Chapter 16: Internationalizing a Course on the Principles of Learning: Challenges and Approaches

This chapter is for the individual seeking to enhance the content of his or her course on the Principles of Learning through a consideration of international variables. From my experience I can reasonably assume many things about you. You are well versed in learning and behavior. In your course you probably use one of the major textbooks (Bouton, 2016; Chance, 2013; Domjan, 2014; Klein, 2014; Lieberman, 2000; Mazur, 2013; Pearce, 2008; Schwartz, Wasserman, & Robbins, 2002) covering the fundamental principles of Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, and perhaps to a lesser extent Observational Learning. For years, you have maintained a core curriculum that has been updated in light of developments in the field, and now you are considering the influence of international variables. There exist countless ways in which learning principles may be applied differently across cultures and nations. Those applications of principles, though sometimes discussed, are not the focus of your course. You are interested in, and lecture about, the principles themselves. With material that has largely been established in animal models, which often leaves out forms of learning (e.g., observational, language-mediated) to which an international perspective can be more readily applied, you might quizzically scratch your head and think “Japanese vs. American rats?” The humor should fade proportionally as you realize how little consideration of international variables our field has had, and how much it could be missing as a result.