...EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: A DEFINITION AND KEY CONCEPTS It seems too simple to say that educational psychology is the psychology of learning and teaching, and yet a majority of educational psychologists spend their time studying ways to describe and improve learning and teaching. After reviewing the historical literature in educational psychology, Glover and Ronning (1987, p. 14) suggested that educational psychology includes topics that span human development, individual differences, measurement, learning, and motivation and is both a data-driven and a theory-driven discipline. Thus, our definition of educational psychology is the application of psychology and psychological methods to the study of development, learning, motivation, instruction, assessment, and related issues that influence the interaction of teaching and learning. This definition is broad because the potential applications of educational psychology to the learning process are immense! Today educational psychology is a vital discipline that is contributing to the education of teachers and learners. For example, Jerome Bruner, an enduring figure in educational psychology, recently noted the need to rethink our ideas of development, teaching, and learning and the interactions among them. Specifically, Bruner (1996) urged educators and psychologists to see children as thinkers, and stated: No less than the adult, the child is thought of as holding more or less coherent "theories" not only about the world but about...
Words: 4519 - Pages: 19
...Alberta, Canada) is a psychologist who is the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. For almost six decades, he has been responsible for contributions to many fields of psychology, including social cognitive theory, therapy and personality psychology, and was also influential in the transition between behaviorism and cognitive psychology. He is known as the originator of social learning theory and the theory of self-efficacy, and is also responsible for the influential 1961 Bobo doll experiment. A 2002 survey ranked Bandura as the fourth most-frequently cited psychologist of all time, behind B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and Jean Piaget, and as the most cited living one.[1] Bandura is widely described as the greatest living psychologist,[2][3][4][5] and as one of the most influential psychologists of all time.[6][7] In 1974 Bandura was elected to be the Eighty-Second President of the American Psychological Association (APA). He was one of the youngest president-elects in the history of the APA at the age of 46. Bandura served as a member of the APA Board of Scientific Affairs from 1968 to 1970 and is well known as a member of the editiorial board of nine psychology journals including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology from 1963 to 1972.[8] At the age of 82, Bandura was awarded the Grawemeyer Award for psychology and is known as one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century. [9] Contents [hide] ...
Words: 6800 - Pages: 28
...classroom in an easy and effective way. It is possible if the teacher understands the qualities and nature of child and human psychology. The subject Educational Psychology is also a challenging field through which different complex problems of educational system can be solved. The knowledge of Educational Psychology has a great relevance for the teacher, because it helps the teacher to realize his objective of effective teaching and educating the pupils properly. Precisely speaking, the knowledge of Educational Psychology helps the teacher in the following ways: (1) Understanding the child: It has been rightly recognized that the teacher can truly teach the child only when he possesses the knowledge of child psychology individual as well as collective. For example, the teacher must know how children think; what are their interests at various stages of their development; and how their energies can best be utilized for educational purpose. In fact, all modifications in the techniques of teaching are really the growing application of the knowledge of psychology to the process of teaching learning. (2) Understanding individual differences: Previously it was presumes that all children are more or less alike and therefore, almost same speed of progress was expected of them. Moreover, it was also thought that the mind of the child is just like a clean state and therefore, anything could be written on it. Now, from the knowledge of psychology, we understand that there are marked...
Words: 824 - Pages: 4
...Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychology is a scientific examination of a person’s cognition. It focuses on how we distinguish, learn, and retain information, think, rationale, and respond. There are sub domains of cognitive psychology which are insight, attention, knowledge, memory, idea formation, way of thinking, judgment, choice making, predicament solving, and language dispensation. Perception is how we understand things around us. Attention is how we decide what is significant to us when offered with numerous things. Learning helps to enhance the response that we have to our surroundings. Memory is the capability at which we obtain things. Concept configuration is the ability to systematize our many diverse perceptions. Conclusion, decisions, reasoning, and predicament solving are how we shape the choices that we create and how we believe about the choices that we create. Language insight is how we understand the things we say and hear (Scholarepedia, 2011). Perception is one of the main landmarks of cognitive psychology. Perception is how people deliberately distinguish objects. From a visual point of view insight would include recognizing the form of an object, dimension, and distance away from the person. Perception is how a person gains access to information about the adjacent environment right away (Willingham, 2007). George Berkeley discussed insight as being a fraction of the empiricist versus nativist dispute. Berkeley happened to be an intense empiricist. He...
