Behavior of the learner (KAB)
From The Learning Engineer's Knowledgebase
The behavior of a learner is one of the primary components of individual psychology and is seen as evidence of learning. If a learner can increasingly perform intended behaviors, then they are said to have learned.
Definition
Behavior is the combination of specific actions that people take in their everyday lives. It also includes the choices that people make and the tasks, activities, and interactions that they do as a result of those choices. Thinking is also a behavior, but it is not observable to another person. In an educational context, behavior is a target of educational products as it is the goal of educators to bring about positive changes to people's abilities and skills, which are all behaviors.
Behavior is of interest in evaluation as well, as it is usually a directly observable phenomenon by a third party observer. Most behavior can be watched, categorized, and recorded - people can see what other people do. Observability of behavior is in contrast to self reporting, which is subjective and relies on the first-person perspectives and perceptions of the person performing the behavior. Self reporting may not always be accurate or consistently applied, which is why observable behavior is useful for evaluation.
Additional Information
Helping build a person's behaviors is ultimately the goal of any educational experience: educators seek to help people improve their performance, learn new skills, or apply knowledge in useful ways. Ideally by engaging in an educational experience, these are all behaviors that will be changed from less skilled to more skilled in how people perform the behavior.
Types of behavior include:
- Actions that people take
- Dialogue that people have with one another
- Problem solving and navigating complexity
- Habits
- Instinctual and biological, in things that are done automatically (such as seeing, breathing, sleeping, eating, etc.)
- Involuntary behaviors (such as reflexes, illness, etc.)
- Covert behaviors, which are those that are hidden from observers, but can sometimes be evidenced through observable behaviors
- Thinking
- Choices that are made by the individual, which is observable behavior through the subsequent actions they take
Behavior is a part of the Knowledge - Attitude - Behavior (KAB) framework of evaluating a person's psychological state in learning, which is a useful tool for investigating the primary psychological factors that influence learning.
Tips and Tricks
- Consider what the observable behaviors are as people use your educational product. These are also typically related to your learning objectives.
- Identify ways that observable behaviors of interest might be tracked or assessed by a person or by a computer. These are useful for evaluation (particularly formative evaluation) as to whether people are learning or improving their skills, or whether the educational product was used as expected.
- For behaviors that are covert, or are more hidden from the view of an observer (i.e., thinking, making choices), how might you ask participants to report what they are doing so that you can evaluate their actions? You may have to rely on self reporting, but that is an acceptable method in education research because we cannot see what is going on in someone's brain!
- Hypothesize ways that external, observable behaviors may be linked to covert, internal behaviors (like thinking). What could evidence look like if someone was making choices or thinking about items as they participate in the learning experience? These kinds of links are useful for evaluating whether learning is occurring, as the linked observable behaviors may serve as a proxy for the unobservable actions of the learner.
Related Concepts
Examples
None yet - check back soon!
External Resources
None yet - check back soon!