Psychology and the Study of Education

Critical Perspectives on Developing Theories

Cathal Ó Siochrú

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781315299334
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Psychology and the Study of Education: Critical Perspectives on Developing Theories explores both the insights and applications that psychology can offer in a range of educational contexts. Introducing the reader to a wide variety of sources, from cutting edge research to key studies from the past, it offers new perspectives on the psychology of education. This includes re-examining core theories of learning, unpicking key learning processes and reconsidering the role of factors such as memory, creativity and gender in learning. Questioning myths and misconceptions, it challenges the reader to develop a critically reflective approach and asks them to reconsider the potential value of psychology in both understanding and influencing education.

With discussion points and recommended readings provided in every chapter to enhance sessions and challenge students, issues explored include:

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• Reconsidering what we think we know about the psychology of education.

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• Memory: How we learn by remembering and imagining.

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• Creativity: Creative learning and learning creativity.

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• Reading, writing and dyslexia: Understanding the myths and exploring the challenges.

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• Embodiment: The entanglement of brain, body and environment in learning.

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• Social understanding: Learning to relate and its role in education.

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• Gender: The origins of gender identity and its impact on education.

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• Behaviourism: Taking a second look at its wider relevance to learning.

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• Piaget: A fresh perspective on Piagetian theory and method.

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• Vygotsky: Socio-cultural theories and collective learning.

Your guide to the complex and evolving field that is psychology of education, this is an essential text for students of Education Studies, Disability Studies, Early Childhood or Childhood and Youth Studies and Teacher Education; ideal for anyone who has already been introduced to a little psychology and would like to know more, or anyone teaching psychology on an education course. Whether you are taking your first steps or looking for your next challenge, this book has something to offer anyone who wants to take their study of the psychology of education to the next level.

1 Introduction

Reconsidering what we think we know about the psychology of education

Cathal Ó Siochrú

Introduction

What is education?

If you were to ask people to identify the time and place where they had received their ‘education’ they would almost all talk about their school days. Indeed, when we talk about someone being ‘in education’ we are usually talking about school or university. It’s in school and university that we become ‘educated’. These are the places where we learn things. Of course, if you pushed them, most people would acknowledge that not everything is learned in school. Practical skills, social skills, hobbies, sports, there are many things we learn outside of our formal schooling. And yet we rarely consider these to be part of our ‘education’. We have to invent new terms to describe this kind of learning, calling them ‘life lessons’ or ‘figuring things out’.

From a psychological perspective it could be argued that there is little or no difference between the learning we do in school and the learning we do outside of it. There are many definitions of learning from different psychologists. Gerrig et al. (2012: 668) define learning as ‘A process based on experience that results in a relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential’. Martin et al. (2013: 769) would define learning as ‘An adaptive process in which the tendency to perform a particular behaviour is changed by experience’. There are many other definitions, but they all tend to agree on a few things. The two most important things they agree on, for our purposes here, are that (1) learning results in an enduring change in the learner and that (2) this change is a result of the learner’s experiences. Viewed in those terms the teacher who requires you to repeat the colours of the rainbow and the hot iron that burns your hand when you touch it are both producing learning.

This view of learning poses a number of interesting questions in terms of how we then see education. First, such a broad definition of learning necessitates a considerable expansion of the number of occasions and places where learning could be said to be taking place. This raises an important question as to whether we should also consider a similar expansion of the number of places where education could be said to be taking place. Instead, in educational psychology and elsewhere there is a tendency to distinguish between learning and education so far as to limit ‘education’ to those learning events where the aim to produce a change is deliberate and the subject being learned can be considered to be valuable or worthwhile (Peters, 1966). As such, the restaurant that serves you some bad oysters, which make you ill and in turn cause you to swear off eating oysters ever again, is not a place of education.

But even with this limitation we can see that the number of places and events which would now qualify as providing us with an education extends far beyond the nurseries, schools and universities that we might have thought of as our only ‘places of education’ before now. It also greatly increases the number of people who we might consider as educators. For the purposes of this book, therefore, we will define education to be an event or process which has been organised with the explicit purpose of producing learning in those that participate in it and we define an educator as a role whose primary purpose is to promote and facilitate the education of others. These definitions are a good fit for describing schools and teachers but they also recognise a lot of other places and people as being ‘education’ and ‘educators’ respectively. An example of these non-traditional educational contexts would be a course run by a local council aimed at helping local residents to improve their health, or a training scheme run in the workplace by the human resources department aimed at reducing the number of workplace accidents.

