necessary for any individual in order to learn a new content. There are several influences that can modify an individual’s level of attention and the teacher should address those to enhance it as much as possible during class time.

2. Retention: This second component is based on the necessity of processing, remembering, and retaining the information that the student just witnessed, with the purpose of advancing to the next component.

3. Reproduction: This requirement refers to the physical and mental ability of the student to act based on the content that is being learnt. This acts can be related to movements, thought processing, or certain behaviors. By reproducing the new content, it fixates in the individual’s cognitive system.

4. Motivation: This requirement is essential for the learning process; the student needs to find a reason or a cause in order to pay attention, retain, and reproduce the content. The teachers must generate this motivation among students by presenting the content in an appealing manner for the students.

The field of Physical Education is a great setting for educators to implement this philosophy and approach their teaching following the social learning theory. The great majority (if not all) of the content in this area can be presented following this method. Movement patterns, motor development, team strategies, sports’ techniques, or sportsmanship values can all be learnt by the students following the observational learning method and performing activities in which the individuals observe, retain, and reproduce the content with the aim of fixating them inside their thought processing system.