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.
Learning theory describes how students receive, process, and retain knowledge during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a worldview, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained.
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 the 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.
Robert Mills Gagné was an American educational psychologist best known for his Conditions of Learning. He pioneered the science of instruction during World War II when he worked with the Army Air Corps training pilots. He went on to develop a series of studies and works that simplified and explained what he and others believed to be "good instruction." Gagné was also involved in applying concepts of instructional theory to the design of computer-based training and multimedia-based learning. His work is sometimes summarized as the Gagné assumption: that different types of learning exist, and that different instructional conditions are most likely to bring about these different types of learning.
Albert Bandura was a Canadian–American psychologist who was the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University.
Robert J. Sternberg is an American psychologist and psychometrician. He is Professor of Human Development at Cornell University.
Constructivism is a theory in education which posits that individuals or learners do not acquire knowledge and understanding by passively perceiving it within a direct process of knowledge transmission, rather they construct new understandings and knowledge through experience and social discourse, integrating new information with what they already know. For children, this includes knowledge gained prior to entering school. It is associated with various philosophical positions, particularly in epistemology as well as ontology, politics, and ethics. The origin of the theory is also linked to Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development.
Robert Glaser was an American educational psychologist, who has made significant contributions to theories of learning and instruction. The key areas of his research focused on the nature of aptitudes and individual differences, the interaction of knowledge and skill in expertise, the roles of testing and technology in education, and training adapted to individual differences. Glaser has also been noted for having developed the idea of individually prescribed instruction as well as making major contributions to the theory of adaptive education.
Robert Edward Slavin was an American psychologist who studied educational and academic issues. He was known for the Success for All educational model. Until his death, he was a distinguished professor and director of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University.
Lee Joseph Cronbach was an American educational psychologist who made contributions to psychological testing and measurement.
Barbara Rogoff is an American academic who is UCSC Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research is in different learning between cultures and bridges psychology and anthropology.
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.
Karen R. Harris is an American educational psychologist and special educator who has researched the development of learning strategies and self-regulation among students with learning challenges such as learning disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. She is currently the Mary Emily Warner Professor in the Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation, Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University.
The psychology of science is a branch of the studies of social science defined most simply as the study of scientific thought or behavior. It is a collection of studies of various topics. The thought of psychology has been around since the late 19th century. Research on the psychology of science began in 1874, the field has seen a substantial expansion of activity in recent years. The specific field of psychology as a science first gained popularity mostly in the 1960s, with Abraham Maslow publishing an influential text on the subject, but this popularity faded, only re-emerging in the 1980s. Other studies of science include philosophy of science, history of science, and sociology of science or sociology of scientific knowledge.
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.
Frank Smith (1928-2020) was a Canadian psycholinguist recognized for his contributions in linguistics and cognitive psychology. He was an essential contributor to research on the nature of the reading process together with researchers such as George Armitage Miller, Kenneth S. Goodman, Paul A. Kolers, Jane W. Torrey, Jane Mackworth, Richard Venezky, Robert Calfee, and Julian Hochberg. Smith and Goodman are founders of whole language approach for reading instruction. He was the author of numerous books.
E-learning theory describes the cognitive science principles of effective multimedia learning using electronic educational technology.
Howard Giles is a British-American social psychologist and a Distinguished Research Professor of Communication at the Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara.
Linnea Carlson Ehri is an American educational psychologist and expert on the development of reading. She is a Distinguished Professor Emerita of Educational Psychology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Ehri is known for her theory of orthographic mapping, which describes the process of forming "letter-sound connections to bond the spellings, pronunciations, and meanings of specific words in memory" that underlies fluent reading. As a consequence of orthographic mapping, written words are tightly linked with their pronunciations and meanings in memory and can be recognized by sight.