From all this we can see that the study of education involves the study of learning and teaching in a variety of contexts. One approach to studying education in all these contexts is to try and understand it through the application of a number of different disciplines. Commonly, there are four disciplines that are said to contribute to our understanding of education: History, Sociology, Philosophy and Psychology. Each offers a different perspective on the factors which influence education: with history, it is the influence of the past and the stories we tell; with sociology, it is the influence of society and its structures; with philosophy, it is the influence of our fundamental beliefs and expectations. But what of psychology; what does psychology have to offer the study of education?

What is the psychology of education?

Psychology has been defined by countless people over the years. Similar to the definitions of education we have just reviewed, the specifics of these definitions of psychology may differ but there are some common elements. Most definitions would agree that psychology is (1) a scientific study (2) of human behaviour. Let us see if we can make sense of this definition and what it tells us about psychology.

First, what does it mean to define psychology as a science? Psychology’s roots as a science go back to Wilhelm Wundt and his famous laboratory. Wundt and his colleagues pioneered the use of empirical methods to study mental phenomena such as reaction times, sensation and attention. There is no question that Wundt and his followers set the study of psychology on a scientific footing and it’s true that the majority of contemporary psychological research uses the scientific method. The scientific method, known as empiricism, is a method used by all sciences to study the nature of reality. In a nutshell, empiricism involves proposing a theory based on the findings of previous research; coming up with a method to test that theory; gathering data through the use of structured observations and then drawing conclusions about the theory based on analysis and interpretation of that data.

To understand why it matters that psychology considers itself a science we need to consider both the advantages and limitations of empiricism. Among the advantages claimed by empiricism is that it provides us with a relatively objective method of testing the nature of reality. Empiricism requires all claims about the nature of reality to be supported by evidence. This avoids the tendency to simply follow tradition and blindly accept the beliefs of those who came before you. Scientists also use empiricism to reduce the impact that prejudice and preconceptions can have on our perceptions of the world around us. Empiricism requires scientists to predict what they will find before they gather any data. They are then required to systematically gather and record all the data relevant to the issue and then interpret that data using previously agreed methods of analysis. These safeguards make it harder for a scientist to simply ignore or overlook the evidence that doesn’t confirm their theory. It’s also harder to either intentionally or accidentally twist the facts to fit the theory or vice versa. Of course scientists are not perfect and care still needs to be taken to avoid preconceptions or selective interpretation of the data. Empiricism doesn’t claim to make all scientists inhumanly perfect. It merely claims to offer an effective method to keep the impact of things like biases and preconceptions to a minimum and thereby to get a more accurate view of the nature of reality.

The statement that psychology is a science is widely accepted by the majority of psychologists, but not by all. There are some who feel that the scientific method is not suited to asking certain questions or finding certain answers. They propose that alongside the scientific method there are other methods of enquiry that psychologists could and should use. As a result, there are many psychologists using approaches such as qualitative research methods or ethnography to explore certain aspects of the nature of reality. (See Chapter 8 for a more detailed discussion of Piaget’s use of ethnography to study cognitive development.) These psychologists might not consider themselves to be scientists, but they would almost certainly still agree to the other statement which is common across the many definitions of psychology, that psychology is primarily interested in the study of behaviour.

It might seem strange to define psychology as the study of behaviour and not to include the study of thoughts as well. This definition would seem to be contradicting the popular image of psychologists as being fascinated with ‘getting inside your head’ and wanting to know what you are thinking and feeling. Is ‘thinking’ just another type of behaviour then? Is that the ‘behaviour’ that psychology claims to be studying? In layman’s terms, thoughts and behaviours are very different things and psychologists would agree, classifying behaviours as physical events which can be seen and measured, while thoughts are mental events which cannot be seen or measured directly. There are many in psychology who would argue that even if you were to scan someone’s brain while they are thinking, all you would see is brain activity and not thought. (See Chapter 5 to learn about embodiment, a concept which suggests that ‘thinking’ may take place throughout the whole body and not just in the brain.)

