Author Archives: Collin Kelly

My Types of Learning

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People and animals use different types of learning methods such as cognitive learning, observational learning, operant conditioning, and classical conditioning to gain new knowledge and to understand how to conduct their behaviors. After we discussed the different types of learning in class I started to think about which type of learning methods that I mostly relied on and used as I was growing up or possibly used without even knowing. I discovered that I mostly relied on operant conditioning and observational learning.
Operant conditioning forms associations between behaviors that operate on environment and the resulting events either being consequences by using punishment to decrease the given behavior that follows or reinforcers that strengthen the behaviors that follow. When I was growing up and going through school my parents always stressed that they expected me to get good grades. They would often offer me rewards such as money if I received honor roll or distinguished honor roll which was very appealing to me. Although I did not know at the time, my parents were using the process of shaping by offering me money as a reinforcer to guide me and my attitude to have a desire to study hard and get good grades. Also there were times when my parents would have to use punishment so I would form the association between my behavior and the resulting events. Most of the time when I did something bad such as get in trouble at school, I would be punished by negative punishment and removing a desirable stimulus. Often my parents grounded me from playing my video game systems or from hanging out with friends which I really enjoyed doing so I quickly learned that my behavior was not acceptable and therefore I made the association.
Also, I just recently participated in a very good example of observational learning. This past weekend I had to purchase a new vehicle because my old jeep was falling apart. I ended up buying a jeep wrangler that happened to have a manual transmission unlike my old jeep which was an automatic. I had one problem though and that was that I didn’t know how or never drove a stick shift. My dad ended up driving the car home and I rode around in the passenger’s seat observing how my dad used the clutch and when he shifted. I realized at that time that I was using observational learning in order to learn how to drive my new jeep. I was very successful using the method of observational learning because within a couple of hours of practicing I got it down.

Memory & Encoding

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I thought the lecture on memory storage/retrieval and encoding was very interesting as we were discussing it in class. Everyone aims to gain knowledge in order to function in life and to make everyday tasks possible and easy to achieve. As a Penn State student, I am constantly learning new information that I have to store in my memory. When we learn something and gain knowledge, we store it in our memory by the process of encoding. Memory is defined as the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information. From that definition it is easy to see that our memory is very complex and the way we encode the information is very important. People use different techniques of encoding in order to store the information in their short-term (working) memory or their long-term memory.
While I was in high school, I often used encoding techniques such as maintenance rehearsal and chunking in order to encode the information which I was learning. I often just looked at my notes over and over until I had it in my memory. Little did I know, the information I was learning by maintenance rehearsal was being stored in my short-term memory. I would study the information up to the date of a test but then right after the test I would stop looking at the notes for that certain section that we learned. I noticed that if I were asked to recall that information at a later date, I couldn’t remember some information and certain details. That was because the process I was using to encode the information was not storing it in my long-term memory. I found that this type of encoding is very useful when I needed to store the memory for one specific event such as a test, but when I needed to retain the information I learned for the whole school year or a long period of time I needed to find a different way to encode to information into my long-term memory. In class we learned about the concept of elaborate rehearsal encoding, which is making meaningful connections to the information being stored within our memory. I used elaborate rehearsal although I was not aware of what it was at the time and I learned that it is a much better way to study and encode memory, especially in college.

Naturalistic Observation: Managers v.s. Employees

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In class we discussed the research method of naturalistic observation and its benefits and advantages. Naturalistic observation involves studying the behavior of people or animals in their natural setting/environment and the concept of how they will change their behaviors in different settings. The main goal of naturalistic observation is to study and observe the peoples or animals behaviors in their natural setting with no intervention. This type of research is often used when laboratory research is unrealistic, cost prohibitive or if it would knowingly affect the subjects behavior. This research is often used because it is fairly easy to conduct and its cost-effectiveness. Naturalistic observation offers advantages such as allowing researchers to study things that cannot be manipulated in a lab due to ethical concerns, and it helps support the external validity of research since the researchers is actually observing the behavior. Some of the disadvantages of using this type of research method are that people will often act differently if they know they’re being watch or studied and that different observers may draw different conclusions from what they observed.

One form of naturalistic observation that I have experience in life was the relationships and behaviors of the managers and employees of the grocery store I used to work for. In almost every job someone has a manager that overlooks the employees and makes sure they are doing their job correctly and not breaking rules. The managers usually will sit and observe the behaviors of employees on the registers from a back room where the employees’ can’t see if they are being watched and then evaluate the employee’s work ethic and behavior. This is shows a good example of naturalistic observation because the managers observe their employee’s behaviors in their natural setting.

Often when I used to work at the grocery store, other cashiers and I would occasionally talk and goof around at the cash registers when the managers and customers were not present although we are supposed to clean registers and always stay busy while working. In contrast, there were other times when we were aware that the managers were watching us, at that time we had tendencies to change our behaviors so we would not get written up. This is a good example of naturalistic observation because it involves managers observing their employees behavior in their natural work setting.