Words: 999 - Pages: 4
...Central Texas College Psychology 2301 – General Psychology Semester: June 1, 2015 – July 25, 2015 Tuesday & Thursday: 5:30pm – 7:30pm Building: 7656, Room #12 Instructor: Lesly R. Krome, M. S. lrkrome@ksu.edu I. Introduction A. General Psychology is a survey of the major psychological topics, theories, and approaches to the scientific study of behavior and mental processes. B. This course satisfies three semester hours of the Social/Behavioral Science for the Associate of Science and Associate of Arts degrees. Please check your degree plan to determine the status of this course in your program of study. C. Through this course, students will prepare for contemporary challenges by developing and demonstrating critical thinking skills, communication skills, social responsibility, and empirical and quantitative skills. D. Prerequisites(s): None II. Learning Outcomes Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: A. Identify various research methods and their characteristics used in the scientific study of psychology. B. Describe the historical influences and early schools of thought that shaped the field of psychology. C. Describe some of the prominent perspectives and approaches used in the study of psychology. D. Use terminology unique to the study of psychology. E. Describe accepted approaches and standards in psychological assessment and evaluation. F. Identify factors in physiological and psychological processes involved in human...
Words: 2035 - Pages: 9
...Educational psychology is when you study how people learn in academic settings. They want to know how students’ learn within academic settings, how productive interventions are, and what prompts people to educate others, how schools operate as organizations and civilizations. Educational psychology is often confused with school psychology, but the two are not the same. School psychologists center their attention on the needs of one particular individual. In contrast, educational psychologists are concerned with the whole educational process, using their expertise in psychology to improve the educational experience. Educational psychologist primary role are to focus on bringing a positive change for people in academic settings. They have a broad range of skills, techniques, and methods for helping people who have trouble excelling academically. While educational psychologists are training they study normal developments of the young mind, psychology of learning and educating, psychological aspects of educating children with special needs. They study how groups operate, how people interact and maintain relationships among many other subjects. They are complex problem solvers, give good advice, treatment, and know how to properly train others to do the same. People in this profession are active listeners as well as active learners, always aware of others’ reactions and to as why they react the way they do. Educational psychologist love to stay busy and help people, actively...
Words: 801 - Pages: 4
...Cognitive Theorist PSY/390 Elizabeth Schnobrich September 15, 2014 The cognitive theory is an approach to psychology that attempts to explain human behavior by understanding the thought process. In humans, it is assumed that thoughts are the primary determinants of emotions and behavior. The cognitive theory mainly rejects behaviorism because it reduces complex human behavior to simple cause and effect. However, there has been a trend going around the past decade or so that leans towards merging the two into what is known as cognitive behavioral theory. This allows therapists to use more techniques to help achieve goals. One cognitive theorist who is well known throughout psychology is Edward C Tolman. Edward C Tolman was a very influential theorist who introduced many new concepts and vocabulary into the field of psychology. Before psychology, Edward C Tolman studied engineering. He spent a majority of his career at Berkeley and eventually earned his Ph.D. at Harvard. He enjoyed working with his research students and confesses that he received many of his ideas from the students themselves. Behaviorist said that psychology should study observable behavior and that nothing happens between stimulus and response. Basically, there are no cognitive processes that take place. Edward Tolman challenged these behaviorist by proposing that people and animals are active information processes and not passive learners as suggested. “Tolman believed individuals do more than merely...
Words: 735 - Pages: 3
...Background of psychology Psychology has brief history as a scientific discipline though it has been studied since ancient time under the faculty of philosophy. The word psychology was derived from Greek word 'psyche' and 'logos' literal meaning of which was 'soul' and 'study' respectively. The definition of psychology had ever been in the process of change since then. The development of psychology can broadly be traced into four periods: Ancient Greek period, per-modern period, modern period and current status 1. Greek period: Greek philosophers had contributed much for the development of psychology. Some of the key contributors were Socrates was interested in studying the reincarnation of soul. Soul or mind was considered as the representation of individuals. Plato, a bright student of Socrates expanded Socrates concepts in philosophy about life and soul. It was Aristotle who wrote first book in psychology called Para Psyche; about the mind or soul. In the book, he introduced the basic ideas in psychology today, like law of association. However, the notion of psychology was primarily related to study of soul or mind at that stage. Later on it was found that physical existence of soul was doubtful. Also, there was controversy in defining soul and mind among the philosopher. The contributors of the period never focused on the behavior of individual. That is why the attention was diverted from the study of soul or mind 2. Pre-modern period it was during 1800's that psychology was established...
