Reinforcement

Overview

Reinforcement "is any consequence of behavior that increases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated in the future". Reinforcement is under the behaviorism theory. Under that theory, all human actions are learnt by interacting with the environment. There are two types of reinforcement in behaviorsim. Positive reinforcement is “a stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response". The negative reinforcement is “Any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengths the response”. In education, reinforcement is often used because it is simply and effectively. It is especially powerful for young children or the beginning of developing a habit.

Evidence

The operant conditioning chamber (also called skinner box) shows a good evidence about how reinforcement strength behavior. The skinner box is built on Edward Thorndike’s puzzle box experiment. In Skinner's experiment, he put a mouse (Thorndike used a hungry cat) in a box with a variety of stimulants. During the mouse exploration, it will find a level which will give food if it pushes it. Although he will not immediately repeat this behavior, but long-term reward given, the mouse will become habitual pushed the level. This experiment illustrates that positive reinforcement can enhance a behavior's repetition. Skinner also tested negative reinforcement. The rat will be kept in electric shock until it pushes the lever. Although the rat did not receive any reward for this behavior, the rat still acquired the habit in the long run.

Design Implications

In Martinez's book Learning and cognition: The design of the mind, he uses the example of a father trying to help his daughter develop the habit of folding her quilt. In order to encourage her to fold the quilt, the father would reward her for having performed the act. However, in order to avoid the daughter becoming dependent on the reward and thus not continuing the behavior if the reward is stopped, it is better for the father to reward her at random times. According to this example, if we want to use positive reinforcement to encourage students to study, we can give more verbal encouragement when they do well on a test, or give a reward for good performance on a random test. negative reinforcement is the classic example of a seat belt. Basically all cars now have a setting that will always trigger an alarm if you don't wear your seat belt. If the car owner does not want to hear the annoying noise, he or she must wear the seat belt. Over time, the habit of wearing a seat belt will develop. Between the fact that the alarm is always there, we don't have to worry that removing it will cause the behavior to go away.

Challenges

The main problem about reinforcement(also the main problem about behaviorism since reinforcement is the key idea of behaviorism) is its definition. The definition itself is “impossible to test the idea that reinforcement causes behavior to be repeated”, because it is a circular definition. The definition “reinforcement is any consequence of behavior that increases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated in the future”, is trying to define the results of behavior by behavior. In this case, Martinez declared that “ it is not a conclusion; rather, it is an assumption— an assumption, by the way, that can accommodate any evidence because it is not data-dependent”. Of course, we can see that all of the above sections prove that behaviorism or reinforcement is work, but whether a circular definition as a definition can be accepted depends on each person's different ideas. Academically, it is very difficult to admit. From my personal point of view, because there are a lot of reinforcement examples in real life, even though I also question the definition, reinforcement itself exists and should be used in teaching.