Albert Bandura is the learning theorist known for social learning theory. Social learning theory is a theory of learning and social behavior that proposes that learning and new behaviours are learned through the imitation of others and through observing others’ rewards and punishments. When a particular behavior is rewarded regularly, it will persist. Conversely, if a particular behaviour is punished, it will desist.

Social learning theory explains the cheating behaviour of students, in that students learn to cheat by observing others cheating, noticing that cheating goes unpunished or disciplinary consequences for cheating is inconsistent, that the rewards for cheating outweighs the risks of getting caught, noticing that classmates, friends, or family often cheat, and talking about cheating, or helping each other cheat or cheating together.

We find in the literature, and in my experience, from my studies, PD (Professional Development) days and so on, that students are more likely to cheat if they observe their peers cheating. Additionally, in my experience, students talk and share information on their social media platforms such as Discord, and through the grapevine at school about teachers and courses, about how easy or difficult certain courses are, if the teacher is an easy marker or hard marker, and how easy or difficult it is to cheat in the course. Students are reluctant to report cheating by their classmates and even more so when it is their friends who are cheating. Students stick together with their classmates in a sense of loyalty and camaraderie against the school and the teacher so they would be reluctant to report their classmates, or as they say “rat their classmates out”. Even more so, when the cheaters are their friends, in my experience, students will not report cheating because loyalty to their friends would trump obedience to school rules plus the close relationships that exist between friends and among friends. When cheating goes unpunished, students feel a sense of injustice and cheating becomes the norm.

In social learning theory, the social environment plays a role in how we learn, that is, the interpersonal context and the social environment. According to Bandura, human behavior can be explained within a framework of triadic reciprocity as a series of reciprocal interactions among personal factors such as self-efficacy, behaviors and environmental events.

Self-efficacy refers to the student’s beliefs about their capability to learn the subject matter. Self-efficacy is important in promoting a sense of agency in students that they can influence their learning of the subject matter. Students who believe they have control over their learning and perform well as a result of doing the school work have a sense of agency. They are more apt to attempt to do the school work and persevere in doing the school work.

Students who believe they have little control over their capabilities and success and perform poorly in school work have limited agency. They are more apt to not attempt to do school work in class because they do not believe they can succeed and not doing the school work results in failure. They then develop a reliance on others for help and as a result develop the behavior of learned helplessness. Therefore we see how social learning explains the limited agency, learned helplessness and passive learning characteristics observed in some students.

In social learning the teacher models and guides, students learn from teacher modelled demonstrations and worked examples and learning of skills through observation. Students learn from peer models, tutors and mentors.

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