How can you measure learning from behaviorist, social cognitive?

            Learning can be measured in a variety of ways depending on which perspective one is using. One could think of learning as the old proverb, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". What one person sees as a way to measure learning may not work for another. That is what makes psychology so interesting that one can take a little of this theory and a little of that theory and make one of their own.

            In behavioral perspective learning is viewed as more scientific. John Watson was influenced by Pavlov's conditioning experiments to create a theory of conditioning (Schunk, 2012). With having a more scientific approach, one would need to conduct behavioral experiments and collect data to be processed to see if there was any change in behavior. One such experiment is still today viewed as questionable with regard to ethics. This would be Watson's experiment on Little Albert. In summery the experiment took an infant and introduced him to non-threatening items such as a dog and toys. Then showed the infant the objects with a scary sound or mask, thus the infant learned to fear those items.

            In the social cognitive perspective learning is measured by observation. Bandura believed that the conditioning was not a strong measure of learning (Schunk, 2012).  This lead to him discovering the ideas of encouragement. An example is a student struggling with an assignment. The teacher helps the student by showing him how do the assignment then giving him encouragement to do it. By doing this the student is learning to have faith in himself to do the work.

Schunk, D. H. (2012). Learning theories: An educational perspective (6^th ed.). Pearson Education