Theories & Approaches

Challenges and Considerations in Applying the Social Learning Theory Approach

Challenges include:

Educators may resist changing their teaching style, particularly if they are more comfortable lecturing to youth.
Training and maintaining skilled educators who:
- believe in the efficacy of what they are teaching;
- can model desired behaviors;
- are skilled at leading role plays and other forms of behavioral practice;
- can keep students on task and cover all required content in a session.
The need, in some cases, to make environmental changes in the school, such as:
- maintaining a low student to educator ratio to accommodate effective student skills practice and classroom management;
- obtaining school and parental permission for potentially controversial skill-building sessions (e.g., condom practice) and community activities;
- finding more classroom space to allow for student role play and participation in small group activities.

Other special considerations include the following:

Scheduling is often a consideration for programs incorporating SLT. Educators may need to schedule multiple education sessions for SLT-based programs since learning and practicing new behavioral skills requires more time than less engaging, didactic approaches.

Grant support for programs based on SLT may be easier to elicit from funding agencies. Funders prefer to support programs that are carefully crafted and grounded in well-researched learning theories, such as SLT.