But if you can’t measure thoughts or feelings directly, then how can a psychologist study them? Empiricism requires data which is collected through observation. The solution is that psychology has developed numerous methods to study mental processes indirectly. We study the things that can’t be seen, such as thoughts, by looking at the way they affect the things we can see, namely our behaviours. For this reason it makes sense to define psychology as the scientific study of behaviour; we study behaviour in order to draw conclusions about the nature of the mind as well as the structure and function of mental processes. Psychology is interested in the study of any kind of behaviour in any situation, but naturally within this general study of behaviour, areas of specialism have emerged. Sometimes the focus of the specialism is on a certain type of mental process or structure without necessarily being limited to any one context, such as those psychologists who study the function of memory or perception. Other times the focus will be on a specific context, such as those psychologists who seek to intensively study behaviour in the early years or in the workplace. One such specialism is the study of behaviour in education, known as ‘educational psychology’.

Although it was first proposed more than a hundred years ago, using psychology to study education is a relatively new idea in terms of the history of education. One of the key figures in the story of how psychology was first introduced to the study of education is Edward Thorndike (1874–1949). As a follower of the behaviourist school of psychology, Thorndike had used scientific methods to study learning in animals and used his findings to draw conclusions about learning in humans as well. It’s not hard to see how this led him to the conclusion that the study of education could benefit considerably from the application of scientific methods. It may seem obvious to us now, but it needs to be remembered that the idea to base the study of education on empirical evidence was revolutionary in its day. Before Thorndike there had been many writers who explored what we would now call educational psychology, but their insights and theories tended to based either on practical experience or philosophical reflection. Working with others in 1910 to establish the first journal in field of educational psychology, Thorndike sought to show how empirical research of education could provide insights and inspirations which would help to advance our understanding of education immeasurably. (See Chapter 9 to learn more about Thorndike’s contributions to both the behaviourist model of learning and educational psychology as a whole.)

Although psychology has been involved in the study of education in this way for many years, it is still working hard to establish itself as a major influence on policy and practice in education. A lot of the public debates about education are still based primarily on personal beliefs or ideological models. The use of the scientific method in educational psychology means that it can make use of empirical evidence to contribute to those debates and influence pedagogical practice. It’s not surprising then that psychology is a common element on most degree courses related to education. Of course, psychology is quite often only a very small part of these courses and in such situations it is usually being taught by staff with no background in psychology. This raises an interesting question as to how psychology is presented on those courses and what impression of psychology is created in the minds of the students.

How do students learn about psychology in the study of education?

One of the many interesting things about psychology as a subject is how broad its appeal appears to be. Mention that you are studying psychology to most people and the response you will so often hear is something along the lines of ‘I did a bit of psychology in my course and it was really interesting’ or ‘I’ve always wanted to know more about psychology’. It’s not hard to understand why the study of psychology might be an attractive proposition to so many. Psychology deals with human nature and human behaviour. It promises to help us understand ourselves and the world around us; in other words, it’s something we can all relate to. It’s relatively easy to find links and make connections between the concepts discussed in psychology and our everyday lives, both personal and professional. This potential for psychology to make connections with professional practice is very widespread and it’s possible for psychology to have an application in the most unlikely of places. To take one example, even a structural engineer whose primary concern is with materials, forces and the physical world may well need to consider how people will use the things they design (or in some cases misuse them). This extremely broad potential for application may well be the reason for psychology cropping up in some small way within so many different university degree courses. From courses in accounting to zoology, it’s very possible that at some point in their degree most students will be taught a little (or even a lot) that is drawn from the discipline of psychology.

This is especially true with courses that relate to education. The relevance of psychology in education is hard to miss. Education is an interpersonal process and so the psychology surrounding both the educator and the student is going to have a big impact on that process. Furthermore, important elements of the education process such as reading, writing, communicating, learning, memorising, problem-solving and so on are all areas of study in their own right within the discipline of psychology. For this reason it would be uncommon to find an education course that didn’t include some elements of psychology. Of course it’s not always the case that the elements of psychology included in the course are highlighted as ‘psychology’. They may simply be presented as isolated theories which explain certain elements of human behaviour or thought. In such cases, the theories are presented without including any of the context within psychology that surrounds them, such as competing theories or later developments of the theory itself. This stripped down and somewhat simplistic presentation of psychology theory can be further exacerbated by the fact that many of the staff tasked with delivering ‘a bit of psychology’ within a non-psychology degree have little or no background or training in psychology.

