3.1 Explain Why It Is Important To Understand Theorists

As practitioners it is important that we understand children and use psychology to analyse certain behaviours. Theorists can help us understand what is normal and what techniques we can use. It is important to understand theorists because it helps us understand children's feelings, identifies behaviour patterns and their work acts as a guide for practitioners.
The three theorists I will be studying will be Skinner and his Operant Conditioning theory, Pavlov and Pavlovian Conditioning (Classical Conditioning) and Bandura’s social learning theory. The reason I chose to study these three theories is because they all link together, they are all quite similar and are about the way in which children learn.

Skinner- Operant Conditioning
Skinners
I would promote a positive role model, I would choose a child who is sitting correctly and give them verbal praise and most of the time the rest of the children would try to sit smarter. Another example of positive reinforcement is having praise assembly's to reward good behaviour. This is a common theory and probably every school uses it to reinforce good behaviour.
Another way we can use ‘Operant Conditioning’ to manage a child's behaviour is by negative reinforcement. Many parents used to opt to use negative reinforcement “to control the behaviour of their child”. However, nowadays “many parents and even school systems and other childhood authorities use positive reinforcement and reserve negative reinforcement techniques only as a last resort”. (Elizabeth Grace- Kids development 2015) this supports the theory that behaviour which is reinforced tends to be
This theory is all about how children observe the behaviour of people around them, the people they observe are called ‘models’. Bandura (1977) states"Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do. Fortunately, most human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action." This theory is proved by the Bobo doll experiment. In the Bobo doll experiment 36 children were tested 36 boys and 36 girls, they were split evenly into 3 groups of 24. One group was shown the aggressive model, where a man/woman would hit, kick and throw the Bobo doll. The next group was shown the non-aggressive model, where the man/woman would be kind to the Bobo doll and hug it and stroke it. The last group was the control group they weren’t shown anything. This experiment proved that the children who was exposed to the aggressive model were more violent and aggressive and the children who watched the non aggressive model imitated the behaviour shown. This is important in practice today as children are surrounded by many influential models, like parents, teachers, peers and