Educational psychology

• TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGY: Learning

Educational psychology is a diverse and dynamic discipline aimed at facilitating human learning through effective instruction.

Introduction

Teaching methods is a complex undertaking involving decision-making at many levels as well as a diversity of skills. From kindergarten to college, teachers are involved in designing curricula, planning lessons, selecting texts, evaluating the products of learning, and monitoring a full range of action within the classroom. The choices are many, and effective teaching demands additional expertise in terms of the delivery of instruction. Indeed, the teacher functions both as a theorist, objectively analyzing the situation of learning and methods of instruction, and as a practitioner, in the more spontaneous delivery of instruction in an attempt to inspire young minds.

Teaching is the deliberate facilitation of learning; learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior or the gaining of a new perspective on or insight into a problem. Learning may take place without teaching. For example, children seem to acquire language without specific instruction. Teaching, on the other hand, may or may not be effective in stimulating learning. It is the goal of educational psychology to facilitate effective instruction to foster human learning.

Educational psychology, a diverse scientific discipline, attempts to apply psychological principles to understand, predict, and influence classroom learning. Just as teaching and learning are ongoing processes, so is educational psychology an evolving enterprise. Researchers search for dependable answers to many practical educational questions. They ask which teaching methods are most effective, as well as which methods work best for particular students. They examine whether grades are effective motivators (and again, for which students they are effective). They look at whether holding a student back a grade has positive or negative effects on subsequent performance. Research in educational psychology is often inconclusive because of the complexity of the questions, discrepancies in terminology, and/or faulty methodologies. For this reason, research is replicated; sound educational practice is based on well-supported trends. Educational psychology is a continually developing discipline, integrating theoretical perspectives with practical concerns.

Learning Models

In 1979, James Jenkins devised an interactive model for learning researchers that can be used as a guide to understanding classroom learning in terms of both personal and environmental (outside the person) factors. This tetrahedral model posits that learning is influenced by four types of variables: characteristics of the learner (beliefs, skills, energy level, and so on), characteristics of the teacher (voice, gender, attitude), criterion of evaluation (for example, whether the work is for a grade), and characteristics of the task (such as whether it is written or verbal, and whether it is timed). The interplay of these four types of variables affects the quality of learning. In helping a child who apparently has difficulty with mathematics, a teacher familiar with the principles of the tetrahedral model might consider interventions such as changing the types of tests (timed tests might not be fair to some learners), changing the grading system, or even changing the lessons to include visual or diagrammatic materials to explain math principles. Often the solution focuses on changing the learner, who is perhaps the hardest to change. Jenkins's model also serves as a framework for understanding how educational psychology is applied to classroom learning situations.

Student learning is complex, as are the variables that affect it. Learner and teacher characteristics, for example, include a variety of attributes. Some are stable or constant (sex, race, or ability). Others are consistent or generally stable, changing little over time or situation, such as attitudes, beliefs, and learning styles. Some learner and teacher attributes are unstable and likely to change, such as the level of arousal, anxiety, or mood. It is the more consistent variables that affect learning in general, are more easily measured, and are investigated more frequently. Among the most recently researched variables are perceptions of learners—about specific tasks, self, or others—which can be experimentally changed through a process of reorientation or instruction. Such variables are often found to affect students' willingness to engage or to persist, and consequently to affect their school achievement. Along similar lines, the investigation of students' metacognition, or their management of their own thought processes, has inspired the development of effective remedial reading programs and revitalized instruction of study skills.

Other research on instruction in cognitive skills has focused on interventions to teach thinking, either through stand-alone programs (such as a course in philosophy or a unit on how to make valid inferences), instruction in processing skills in the context of subject matter teaming (such as measuring in science or problem-solving strategies in math), or instruction in problem solving during an authentic task, such as a computer simulation (of pioneer travel, for example) or a project (such as a scientific experiment). Results generally suggest that regardless of which of the three approaches is used, cognitive skill instruction is effective only if skills are taught explicitly and if skill assessment tasks are similar to tasks used in training (near transfer). Generalization of effects to distantly related assessment tasks (far transfer) diminishes with the degree of characteristics shared between assessment and training tasks.

Applied Research

In a 1972 study investigating how college students learn, Gordon Pask and others differentiated holistic approaches and serialistic learning styles. Using a “teach-back” procedure, Pask had students create fictitious zoological taxonomies and then teach those classifications back to the experimenter. Serialists were characterized as remembering information in terms of lengthy strings of data. That is, bits of information were related sequentially and in a linear, step-by-step fashion. The serial style relies on memorization. Holists, on the other hand, remembered in terms of hierarchical relations, imaging the entire system of facts or principles in a more general manner; they focused on the big picture and fit details in later. The holistic strategy was related to what Pask called “comprehension learning,” with the serialist orientation reflective of “operational learning” (focusing on details and procedures). Pask also found that teaching materials could be structured in either a holistic (meaningful) or serialistic (memorization) fashion and were most effective when matched to the student's corresponding learning style.