And therein lies one of the key issues that this book hopes to tackle. If the psychology theories are presented in isolation and the person delivering the psychological content is not trained as a psychologist, then the way in which psychology is encountered can give a very misleading impression of how psychology works. Presented in isolation, with no context or links to the developments that preceded it or followed it, any psychology theory can appear arbitrary and absolutist. For a student to hear, ‘Psychology says …’ can give the impression that there is only one view on this issue within the whole of psychology. Similarly, to hear ‘Theory X states …’ can give the impression that the theory is claiming that all people are the same; that all of us do the same things for the same reasons and that this will never change. Impressions like these couldn’t be further from the truth. Psychology is a science, and like all sciences the theories it proposes to explain the world are limited, contextual, conditional and evolving. To put it another way, there are no theories in psychology on which all psychologists agree, which are universally applicable or which are immune to being challenged or changed.

A typical example of how psychology can be misunderstood or misrepresented is the way that Piaget is often presented to students on education-related degree courses. Piaget’s model of cognitive development is often held up as the ‘definitive psychological explanation’ of how children learn. But it is typically presented as a rigid, unvarying set of stages which all children must experience in the same way and in the same order. Not surprisingly, this ‘straw man’ version of Piaget and cognitive development in general doesn’t match the experiences of the students either as learners or as educators, and so in their eyes it is quickly discredited. The fact that Piaget’s model, despite being an important theory, is by no means the beginning and end of psychological research in this area often fails to get a mention, a victim in some cases of the limited time available to discuss this topic on the course. As such, students might never learn that Piaget’s model has evolved, been challenged by competing theories and, as we will see in Chapter 8, that even Piaget himself didn’t see children’s learning in quite the rigid and simplistic terms habitually attributed to his model. Often these details are omitted because the staff member delivering the psychology content is unaware of them. There are no villains here, no one is deliberately trying to misrepresent psychology. More likely, it’s an unfortunate and possibly inevitable side-effect of the limited space given to psychology in the degree course in question, and staff constrained by the limitations of their knowledge and experience in psychology.

This book, then, is aimed at both staff and students who already know a little psychology but who would like to learn more. In each chapter we discuss what you are likely to know or have heard about the area that the chapter is focusing on. We will then spend the remainder of the chapter trying to take you further; guiding you through some of the key developments and discoveries in that area made by researchers in psychology past and present. It’s our intention that throughout each chapter, as well as introducing you to developments and how they have advanced our understanding of that area, we will also seek to link those developments back to education. This book is aimed at those who are interested in psychology for its ability to help us better understand and positively influence the process of education. We will be making a case for the relevance of the advances in psychological theory that we are discussing by showing you how they apply to education. It should be remembered though, that education is not limited to schools and classrooms. As such, we invite you to consider applications in a broad range of educational contexts which would include education in schools, but also education in the workplace, the community, the health system and many other places as well.

Overview of chapters

Starting with Chapter 2, Suzanne M. Egan provides an insight into both the structures and processes involved in memory, as well as discussing how memories of past experiences can be used to enhance future performance. The chapter begins by taking the reader through some of the key points and key theories in the long and interesting history of research on memory. This includes some of the earliest memory research which dates to the late 1800s but whose findings are still relevant to education today. The multi-store model by Atkinson and Shiffrin which brought us the concepts of short- and long-term memory will be explored, as will its evolution and refinement over the last five decades. Different types of memory will also be discussed, such as memory for meaningful personal events, facts and skills. The chapter concludes by discussing a number of methods by which memory can potentially be used and improved in an educational context. This includes reviewing mnemonic methods which produce a deeper processing of information to be learned, a consideration of the benefits of thinking about what could have happened rather than remembering what did happen (called ‘counterfactual thinking’), and exploring the effects of mentally practising a physical skill. Research will show the potential learning benefits from each of these techniques for learners in a variety of contexts including pilots, prisoners, athletes and musicians, not forgetting ordinary students of course. Ultimately, this chapter aims to show that theories of memory provide a useful framework...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures and tables
• List of contributors
• Series editor’s preface
• List of abbreviations
• 1. Introduction: reconsidering what we think we know about the psychology of education
• PART I: Processes: an exploration of key learning processes
• PART II: Identities: examining the role of the mind and identity in learning
• PART III: Origins: re-examining some of the core theories of learning
• Index