The Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) is an integral part of the theory of Social Constructivism, according to which the essence of qualitative dynamics within the society is environmentally rather than biologically predetermined. Albert Bandura is credited with having formulated the three main postulates of SCT, concerned with conceptualizing the nature of learning. They are as follows:
- Learning is a highly societal process, which implies that its outcome is strongly affected by the specifics of how a learner interacts with the surrounding social environment while gaining new knowledge. As Swearer, Wang, Berry, and Myers (2014) noted, “SCT proposes that there are a continuous interaction between the social environment (e.g., witnessing others’ behaviors), internal stimuli (e.g., cognitions and feelings), and behaviors” (p. 272).
- One’s likelihood to succeed in academic pursuits positively relates to the measure of the concerned person’s ‘self-efficacy’ (self-control, discipline). According to Burney (2008), “Those (learners) with high self-efficacy are more likely to set high goals for themselves, develop strong cognitive strategies for acquiring skills and knowledge, seek academic challenge, and persist in the face of difficulty” (p. 131).
- Learning is a rational pursuit, which means that for a particular educational strategy to prove effective, it must provide the targeted individuals with the circumstantially appropriate transactional incentives to invest a continual effort in studying. Probably the most effective of them is concerned with establishing the objective preconditions for learners to perceive one’s quest for knowledge as such that increases his or her value as the socially integrated being. As Phan and Ngu (2014) aptly observed, “It would be of benefits for educators (affiliated with SCT) to encourage and cultivate the use and recognition of personal accomplishments in classroom learning” (p. 718).
According to the theory’s advocates, to know something means to be able to apply theoretical knowledge in practice. This, of course, presupposes that academic knowledge does not represent the value of a ‘thing in itself. Instead of emphasizing the memorization of abstract facts, the practitioners of SCT stress the importance of endowing students with understanding the dialectical essence of the relationship between causes and effects within the methodological framework of a particular academic course.
The theory’s yet another qualitative feature is that it presupposes that the nature of learners cannot be discussed outside of whatever happened to be the affiliated learning environment. The reason for this is that, as it was implied earlier, the conceptual paradigm of SCT is based on the assumption that the primary motivation for students to remain committed to studying is that they perceive the concerned pursuit as the instrument of increasing the measure of their social competitiveness. As Burney (2008) argued, “Students attend to another person’s actions and imitate (or not) the behaviors noted… Learners observe the success of whatever strategy is being modeled and determine whether it is desirable or not” (p. 132). This suggests that learners are best looked upon as the ‘consumers of knowledge’.
According to SCT, knowledge is essentially a social construct, in the sense of being reflective of the ideological provisions of the currently dominant socio-cultural discourse. Consequently, this implies that for the deployment of a particular educational strategy to prove successful, those in charge of the process must be willing to take practical advantage of the principles of ‘student-centeredness and ‘experiential cognition’.
These principles are also the ones that define the theory’s stance on what should be deemed a proper approach to designing a discursively sound learning environment. According to the theory’s advocates, educators should be primarily concerned with creating interactive opportunities for students to actively engage with theoretical knowledge that they attain in the classroom and at home (while coping with academic assignments). The teachers’ objective, in this respect, can only be achieved if students are allowed to study in a semi-autonomous mode – the main feature of the SCT-based learning environment.
In light of the above-stated, SCT appears thoroughly consistent with the ‘flipped classroom’ teaching approach. The reason for this has to do with the theory’s insistence that there is the solely environmental/societal quality to one’s varying ability to exercise self-control through the learning process. What this means is that a person can be taught how to act as a self-efficient learner – something that in turn endorses the idea that students can indeed study at home without being academically supervised. However, I believe that this idea does not hold much water, especially when assessed in conjunction with the recent discoveries in the fields of biology and neuroscience. After all, it now represents a well-established fact that one’s attitudes towards learning (as well as towards just about anything) originate in the limbic part of the concerned person’s brain, also known as ‘paleomammalian’ (Coenen, 2007). Being in control of the brain’s neocortex (which does rational reasoning), it tolerates only those mental activities that directly relate to one’s biological agenda of propagating its genes, ensuring access to nutrients, and attaining a dominant position within the society. It is understood, of course, that by remaining committed to studying, a person does increase its chances of attaining social prominence in the future (delayed domination). For the limbic part of a person’s brain, however, it is of very little importance – it fosters only those mental processes that may help one to reach some short-term ‘biological’ objectives. This is exactly the reason why most students find studying an utterly wearisome undertaking while trying to find excuses to avoid indulging in this activity for as long as possible. Consequently, this points out the fact that, contrary to the conceptual provisions of SCT, it is quite impossible to convince students that it is in their best interests to be self-efficient learners unless teachers apply some sort of coercive effort in this regard. Because the ‘flipped classroom’ approach to teaching has a strong social-cognitivist quality to it, it is very unlikely that it will prove much of an educational asset as well.
This simply could not be otherwise – despite the seeming sophisticate sounding of many of the theory’s concepts, a closer examination will reveal them utterly assumptions/unscientific. The main reason for this is that SCT draws heavily from both psychology and sociology. However, neither of these sciences features the empirically tested and universally recognized system of methodological axiomatics. Having emerged in the sixties, SCT does not take into account the findings of many recently conducted biosocial studies that expose one’s cognitive predispositions as such that is being primarily predetermined by the concerned person’s genetic makeup or the morphological subtleties of his or her brain. Therefore, it is rather doubtful whether SCT will continue to be regarded as such that represents much practical value for educators. The exponential pace of the ongoing scientific progress predetermines such an eventual development.
References
Burney, V. (2008). Applications of social cognitive theory to gifted education. Roeper Review, 30(2), 130-139.
Coenen, A. (2007). Consciousness without a cortex, but what kind of consciousness is this? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 30(1), 87-134.
Phan, H., & Ngu, B. (2014). Factorial equivalence of social cognitive theory: Educational levels × time differences. Educational Psychology, 34(6), 697-729.
Swearer, S., Wang, C., Berry, B., & Myers, Z. (2014). Reducing bullying: Application of social cognitive theory. Theory into Practice, 53(4), 271-277.