Highlights

Abstract

Keywords

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Methodological approach

۳٫ Findings

۴٫ Discussion

۵٫ Conclusion

Declaration of Competing Interest

Changes after transfer to open-access

Appendix. Supplementary materials

References

Abstract

Behaviorist methodological considerations in the learning sciences are rare compared to the 20th century. As a result, researchers may be conditioned towards an unbalanced and fragmented evidence base for the improvement of classroom teaching in primary education. The presented systematic literature review relates research of digital technology and learning in primary education to expected learning in primary education. In total, 641 articles published 2011–۲۰۲۰ were included and 2777 were excluded by full-text criteria review using radical behaviorist methodological presuppositions.

Findings show a low but increasing frequency of articles with behaviorist approaches, optimistic expectancy and evidence of learning in primary education through use of digital technology, and a trend for research to emphasize representational functions of digital technology. The relevancy of radical behaviorist methodology is discussed based upon the implications of the findings and other 21st century themes.

۱٫ Introduction

In the learning sciences, behaviorism is considered a well-established approach. As a major part of foundational scientific theorizing, behaviorism dominated many methodological approaches for most of the 20th century [49]. These decades of widespread behaviorist methodological approaches are nowadays regarded by scientists in different light, often dismissed as an important but obsolete part in historical overviews presenting research [48]. The period has even been referred to as the “dark ages” where “nothing worthwhile was discovered” ([۵], p. 171) on the motivational influences to learning due to narrow methodological approaches. For example, radical behaviorists reject so-called inner influences often derived from self-reported data without contextual relations [51]. In contrast to these dark ages, studies of digital technology may relate the use of such technology by emphasizing motivational influences and optimistically expect improved learning in primary education [25]. However, there are indications that such improvements might not extend to educational achievement outcomes, despite the widespread use of digital technology [54].

As educational achievement outcomes are a common way for teachers to determine the learning of their students, researchers may need to consider such narrow limitations [43]. This is especially true for research in primary education, as self-assessment may be a difficult task for children [39]. Further, recent technological developments have enabled education policy-making based on highly sought-after large-scale data with bodily and biological conditions [64]. These kinds of conditions for data use could relate an approach to a genetic epistemology. Radical behaviorism presupposes a genetic epistemology [7]. The scientific underutilization of such data may pose an ethical risk of leaving that which might have been scientifically controlled in other hands [52]. In the years 2011–۲۰۲۰, many important and valid literature reviews in the learning sciences have been published (e.g. [17,25,54,59]) but very few have explicitly had a behavioristic emphasis.