Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows researchers to understand individual differences in intelligence, cognitive development, affect, motivation, self-regulation, and self-concept, as well as their role in learning. The field of educational psychology relies heavily on quantitative methods, including testing and measurement, to enhance educational activities related to instructional design, classroom management, and assessment, which serve to facilitate learning processes in various educational settings across the lifespan.
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
Edward Lee Thorndike was an American psychologist who spent nearly his entire career at Teachers College, Columbia University. His work on comparative psychology and the learning process led to his "theory of connectionism" and helped lay the scientific foundation for educational psychology. He also worked on solving industrial problems, such as employee exams and testing.
Albert Bandura was a Canadian-American psychologist. He was a professor of social science in psychology at Stanford University.
Volition, also known as will or conation, is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action. It is defined as purposive striving and is one of the primary human psychological functions. Others include affect, motivation, and cognition (thinking). Volitional processes can be applied consciously or they can be automatized as habits over time.
Applied psychology is the use of psychological methods and findings of scientific psychology to solve practical problems of human and animal behavior and experience. Educational and organizational psychology, business management, law, health, product design, ergonomics, behavioural psychology, psychology of motivation, psychoanalysis, neuropsychology, psychiatry and mental health are just a few of the areas that have been influenced by the application of psychological principles and scientific findings. Some of the areas of applied psychology include counseling psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, engineering psychology, occupational health psychology, legal psychology, school psychology, sports psychology, community psychology, neuropsychology, medical psychology and clinical psychology, evolutionary psychology, human factors, forensic psychology and traffic psychology. In addition, a number of specialized areas in the general area of psychology have applied branches. However, the lines between sub-branch specializations and major applied psychology categories are often mixed or in some cases blurred. For example, a human factors psychologist might use a cognitive psychology theory. This could be described as human factor psychology or as applied cognitive psychology. When applied psychology is used in the treatment of behavioral disorders there are many experimental approaches to try and treat an individual. This type of psychology can be found in many of the subbranches in other fields of psychology.
Benjamin Samuel Bloom was an American educational psychologist who made contributions to the classification of educational objectives and to the theory of mastery learning. He is particularly noted for leading educational psychologists to develop the comprehensive system of describing and assessing educational outcomes in the mid-1950s. He has influenced the practices and philosophies of educators around the world from the latter part of the twentieth century.
Gene V Glass is an American statistician and researcher working in educational psychology and the social sciences. According to the science writer Morton Hunt, he coined the term "meta-analysis" and illustrated its first use in his presidential address to the American Educational Research Association in San Francisco in April, 1976. The most extensive illustration of the technique was to the literature on psychotherapy outcome studies, published in 1980 by Johns Hopkins University Press under the title Benefits of Psychotherapy by Mary Lee Smith, Gene V Glass, and Thomas I. Miller. Gene V Glass is a Regents' Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University in both the educational leadership and policy studies and psychology in education divisions, having retired in 2010 from the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education. From 2011 to 2020, he was a senior researcher at the National Education Policy Center, a Research Professor in the School of Education at the University of Colorado Boulder, and a Lecturer in the Connie L. Lurie College of Education at San Jose State University. In 2003, he was elected to membership in the National Academy of Education.
Self-regulated learning (SRL) is one of the domains of self-regulation, and is aligned most closely with educational aims. Broadly speaking, it refers to learning that is guided by metacognition, strategic action, and motivation to learn. A self-regulated learner "monitors, directs, and regulates actions toward goals of information acquisition, expanding expertise, and self-improvement”. In particular, self-regulated learners are cognizant of their academic strengths and weaknesses, and they have a repertoire of strategies they appropriately apply to tackle the day-to-day challenges of academic tasks. These learners hold incremental beliefs about intelligence and attribute their successes or failures to factors within their control.
Lee Joseph Cronbach was an American educational psychologist who made contributions to psychological testing and measurement.
Ann Lesley Brown (1943–1999) was an educational psychologist who developed methods for teaching children to be better learners. Her interest in the human memory brought Brown to focus on active memory strategies that would help enhance human memory and developmental differences in memory tasks. Her realization that children's learning difficulties often stem from an inability to use metacognitive strategies such as summarizing led to profound advances in educational psychology theory and teaching practices.
Nathaniel Lees Gage was an American educational psychologist who made significant contributions to a scientific understanding of teaching. He conceived and edited the first Handbook of Research on Teaching, led the Stanford Center for Research and Development of Teaching, and served as president of the American Educational Research Association. Gage was a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, where he moved in 1962 after 14 years at the University of Illinois. Deborah Stipek, dean of the Stanford School of Education, called Gage a "giant among educational researchers." David C. Berliner, Regents' Professor of Education at Arizona State University, called Gage "the father of the field of research on teaching."
David C. Berliner is an educational psychologist. He was a professor and dean of the Mary Lou Fulton Institute and Graduate School of Education.
An educational psychologist is a psychologist whose differentiating functions may include diagnostic and psycho-educational assessment, psychological counseling in educational communities, community-type psycho-educational intervention, and mediation, coordination, and referral to other professionals, at all levels of the educational system. Many countries use this term to signify those who provide services to students, their teachers, and families, while other countries use this term to signify academic expertise in teaching Educational Psychology.
Patricia A. Alexander is an educational psychologist who has conducted notable research on the role of individual difference, strategic processing, and interest in students' learning. She is currently a university distinguished professor, Jean Mullan Professor of Literacy, and Distinguished Scholar/Teacher in the Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology in the College of Education at the University of Maryland and a visiting professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.
Dale H. Schunk is an educational psychologist, former Dean and current professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has researched the effects of social and instructional variables on cognition, learning, self-regulation and motivation. Schunk has served on the editorial boards of journals such as Contemporary Educational Psychology and Educational Psychology Review, and has authored many journal articles and book chapters on educational psychology. In addition to other books, he is author of the widely used textbook, Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective, and coauthor of Motivation in Education: Theory Research and Applications.
The Institute for International and Cross-Cultural Psychology (IICCP) at St. Francis College, New York City was founded in 1998. During its 21 years of existence it has become known for the advancement of cross-cultural psychology and international psychology. Supported by an International Advisory Board of psychologists from six countries, members of the institute have engaged in a series of research projects, edited books on a broad variety of topics in international psychology, sponsored numerous conferences, symposia and colloquia, given lectures at many conferences and institutions around the world, and introduced innovative curriculum development.
Help-seeking theory postulates that people follow a series of predictable steps to seek help for their inadequacies, it is a series of well-ordered and purposeful cognitive and behavioral steps, each leading to specific types of solutions.
The APA Division 15 Career Achievement Award is an award of the American Psychological Association given to living recipients for substantial career achievements in educational psychology. The award's winners are recognized for research in the best tradition of educational psychology, meaning that the award is conferred for original, scientific, empirically based research that contributes significantly to knowledge, theory, or practice in educational psychology. It was named for the noted psychologist Edward Thorndike but later renamed following revelations which tied Thorndike to eugenics.
