Educational Psychology

Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational treatments, the psychology of teachers, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Although the terms "educational psychology" and "school psychology" are often used interchangeably, researchers and theorists are likely to be identified as educational psychologists, while practitioners in schools or school-related settings are identified as school psychologists. While educational psychology deals with all types of learning, some psychologists and researchers focus on specific areas such as learning disability, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and mood disorder.

Educational psychology can perhaps be best understood through its relationship with other disciplines. It is informed primarily by psychology, bearing an analogous relationship to that discipline as medicine to biology, and engineering to physics. Educational psychology in turn informs a wide range of specialities within educational studies, including instructional design, educational technology, curriculum development, organizational learning, special education and classroom management. Educational psychology both draws from, and contributes to, cognitive science and the learning sciences. In universities, departments of educational psychology are usually housed within faculties of education.

Social, Moral and Cognitive Development

To understand the characteristics of learners in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age, educational psychology develops and applies theories of human development. Often cast as stages through which people pass as they mature, developmental theories describe changes in mental abilities (cognition), social roles, moral reasoning, and beliefs about the nature of knowledge.

For example, educational psychologists have researched the instructional applicability of Jean Piaget's theory of development, according to which children mature through four stages of cognitive capability. Piaget hypothesized that children are not capable of abstract logical thought until they are older than about 11 years, and therefore younger children need to be taught using concrete objects and examples. Researchers have found that transitions, such as from concrete to abstract logical thought, do not occur at the same time in all domains. A child may be able to think abstractly about mathematics, but remain limited to concrete thought when reasoning about human relationships.

Developmental psychology

Kohlberg's stages of moral development

Individual Differences and Disabilities

Autism

Cerebral palsy

Intelligence (trait)

Giftedness

Hearing impairment

ADHD

Learning disability

Learning and Cognition

Several perspectives have been established within which the theories used in educational psychology are formed and contested. These include Behaviorism, Cognitivism, Social Cognitivism, and Constructivism.

Operant conditioning

Observational learning

Memory

Problem solving

Situated cognition

Metacognition

Self-Regulation

Motivation

Motivational Theory

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Goal Theory

Attribution theory

Applications in Teaching and Learning

Classroom management

Cooperative learning

Instructional design

Special education

Careers in Educational Psychology

A person is generally considered an Educational Psychologist if he or she has completed a graduate degree in educational psychology or a closely related field. Universities usually establish educational psychology graduate programs in either psychology departments or faculties of education. Psychologists that work in a k-12 school setting are usually trained at either the masters or doctoral (PhD or EdD) level. In addition to conducting assessments, school psychologists provide services such as academic and behavioral intervention, counseling, teacher consultation, and crisis intervention.

 

Influential Educational Psychologists and Theorists

Albert Bandura 1925

Alfred Binet 1857-1911

Benjamin Bloom 1913-1999

Ann Brown 1943-1999

Jerome Bruner 1915

Lee Cronbach 1916-2001

John Dewey 1859-1952

Nathaniel Gage

Robert Gagné 1916-2002

William James 1842-1910

Charles H. Judd 1873-1972

Lawrence Kohlberg 1927-1987

Maria Montessori 1870-1952

Jean Piaget 1896-1980

Herbert Simon 1916–2001

Burrhus Frederic Skinner 1904-1990

Charles Spearman 1863-1945

Lewis Terman 1877-1956

Edward L. Thorndike 1874-1949

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky 1896-1934

See also

Important publications in educational psychology

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External links

Educational Psychology Resources by Athabasca University

WikEd is a MediaWiki by the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Folk Knowledge and Academic Learning [1]

 

Sources

Zimmerman, B. J., & Schunk, D. H. (Eds.)(2003). Educational psychology: A century of contributions. Mahwah, NJ, US: Erlbaum.

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