Psychological education and educational psychology seem the same at first sight. Yet, is it so? People usually talk about psychological education for a successful lifestyle. But, does psychology involve only mental status? No!. Psychology is a wide area that has different perspectives. Simply, it is associates with mind, behaviour and cognition. If so, what is educational psychology?
It is a term that used in educational setups. So, the educators should have a complete understanding of this term to deliver an outstanding service for their followers. It means educational psychology is the study of how people learn and understand things through their mental capacity, behavioural adaptations and cognitive skills. Thus, it is clear that the psychological education and educational psychology is not a similar aspect of learning. But, the second one is one of the subcategories of the first. And, the first term is the basis of all other psychological areas. Yes! Need much more mental support to understand the difference.
Well, let’s focus on the concepts and perspectives that are popular in educational psychology. Often, all these factors are greatly important when deciding appropriate teaching methods and materials, organising learning environment, deciding institutional processes and understanding differences of individual capacities for learning.
What is educational psychology, and its main perspectives?
Psychology is an ongoing research process. It means even though there is an area of researches in the field, still there are certain gaps to conclude the theories and concepts. So, the studies on the field will last until the world and human beings last.
Thus, the field of educational psychology also has certain perspectives which have been published by experts. So, the educators should customize the study plans in line with those viewpoints to understand how people learn. And also it will help to set up an ideal educational aspect to promote learning.
However, all these perspectives are subjected to changes as with the upcoming findings. Yet, until the newer updates release, these are the best matches to study the way of learning.
3 Major perspectives of Educational Psychology!
As with the current best evidence, educational psychology contains three major viewpoints when influencing someone to learn. All these philosophies may have direct or indirect links with intrinsic or extrinsic motivators. Yet, the concepts of getting those into the practical inclusions are the mandatory steps to be successful in understanding what is educational psychology. We hope the following description of three major perspectives of the field will help you a lot to understand how your students learn new things and what is the best viewpoint to address their learning process.
The behavioural perspective of learning!
This is a kind of extrinsic motivation which the educator used to reward for the achievements. If it further describes, this opinion highlights how certain activities can boost the learning process. Simply, if a teacher gives a five-star mark for the student activity, it indicates how clever the work done by the student. Similarly, if another student receives two stars it says the work done by him is not satisfactory.
Similarly, the marks, rewards and scholarships can be the influencers for the behavioural perspective of the learning. So, if the student is eager to receive the decided reward for the achievement, they will work hard to learn the things. Another hand, they will again try to adapt to the learning process due to the fear of not getting rewards and the possibility of becoming a failure.
Yet, there is a certain debate that the behavioural viewpoint of educational psychology can badly affect the emotional status of the student.
The Developmental Perspective
This concept highlights how student’s learning capacity varying with their development process and the need of utilizing relevant data when customising educational plans. So, the educator can study the physiological data of how children’s brain develops with age and understand the skill development process. And, then the study plans should be developed accordingly.
The education following the developmental perspective of psychology is moreover popular these days. It clearly explained through the concept of preschool level, primary, secondary and tertiary educational set up. Furthermore, certain countries used to divide further categories of these majors. Hence, it has become an easy task to set the goals of learning and assess individuals.
However, since the student’s development occurs at different ages and the education supposed to deliver at pre-decided ranges in those age limits, it is important not to miss an intermediate stage. If so, there are higher chances to miss the whole process of learning.
The Cognitive Perspective
Nowadays, experts highly believe that cognition plays an important role in education. It says the students use motivation, emotions and beliefs in learning. Similarly, short term and long term memory also play an immense role in the concept.
So, increasing teaching strategies for motivated, memorable concept may enhance students acceptance of learning. It further explains these cognitive skills affects thinking capacity and skills of processing information receives through the learning process. Thus, this is a bit of an advanced area in educational psychology. Possibly, this will be the massively focusing concept for upcoming studies of the field.
The Outline
Psychological studies are enriched with many study fields which is important for human well-being. Among those categorised fields of psychology, nowadays, the experts have paid massive attention to seek for what is educational psychology and how it decides the learning process of a student. Since this is a mandatory factor for the upcoming development of the world, the experts are fond of introducing more stable viewpoints. So, even though these are the up-to-date information relevant to the field, it is subjective to change a lot with future findings.