Words: 2005 - Pages: 9
...Perspectives Paper December 17, 2012 Behavioral psychology, also known as behaviorism, is a perspective that became dominant during the early half of the 20th century thanks to prominent thinkers such as B.F. Skinner, and John B. Watson. The basis of behavioral psychology suggests that all behaviors are learned. Conditioning is the process of learning to react to the environment. Many theorists contributed to the theories of classical and operant conditioning, some theorists being Skinner, Watson, and Tolman. Each theorist contributed their own theories proven to impact a part of psychology. Many behaviors have been previously conditioned in the human species by the environment. Skinner, Watson, and Tolman all made their contributions to psychology with theories and proven statistics. John B. Watson John Watson proposed the idea of an objective psychology of behavior called "behaviorism." He saw psychology as the study of people's actions with the ability to predict and control those actions. His idea became known as “the behaviorists” theory (Goodwin. 2008). Theorists such as Skinner, Watson, and Tolman all had one common idea; that psychology was defined as the natural science of behavior, objective in its study, and was a pattern of adjustment functionally dependent upon stimulus conditions in the environment, and was emphasized in theory and research. Watson also used animal subjects...
Words: 1405 - Pages: 6
...1 Cognitive Psychology Dustin Finn PSY/360 September 20, 2015 Melissa Jackson 2 Cognitive Psychology Cognitive psychology can be defined as the study of the mind and mental functions. Some of these functions include learning, memory, and perception. Other functions are reasoning, language and decision making. Cognition has been studied recently as being a complex computing system. However, scientists began studying this form of psychology as early as the 1800’s. While it contains some flaws, it did create some milestones for cognitive psychology. The Beginning of Cognitive Psychology Back in 1868, a scientist named Franciscus Donders became interested in determining on how long it takes to make a decision. He used reaction time to try and formulate decision making. We learned from Donders studies, that mental processes cannot be measured directly. In, fact we base our findings from certain behaviors, biological changes and behavioral changes as they are affected by biological differences. In 1879, we saw the beginning of structuralism. Wilhelm Wundt and Edward Tichner focused on the conscious experience. They tried to find a “periodic table” for the mind and used an analytic introspection method. In regards to cognitive psychology, they emphasized a systematic, controlled observation. Wundt and Tichner emphasized the importance of understanding the structure of the mind and higher ...
Words: 709 - Pages: 3
...well be a cognitivist. Cognitive theory is focused on the individual's thoughts as the determinate of his or her emotions and behaviors and therefore personality (Dasen). Many cognitive theorists believe that without these thought processes, we could have no emotions and no behavior and would therefore not function. In other words, thoughts always come before any feeling and before any action. The theoretical perspective of the Cognitive approach of personality can be simply described as what personality does, but is much more complex than that. Cognitive Psychology revolves around the notion that if we want to know what makes people tick then we need to understand the internal processes of their mind (Dasen). Cognition literally means “knowing”. In other words, psychologists from this approach study cognition which is “the mental act or process by which knowledge is acquired.” Cognitive psychology focuses on the way humans process information, looking at how we treat information that comes in to the person (what behaviorists would callstimuli), and how this treatment leads to responses (Dasen). In other...
