The emergence of educational
psychology can be traced in the period between 1800 and 1850 as a result of the
development of general psychology and contributions and discoveries that came
in other fields such as biology, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, and physics.
Various philosophical schools of thought played a prominent role in the
emergence and development of this field, in addition to The various schools of
psychology, such as behavioral, cognitive, humanistic, and analytical,
presented principles and laws related to psychological functions, behavior, and
the learning process.
At the beginning of the twentieth
century, periodicals appeared specialized in publishing research in the field
of educational psychology. Among these periodicals was the Journal of
Educational Psychology, the first issue of which was published in 1910.
In the 1920s and 1930s,
educational psychology struggled to become a separate field from psychology and
education through the establishment of independent departments in many
universities.
Definition of educational psychology
Three viewpoints have been identified regarding the definition of educational psychology:
- The first point of view: views it as educational psychology and the scientific study of psychology in the field of education; That is, establishing the principles, concepts and theories that govern the learner’s behavior in learning and teaching situations.
- The second point of view: It is viewed as an applied branch of general psychology that employs psychological principles, concepts, and theories on educational practice within the classroom.
- The third point of view: It is viewed as the evaluation process that organizes the learning and teaching processes.
Educational psychology is known as the science that must be concerned
with the psychological study of multiple educational problems and work to solve
them by providing multiple principles, concepts, methods, and models.
Educational psychology can be
defined as the science that is concerned with studying human behavior in
learning and teaching situations by providing principles, concepts, curricula
and theoretical methods that enable the learning and teaching processes to
occur among individuals, and contribute to identifying educational problems and
working to solve and get rid of them.
Objectives of educational psychology
Educational psychology seeks to reconcile psychological theories and educational applications by achieving the following two goals:
- Generating theoretical knowledge about human behavior in learning and teaching situations by providing psychological principles, concepts and theories that work to understand, explain, control and guide behaviour.
- Placing this theoretical knowledge in a practical, applied framework enables those in charge of the educational process to use it in learning and classroom teaching situations in a way that contributes to achieving effective learning among learners.
Topics in educational psychology
The results of many studies showed that the interests of specialists
addressed multiple topics:
- Learning.
- Teaching and growth.
- Motivation.
- Mental abilities and individual differences.
- Social behavior.
- Personality.
- Measurement, evaluation, and psychological and achievement tests.
- Statistics and research methods.
Trends in educational psychology
There are many trends interested in studying educational psychology.
Depending on the diversity and contrast of psychologists’ viewpoints, the
following are the most important trends explaining educational psychology:
Behavioral trend
This trend was concerned with studying observable and measurable
behavior, emphasized behavioral responses determined by environmental stimuli,
and produced a set of behavioral principles on which a group of educational and
learning strategies and therapeutic strategies were based. Among these principles
are:
- Psychology is the science of behavior.
- Behavior can be described and explained; Based on external influences.
- Behavior is governed by its results.
- Reinforcement strengthens the bond between stimulus and response.
This trend resulted in a number of educational applications, including:
- All types of reinforcement, whether positive or negative, symbolic reinforcement, fixed, intermittent, and relative reinforcement.
- Behavior shaping and behavior modification.
- Mastery learning.
Psychodynamic trend:
It is also known as the trend of psychoanalysis, and Freud is considered
the founding father of this trend. This trend emerged after Freud published his
book entitled The Interpretation of Dreams in (1900 AD). This book received
wide popular acceptance.
Special interests emerged for this
trend, mostly centered on the study of emotional processes, the id, the ego,
the superego, subconscious defensive tricks (repression, projection,
justification, and relapse), sexual energy, psychological and sexual development,
the sexual instinct, and the instinct of life and death.
One of the fruits of this trend was its focus on therapeutic applications of behavior rather than on experimental research. Therefore, it is difficult to verify his theories experimentally.
One of
the figures of this trend is Carl Jung, who came up with the idea of the
collective unconscious as opposed to the personal unconscious proposed by
Freud.
The focus was on the social areas
of personality, cognitive representations, anxiety resulting from social
interactions, and the individual’s personality, which is shaped successively in
the stages of adolescence and adulthood as a result of social interactions.
Cognitive orientation
According to this trend, the brain hosts the mind that performs the
cognitive processes that allow the individual to remember, think, make
decisions, solve problems, and create. When the individual is able to plan
these processes and then control and evaluate them, he is then able to practice
metacognitive thinking.
The roots of this trend go back to Gestalt scholars who focused on insight (perceiving the relationships between the elements of the problematic situation).
Supporters of this
trend include Jean Piaget, the author of the theory of the development of
logical thinking in children, Jerome Brunner, the founder of the theory of
cognitive representations, and David Ausuble, who called for meaningful
learning.
Humanistic trend
Supporters of this trend believe that individuals are able to control their lives and are not slaves to environmental conditions. Rather, they are able to live according to their current values, such as the value of altruism, freedom, and will.
This trend glorifies
the individual with a benevolent nature, and one of its proponents is Carl
Rogers, who developed the idea of client-centered therapy to help individuals
gain insight into their feelings about who they are.
While Abraham Maslow believed that there is a hierarchy of human needs that membership seeks to satisfy; In order to achieve integrated growth of membership.
Research methods in educational psychology
Scientific research methods used in educational psychology vary
according to the objectives of scientific research. The following is a
presentation of the different methods used by educational psychology in
studying various psychological and behavioral phenomena.
- First: The descriptive studies approach
This approach is based on studying the phenomenon as it occurs in
reality, without any attempt by the researcher to influence the causes and
factors of this phenomenon. In this type of study, the researcher seeks to
provide a quantitative or qualitative description of the studied phenomena,
which would contribute to making appropriate decisions about them.
- Second: The correlational studies approach
This approach is based on studying the relationship between one
phenomenon and another phenomenon or between a variable and another variable
with statistical significance. The variable refers to the characteristic that
is present in different proportions among members of the same society, such as
motivation, achievement, intelligence..., and this relationship is studied by
calculating the correlation coefficient, as it It represents a statistical
value ranging between (-1, +1), and the sign may be (+) positive or (-)
negative, and the correlation coefficient may take any value within this range.
- Third: The method of experimental studies
This approach is based on subjecting the phenomenon of interest to the
principle of experimentation to ascertain its causes and factors affecting it.
The phenomenon that is the subject of study is called the dependent variable,
as the value of this variable is affected by the changes the researcher makes
in the independent variable. The independent variable represents the factor
that the researcher chooses so that it controls Its value and levels to
determine its impact on the dependent variable or phenomenon under
investigation.