Psychologists working in education research the mechanisms of social, emotional and cognitive learning involved and use their results to enhance the learning process. Some are interested in the advancement of a specific group of people such as infants, teenagers or adults while others are based on specific learning difficulties such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or dyslexia. Educational psychology includes researching how people learn, including subjects including student outcomes, learning process, human learning differences, gifted learners and learning disabilities.
Psychologists working in this area are interested in how people learn new information and maintain it. This field of psychology not only covers the early childhood and adolescence learning process but also encompasses the social, mental, and cognitive mechanisms involved in learning throughout the entire lifespan. In today’s dynamic educational system, social psychologists are collaborating with educators, managers, instructors, and students to learn more about how to help people learn best. This often involves finding ways to identify students who may need extra help, designing strategies aimed at helping the struggling students, and even creating new methods of learning.
Some of the various topics applicable to educational psychologists include:
- Learning Technology: looking at how different types of technology can help students learn
- Educational Design: designing learning materials
- Special Education: helping students in need of personalized instruction
- Curriculum Development: developing curricula to improve learning
- Organizational learning: researching how people learn in organizational settings
- Gifted learners: encouraging students to learn in organizational settings
Educational psychology is a relatively young sub-field which has experienced tremendous growth in recent years. Until the late 1800’s, psychology did not emerge as a separate science, thus earlier interest in educational psychology was largely fueled by educational philosophers. Some consider philosopher Johann Herbart as the “father” of the psychology of education. Herbart believed that the interest of a student in a subject had a tremendous influence on the learning outcome and believed that teachers should weigh that interest along with prior knowledge when determining which form of instruction is best suited. Psychologist and philosopher, William James later made important contributions to the field. His 1899 groundbreaking text Psychology Talks to Teachers is recognized as the first textbook on education psychology.
Around this same time period the French psychologist Alfred Binet established his famous IQ tests. The tests were initially designed to assist the French government in identifying children with developmental delays and creating special education programs. John Dewey has had a significant influence on US education. More recently, an important taxonomy was created by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom designed to categorize and define different educational objectives. Major Viewpoints in Educational Psychology As with other fields of psychology, educational psychology researchers tend to assume different perspectives when analyzing a question.
• The behavioral viewpoint indicates that through conditioning all habits are acquired. Psychologists who take that approach rely heavily on operant conditioning concepts to describe how learning happens. For instance, teachers might give out tokens that can be exchanged for desirable items like candy and toys to reward good behavior. While such methods can be useful in some cases, the behavioral approach has been criticized for failing to account for such things as attitudes, cognitions, and intrinsic motivations for learning.
• The developmental viewpoint focuses on how children learn new knowledge and skills as they grow. The popular stages of cognitive development by Jean Piaget are one example of an important theory of development which looks at how children grow intellectually. Through understanding how children think at various stages of development, educational psychologists can better understand what children at each point of their growth are capable of. This can help educators develop instructional methods and materials that are better geared to certain age groups.
• In recent decades the cognitive viewpoint has become much more common, mostly because it represents how issues like experiences, values, feelings and motives relate to the learning process. Cognitive psychology focuses on understanding how the knowledge is thought, absorbed, remembered and processed. Educational psychologists who have a cognitive approach are interested in understanding, among other things, how children are motivated to learn, how they remember the lessons they know and how they solve problems.
• The constructiviste theory is one of the new learning theories based on how children are consciously building up their world knowledge. Constructivism tends to take full account of the social and cultural forces influencing how children learn. The work of psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who introduced theories such as the proximal growth zone and educational scaffolding, strongly influences this outlook.
Although educational psychology can be a relatively young discipline, as people become more interested in understanding how people learn, it will continue to grow.
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