Words: 1907 - Pages: 8
...in the psychology world. The focus of this reading will be on Max Wertheimer. What he brought to the field of learning and cognition; the Gestalt theory, the theory he is most notably known for and the concepts most commonly accepted from that model will be discussed and analyzed. Max Wertheimer born on April 15th 1880 in Prague was a well-known psychologist. His father was an educationist and his mother had received her doctorate degree from the University of Wurzburg. Wertheimer studied at the Psychological Institute at the University of Frankfurt. He later worked as a professor at the University of Frankfurt for several years. Wertheimer migrated to the United States in 1933. He worked as a professor at the New York School for Social Research for a period of ten years. Due to his remarkable academic skills and efforts New York schools became one of the top-notch schools of psychology in the beginning of the twentieth century. Mark Wertheimer, along with Kohler and Kofka, was one of the founding members of Gestalt psychology. Gestalt theory emphasized higher- order cognitive processes. The main focus of Gestalt theory was “grouping”. In learning opposed to the reductionism of behaviorism, Gestalt concentrates on the way in which the mind insists on finding patterns in things, and how this contributes to learning, especially the development of “insight”. Gestalt emphasizes that the mind abhors to non- sense. Max Wertheimer was the pioneer of Gestalt psychology. He became...
Words: 829 - Pages: 4
...Perspectives Paper In the world of psychology there are many perspectives, a few which will be looking at is of John B. Watson, B. F. Skinner and also that of Edward C. Tolman. They will also be contrasted and compared to each other in their views as to regarding how each perspective relates to the modern-day psychology. You will see the differences in their perspectives as well as what motivated them to come up with them. Each man had ideals of his own and ways that they expressed them and these were just some of those ways. They were behaviorist in their own right and their ideals to expand on their knowledge and to help society better itself come to pass with those ideals. Starting with John B. Watson, his perspectives were centered on classical conditioning. He believed that behaviorism was the way to go. It was the new movement. He believed that introspection forms no essential part of methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon readiness with which lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness (Goodwin, (2008). He felt more comfortable around animals than he did humans when it came to studying psychology so he settled for studying functionalist psychology, especially comparative psychology. He started out his first study with rat mazes and the hypothesis about kinesthetic sense. It was done in 1907, in which they would remove parts of the rat’s senses in some, like the eyes, middle of the ears, whiskers, or...
Words: 1407 - Pages: 6
...once weekly instead of 3-5 times weekly which was typical for traditional psychoanalysts. Psychodynamic therapies depend on a theory of inner conflicts which surface in behaviour or emotions. Generally, one conflict is subconscious. ------------------------------------------------- Overview In general, psychodynamics, also known as dynamic psychology, is the study of the interrelationship of various parts of the mind, personality, or psyche as they relate to mental, emotional, or motivational forces especially at the unconscious level.[4][5][6] The mental forces involved in psychodynamics are often divided into two parts:[7] (a) interaction of emotional forces: the interaction of the emotional and motivational forces that affect behavior and mental states, especially on a subconscious level; (b) inner forces affecting behavior: the study of the emotional and motivational forces that affect behavior and states of mind;. Freud proposed that psychological energy was constant (hence, emotional changes consisted only in displacements) and that it tended to rest (point attractor) through discharge (catharsis). In mate selection psychology, psychodynamics is defined as the study of the forces, motives, and energy generated by the deepest of human needs. In general,...
Words: 7233 - Pages: 29
...Cognitive Psychology Definition Psy 360 June 6, 2011 Dr. Felix Montes Cognitive Psychology Definition Cognitive psychology has a different approach than that of previous psychologies. Cognitive psychology accepts the scientific method and introspection as a method of investigations. Introspection is the self-observation reports of the conscious inner thoughts, desires, and sensations. It is the oneself (Wikipedia, 2011). The other way cognitive psychology is different is in the way it acknowledges the existence of internal mental states like beliefs, desires, ideas, and motivation (Wikipedia, 2011). The definition of cognitive psychology is described as the study of mental processes and how a person thinks, perceives information, remembers the information, and learns from the experience. In the larger field of cognitivism, neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics play a role. Although this science stems from behaviorism it is its own science. The core of cognitive psychology is how to acquire, process, and store information (Willingham, 2007). Most of the famous psychologists and philosophers somehow relate back to Wilhelm Wundt. Wundt is credited with the founding of the first lab back in 1879. There was a lab at Harvard University before this in 1875 but because William James used this lab as a source of teaching and for experiments, he is not credited for the first lab. Wundt did the necessary steps to have cognitive psychology sighted as a science...
Words: 939 - Pages: 4
