The History of Eduacational Psychology: PAST

What is Educational Psychology?

Educational psychology is the study of how individuals learn, including topics such as student outcomes, the academic process, individual differences in learning, gifted learners and various learning disabilities.This process includes emotional, social, and cognitive learning processes.

Johann Herbart as the "Father" of educational psychology.Herbart believed that student's interested in a topic had a tremendous influence of the learning outcome and believed that teachers should consider this interest along with prior knowledge when deciding which type of instruction is most appropriate.

Another important influent was Edward Lee Thorndike was devoted throughout his career to understanding the process of learning. His interest in and contribution to our understanding of learning ranged from studies with animals, children, and eventually with adults.

 

Plato and Aristotle

Plato who believed that all knowledge is innate at birth and is perfectible by experiential learning during growth. Aristotle, Plato's student, was the first to observe that "association"among ideas facilitated understanding and recall. He believed that comprehension was aided by contiguity, succession, similarity and contrast.

Comenius 1592-1670

Was a Moravian clergyman, and the first person to recognize the age differences in children's ability to learn. He also noticed that children learn more effectively when they are involved with experiences that they can assimilate.

Locke In the late 1600's
 John Locke advanced the hypothesis that people learn primarily from external forces. He believed that the mind was like a blank was tablet (tabula rasa), and that successions of simple impressions give rise to complex ideas through association and reflection. Locke is credited with establishing "empiricism" as a criterion for testing the validity of knowledge, thus providing a conceptual framework for later development of excremental methodology in the natural and social sciences.

Rousseau during the mid 18th century

Jean Jacques Rousseau put forth a new theory of educational pedagogy. In his famous work Emile, published in1762, he explained his views on the benefits of health and physical exercise, and the belief that knowledge acquisition occurs though experience and that reason and investigation should replace arbitrary authority. He proposed educating children according to their natural inclinations, impulses and feelings.

Pestalozzi    1746-1827

To be the first applied educational psychologist. He was one of the first educators who attempted to put Rousseau's teaching into practice and teach children by drawing upon their natural interests and activities.

Titchener     1867- 1927

was one of the first eminent Educational Psychologists to practice in America. He was director of the psychology laboratory at Cornell University, and he regarded the study of the generalized mind to be the only legitimate purpose of psychological investigation. He focused on such higher mental processes as concept formation and argued that introspection is a valid form for interpreting great variety of sensations and feelings.

Dewey 1896

In 1896, John Dewey launched an attack against Titchener and his ideas. Dewey argued that a stimulus and the response it elicits constitute a reflexarc, and that that arc should be the minimal unit of analysis, and its functionshould be the basis for understanding it. Dewey believed that individualsaddress aspects of their environment, not because these features possess thequalities of being interesting, but because they are viewed instrumentally asways of realizing a purpose. This belief gave rise to the theory of "functionalism". Functionalism encouraged developments in mental testing, investigation ofindividual differences and studies of adaptive behavior

William James 1899

He mades significant contributions to the field.His seminal 1899 text Talks to Teachers on Psychology is considered the first textbook on educational psychology.

Alfred binet 1899 
French psychologist was developing his famous IQ test.The test were originally designed to help the French government identify children who had developmental delays to create special education programs.

Thorndike 1874-1949

He agreed with functionalism, but preferred to be identified as a "connectionist" because he sought to explain learning in terms of stimulus-response connections. He is credited withestablishing the "Law of Effect" to account for thestrengthening or weakening of connections as a result of experience. In 1914Thorndike completed the three volume series, Educational Psychology. For nearly fifty years the field of Educational Psychology embraced the theory of associationism without question.

Benjamin Bloom
He developed an important taxonomy designed to categorize, and describe different educational objectives.The three top-level domains he described were cognitive, effective, and psychomotor learning objectives.