Educational Psychology: Challenged or Challenging?

Abstract

began to apply scientific methods to the problems of education. In the relatively short span of time between its inception and the present, it has achieved such status that, in i965, Fischer (8) made the statement, &dquo;The place of psychology in teacher education is too well established to call for comment....&dquo;The importance of educational psychology is implied in its inclusion in the foundations courses normally required of all teacher trainees. One would expect, then, to find rather clear-cut agreement about its general content and direction, but that such is not the case is evident from statements of leaders in the field. Stanley (32) takes perhaps the strongest stand: Educational psychology is psychology applied to education. The educational psychologist is an applied psychologist.... Educational psychologists are breaking away from the frequently stultifying control of their practitioner-oriented colleagues by forming separate departments of educational psychology that operate more directly in the graduate school of the university.His general position is that educational psychologists should be increasingly occupied with theory and less with practice. Tyack (34) differentiates between foundational knowledge and clinical training for teachers and argues that only the latter deals with practical problems. Broudy (2) supports the preeminence of theory in foundational courses in his statement that &dquo;foundational knowledge ... is used interpretatively as precise but large-scale cognitive maps on which problems are plotted but not solved.&dquo; However, this first position, that theory should be emphasized over practice, is not the consensus of opinions expressed by those in the field.Dr. Aspy is assistant professor of education, University of Florida, Gainesville. Downloaded from 6 The second position is that courses in educational psychology are too theoretical and do not enhance teacher effectiveness. In 1957, Sister Mary Amatora (i) stated that educational psychology was too abstract. Smithers (30) wrote that &dquo;the best arrangement would be to have theory and practice at the same time.&dquo; Justman (i9) related teaching effectiveness to course work, stating that &dquo; ... there was little relationship between success in college courses in educational psychology and success in teaching.&dquo; This assessment, of course, rests on the assumption that teacher training should improve teachers' classroom performance-that there should be some functional relationship between course work and on-the-job performance.A third position represents a middle ground between those who emphasize theory development and those who focus on practical problem solving. This group seems to believe that teachers should be both theory builders and problem solvers. In 1934, Kelly (20) wrote: Educational psychology seeks to provide for the teacher the fundamentals which will be of service both in meeting the problems which arise in the classroom and also in evaluating the means employed to achieve the objectives of the edu...

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“…Educational psychologists have argued that one may want to focus on solving certain specific problems in a particular type of classroom so that teaching is less emphasized compared to a productive learning environment (Aspy, 1970). Scholarly teaching not only helps instructors experiment their innovative ideas, but also helps the students to focus more on the process of learning through a discovery approach (Broadley, Broadley, Slater, & Suddaby, 2000).…”

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“…Thereore it is the responsibility of the instructors in higher education to develop, generate, create and establish an environment in which students not only obtain necessary background knowledge, but also become enthusiastic in becoming lifelong learners (Deemer, 2003). Educational psychologists have argued that one may want to focus on solving certain specific problems in a particular type of classroom so that teaching is less emphasized compared to a productive learning environment (Aspy, 1970). Scholarly teaching not only helps instructors experiment their innovative ideas, but also helps the students to focus more on the process of learning through a discovery approach (Broadley, Broadley, Slater, & Suddaby, 2000).…”