11-10-2017, 03:07 PM
Educational psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, both cognitive and behavioral, allows researchers to understand individual differences in intelligence, cognitive development, affection, motivation, self-regulation and self-concept, as well as their role in learning. The field of educational psychology depends to a large extent on quantitative methods, including testing and measurement, to improve educational activities related to instructional design, classroom management and evaluation, which serve to facilitate learning processes in diverse educational settings over the lifetime.
Educational psychology can be understood in part through its relationship with other disciplines. He is mainly informed by psychology, having a relationship with that discipline analogous to the relationship between medicine and biology. He is also informed by neuroscience. Educational psychology, in turn, informs a wide range of specialties within educational studies, including instructional design, educational technology, curriculum development, organizational learning, special education, classroom management, and student motivation. Educational psychology is based and contributes to cognitive science and the learning sciences. At universities, departments of educational psychology are usually housed in faculties of education, possibly explaining the lack of representation of the content of educational psychology in introductory textbooks to psychology.
The field of educational psychology involves the study of memory, conceptual processes and individual differences (through cognitive psychology) in the conceptualization of new strategies for learning processes in humans. Educational psychology has been built on the theories of operant conditioning, functionalism, structuralism, constructivism, humanistic psychology, Gestalt psychology, and information processing.