The Field of Educational Psychology
The field of educational psychology is concerned with the scientific study of human learning. Its study ranges from the individual’s learning style to the factors that promote or hinder learning. It aims to enhance the quality of education and to improve the quality of life for children and adults. It focuses on the psychological factors that influence human learning, including the psychological factors that influence children’s motivation and achievement.
Perspectives of educational psychology
In educational psychology, different perspectives focus on different aspects of learning. These perspectives include the behavioral perspective, which focuses on the way people learn and make learning decisions. The behavioral perspective stresses the importance of rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior. It has some drawbacks, however, such as ignoring the role of emotions and intrinsic motivation.
The writings in this course are organized in eight units. Each unit contains readings, supplementary materials, and guiding discussion questions. Students should read the materials with the discussion questions in mind, then log in to Moodle and post their responses. Each unit has two discussion questions that should be addressed. It is important that students focus on the conceptual space.
The four basic goals of psychology are to explain, predict, change, and describe human behavior. Four different perspectives are used in educational psychology. These perspectives include the behavioral perspective, the cognitive perspective, the developmental perspective, and the social cognitive constructivist perspective. The first educational psychologist in India was Narendra Nath Sen Gupta, a Harvard- educated professor.
