Educational Psychology Interactive: Why Study?

Why Study Educational Psychology?

Citation: Huitt, W. (2001). Why study educational psychology? Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University. Retrieved [date], from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/intro/whyedpsy.html

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There is much discussion about what young people should do in their childhood and youth to prepare them for success in adulthood. Once we have determined the desired end results or the prerequisites for success, we need to determine the means or the conditions by which those can be brought about. Education and schooling are two terms that are often associated with these conditions.

While education and schooling are sometimes thought to be interchangeable, there are some important distinctions.

Let's start with some basic definitions:

Education The process of:
(1) 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.

(2) the process by which society transmits to new members the values, beliefs, knowledge, and symbolic expressions to make communication possible within society. In this sense, education is serving a social and cultural function.

Schooling Teaching and learning that takes place in formal environments.

Education begins at birth and continues throughout life. It is constant and ongoing. Schooling generally begins somewhere between 4 and 6 when children are gathered together for the purposes of specific guidance related to skills and competencies that society deems important. In the U.S., it generally continues through high school for at least 75% of adolescents and then sporadically throughout adulthood. In the past, once our formal primary or secondary schooling was completed, a person's activity in a formal teaching/learning process was finished. However, in today's information or conceptual age, adults are quite often learning in formal settings throughout their working lives and even into retirement.

The definitions of schooling and education immediately raise some important issues: What is the nature of a human being and what is the nature of the society or culture in which the child is expected to be successful? These larger questions are addressed to some extent in educational psychology courses, but are more readily addressed in developmental psychology and foundations of education courses. That is why these courses are prerequisites to courses in educational psychology.

Educational Psychology is a combination or overlapping of two separate fields of study. The first is psychology, which 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. 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 relating to animals has been developed) 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. Scientists who study animals and people in terms of group- and institutional-behavior generally align themselves with sociology while individuals who focus on human culture and belief systems generally align themselves with anthropology.

The second field of study with which educational psychology aligns itself is education or more specifically schooling, as defined above. That is, the primary focus of this subdiscipline of psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior (or mental processes and behavior) in the context of formally socializing and developing the potential of individual human beings.

Educational psychology is therefore a distinct scientific discipline within psychology that includes both methods of study and a resulting knowledge base. It is concerned primarily with understanding the processes of teaching and learning that take place within formal environments and developing ways of improving the affiliated operations and procedures. Educational psychologists are interested in a wide variety of topics such as learning theories; teaching methods; motivation; cognitive, emotional, and moral development; and parent/child relationships.

Learning can be defined as the relatively permanent change in an individual's behavior or behavior potential (or capability) as a result of experience or practice (i.e., an internal change inferred from overt behavior). This can be compared with the other primary process producing relatively permanent change--maturation--that results from biological growth and development. Therefore, when we see a relatively permanent change in ourselves or others, we know that the primary cause was either maturation (biology) or learning (experience). As educators, there is nothing we can do to alter an indvidual's biology; the only influence open to use is to provide an opportunity for students to engage in experiences that will lead to relatively permanent change. Teaching, then, can be thought of as the purposeful direction and management of the learning process. Note that teaching is not giving knowledge or skills to students; teaching is the process of providing opportunities for students to produce relatively permanent change through the engagement in experiences provided by the teacher.

In summary, the primary purpose of schooling, which is only one of the institutional influences in a person's education, is to assist the individual to better develop his or her full potential as well as to develop the knowledge, attitudes, and skills to interact with the environment in a successful manner. The family, religious organizations, and community also share primary responsibility in the educational process (see Huitt, 1999 for additional detail).

The development of the prerequisites for success in adulthood is primarily demonstrated in three ways: vision, character, and competence. The development of a vision deals with ideas about who we are as human beings, our expectations about what is possible, and more specifically, our dreams, goals and desires for our lives. The development of character deals with issues of the direction and quality of life and is often considered in conjunction with morality and ethics (doing the right thing). Competence, in turn, deals with issues of success and expertise (doing the thing well). In an ideal society, the institutions of family, schools, religious organizations, and communities would provide a coherent set of opportunities for children and youth to engage in experiences that would result in high levels of expertise in these three areas and an attitude of striving for excellence in both individual and social development. However, the other major influences on the child or youth may not be providing appropriate opportunities. Therefore, educators (or school personnel) must be very efficient when developing the specific goals and objectives that will be addressed in schools.

Educational psychology provides important background knowledge that preservice and inservice educators can use as the foundation for professional practice. In combination with information on human growth and development and specific content knowledge, information on theories of learning and pedagogy provide the foundation for classroom and school methods and procedures. What you will study in educational psychology is applicable to a wide variety of content- and age-specific teaching activities.

My viewpoint is that human beings are goal-seeking, teleological organisms. That is, human beings do things for a reason or goal and strive to make meanings of their lives. The process of learning in a particular domain or content area is complex. Individuals develop a knowledge base through conditioning by the environment; they also actively construct a knowledge base through their seeking information and thinking about the subject based on their maturation and prior knowledge. When knowledge (which may be either cognitively- or affectively-based) is purposely put into practice through an exercise of volition, conation, or will it leads to behavioral competence and, through reflection, to wisdom.

From my perspective, there is no single explanation of why people do what they do. It is a combination of many factors, including the particular context or situation. We will study these alternative influences so that we can make better decisions as we guide young people to develop vision, character, and competence. At the undergraduate level, the focus of educational psychology is on effective classroom practice, primarily as defined by research. Theories of learning and other topics are covered in a supplemental manner. The focus of the graduate-level courses is to provide an overview of the major theories of learning and development and how they can be applied in classroom settings. At this level, a model of human behavior is presented and a discussion of the movement to the information age preceeds an in-depth analysis of current theory and research.

References:

Huitt, W. (1999). Implementing effective school achievement reform: Four principles. Paper presented at the School Counseling Summit, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA, April 20. Retrieved May 2001, from http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/files/school_reform.html.

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