Observational learning involves a process of learning through observing others' behavior and attitudes (Borsa et al. 2019). According to Albert Bandura, a person's environment determines the behavior of people in society. In observational learning, a person watches others, retains the information, and imitates the behavior observed. This process of learning is essential as it helps children acquire positive behavioral traits and responses while observing others. This essay will discuss observational learning and explain the four methods that Bandura said were essential for observational learning.
Albert Bandura aimed at explaining how children observe and imitate behaviors in social environments. In his explanation, he used four processes, that is, attentional, retentional, behavioral production, and motivational. The attentional process entails directing the mind to an object or a person one is intending to observe their behaviors. Retention, on the other hand, refers to internalizing information observed in memories. Behavior reproduction involves applying the learned traits and behavior into one's life whenever required. Finally, motivation entails the will to perform the learned or observed behavior.
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Observational learning would be difficult in a situation where children observe and imitate negative behaviors from their parents. Based on the processes as mentioned earlier of observational learning, a child notices a negative behavior from the parents, internalizes the traits, and imitates the characteristics in their life experiences. This results in setbacks and obstacles toward children's growth.
Learners may facilitate observational learning in schools. This happens when learners observe the behavior of others and apply it in their own life experiences. Observational learning can be more natural when attention, retention, behavior reproduction, and motivation are involved. Learners will quickly grasp information and use it to change their own lives.
Reference
Borsa, D., Heess, N., Piot, B., Liu, S., Hasenclever, L., Munos, R., & Pietquin, O. (2019, May). Observational learning by reinforcement learning. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (pp. 1117-1124). International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.
