Educational Psychology Resources

There is some discussion among practicing educators about the importance of studying educational psychology. One way to think about this issue is to define some terms.

Education can be defined as the process of developing the capacities and potential of the individual so as to prepare that individual to be successful in a specific society or culture. From this perspective, education is serving primarily an individual development function. On the other hand, education can be seen as serving a social and cultural function and could be defined as the process by which society transmits to new members the values, beliefs, knowledge, and symbolic expressions to make communication possible within society.
Similarly, psychology can be defined as the scientific study of the mind and behavior (or behavior and mental processes), especially as it relates to individual human beings.

Educational psychology, then, is a combination or overlapping of two separate fields of study. The first is psychology. Note that it is the scientific study of mind or mental processes (covert or internal) as well as behavior (overt or external). People who study psychological phenomena are not necessarily limited to the study of human beings (a large body of research relates to animals) nor are they limited to only studying individuals. However, when studying groups of individuals, the focus is generally on how individuals perform within the group rather than the study of the group as a whole.
The materials on this section of the website focus on components of the teaching-learning process as shown in this model.

Diagram illustrating factors influencing student achievement. Community factors (size, region) and family factors (mother’s education, family income, number of books in the home, academic expectations) influence teacher characteristics (knowledge, skills, efficacy) and student characteristics (prior knowledge, intelligence, learning style, motivation). School policies (leadership, supervision, climate) and state policies (money, achievement testing, guidelines, assessment, training) affect teacher behavior (planning, management, instruction). Teacher behavior and student characteristics influence student behavior (content overlap, involvement, success), which leads to student achievement, shown as the final outcome in a boxed area.
A realistic image of a human hand gently cradling a glowing, detailed planet Earth against a dark, cosmic background with a soft vignette.

These are divided into fifteen chapters.

  1. Introduction
    1. Why study educational psychology
    2. History of educational psychology
  2. Overview
    1. Frameworks
    2. Curriculum development
  3. Human Development
    1. Holistic development — Brilliant Star Framework 
    2. Piaget
      1. Theory of cognitive development
      2. Practical applications
    3. Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development
    4. Erikson theory of socioemotional development
  4. Individual Differences (Part 1)
    1. Intelligence
    2. Motivation
    3. Moral character
  5. Individual Differences (Part 2)
    1. Disabilities
    2. Gifted
  6. Behavioral Learning Theory
    1. Overview
    2. Classical Conditioning
    3. Operant Conditioning
    4. Using operant conditioning
    5. Schedules of reinforcement
    6. Behavior modification
  7. Cognitive Information Processing
    1. Overview of theories
    2. Using information processing theory
    3. Mental representations
    4. Critical and creative thinking
    5. Metacognition
  8. Affect Oriented Theories
    1. Humanism
    2. Invitational education
    3. Positive psychology
  9. Socially Oriented Theories
    1. Social learning theory
    2. Social cognitive theory
    3. Connectivism
  10. Teacher-led Classrooms
    1. Planning
    2. Teacher-led instructivism
    3. Classroom management
  11. Learner-centered Classrooms
    1. Constructivist instruction
    2. Classroom discipline
  12. Assessment and Evaluation
    1. Overview
    2. Formative evaluation
    3. Standardized testing
  13. Research Methods
    1. Overview
    2. Qualitative methods
    3. Quantitative methods
  14. Research Findings
    1. Improving student achievement
    2. Improving learning strategies
  15. The Changing Context
    1. Technology
    2. Sociocultural change

Note: There would be introductory text for each chapter with buttons for:

  1. Short overview video
  2. Readings