In addition to investigating learner characteristics, researchers in educational psychology have explored how it is that teacher characteristics affect student learning. In particular, teachers' motivational beliefs, a fairly consistent variable, have been linked to teaching behaviors. In 1984, Carole Ames and Russell Ames identified three systems of teacher motivation based on specific values held by teachers that result in different perceptions, motivations, and teaching strategies. In the ability evaluative system, teachers tend to maintain their notions of self-worth by protecting their own positive notions of their ability. That is, teachers see their personal value as contingent on students' success. This results in blaming the student for failure and crediting themselves when students are successful. In the second system, the moral responsibility system, teachers primarily are concerned with the pupil. The resulting behaviors are the opposite of those associated with the ability evaluative orientation: blaming self for failures and crediting the student for success. In the task mastery condition, the task is of primary importance rather than a teacher's self-image. The focus is on accomplishing educational goals and fostering competence. Thus, from an interactionist perspective, teachers' beliefs about learning and about themselves are an integral part of the learning process.

The characteristics of the task are the third major type of variable affecting classroom learning and are a primary area of concern for researchers. Attributes of the task might include the type of task: aural or visual, motor or verbal, comprehension or memorization, self-instructional or teacher-assisted. A major development in the area of self-instruction as related to learning tasks has been computer-aided instruction. In 1983, educational psychologists James Kulik, Robert Bangert, and George Williams reviewed numerous studies regarding the use of computers for instructional purposes in sixth- to twelfth-grade classrooms. They found that there were moderate benefits in terms of improvement on examinations and in reducing the amount of time needed for learning. Also, children taught with computers developed more positive attitudes toward computers than those who were taught in the traditional manner.

Finally, the type of evaluation has an effect on classroom learning. Perhaps the most common type of student evaluation is grading, assigning letter or number ratings to reflect the quality of student work. Although grades may be intended to function as incentives or motivators to encourage students to perform, it is unlikely that they do so. In a 2000 study, Robert Slavin found that grades are used for three primary functions: evaluation, feedback, and incentives. As a result, grades function as less-than-ideal motivators. Also, grades are given too infrequently for young children to see any relationship between their daily work and a grade received weeks later. Grades may be effective incentives for older students, however; studies comparing college students in graded-versus-ungraded classes have found that grades do function as an incentive.

Philosophical Roots and Contemporary Models

Educational psychology draws on many resources to form well-grounded models. The philosophical roots of educational psychology lie in the early twentieth century work of William James and John Dewey. Both were scholars who shared a concern for the application of psychological principles in the classroom. James described the teacher's role as that of developing good habits and productive thinking in the student. Dewey, on the other hand, called for the transformation of education in terms of expanding the curriculum to include the needs of an increasingly industrial society. Dewey saw schools as agents of social change.

As time progressed, psychology developed as a social science, and two major conceptions of learning were spawned: the Gestalt model and behaviorism. In the Gestalt view, learning is defined as a change in the perceptual process, or as understanding a problem in a new way—insight. In contrast, the behavioral view rests on the assumption of stimulus substitution: Existing responses became associated with new stimuli through the process of conditioning. The emphasis is on observed relationships—behaviors. Behaviorism had a profound influence on American education, in terms of both instruction and classroom management. For example, removing a child from the stimuli of the existing environment to a quiet and boring place (“time out”), has been used as a form of punishment.

Since 1975, cognitive psychology, with its emphasis on the processes of learning, has dominated the instructional scene. The advent of computer technology offered a model of information processing, and advances in military technology demanded that researchers consider how it is that humans carry out decision-making processes. More specifically, it was wondered how learners attend to, organize, store, and retrieve information. In a 2001 study, Margaret Gredler cited three reasons for increased emphasis on cognitive processes: behaviorism was too limited in explaining human activity, learners had come to be viewed as active manipulators rather than as passive recipients of knowledge, and learners were viewed as interacting with environments. Prominent instructional models based on cognitive theory include Jerome Bruner's discovery learning, emphasizing the teacher's role in creating situations in which students can learn on their own, and, in contrast, David Ausubel's reception learning, which focuses on teacher-structured learning in the form of well-organized lessons. From an interactive perspective, discovery learning empowers the learner by positing the teacher as a facilitator, whereas reception learning empowers the teacher in controlling the learning situation. Finally, a model of teaming and teaching originating in Lev Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory of development emphasizes the development of a child's cognition through interaction with an adult who both models a skill and verbally mediates the child's encounter with the task until the child achieves independence at the task. From an interactive perspective, Vygotsky's model might be seen to empower both teacher and learner in turn.

• Key Concepts
• Cognitive skill induction
• Educational task
• Far transfer
• Interactive models
• Metacognition
• Near transfer
• Problem solving

Bibliography

Cherry, Kendra. "What Is Educational Psychology?" Verywell Mind, 11 Aug. 2024, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-educational-psychology-2795157. Accessed 9 Dec. 2024.

Gredler, Margaret E. Learning and Instruction. 6th ed. Merrill-Pearson, 2009.

Schmeck, Ronald R., ed. Learning Strategies and Learning Styles. Plenum, 1988.

Slavin, Robert E. Educational Psychology. 9th ed. Merrill-Pearson, 2009.

Snowman, Jack, Robert F. Biehler, and Curtis Bank. Psychology Applied to Teaching. 12th ed. Houghton Mifflin, 2009.