See Year 2013 Q3
Scopes of Educational Psychology
1. Learning and instruction: Educational psychology is concerned with the general nature of the learning process and the factors that affect learning.
2. Human growth and development: In order to get people to learn, we have to understand their capabilities, what they already know and how they think.
3. Psychological measurement: Educational psychology is interested in measuring those psychological characteristics on which individuals differ e.g. intelligence, learning ability, and aptitude.
4. Personality adjustment: Educational psychology is interested in how people develop and maintain healthy personalities and attitudes, especially students and teachers.
See Year 2015 Q5a, Year 2014 Q5a
Motivation is defined as any factor (such as biological, emotional, cognitive or social force) that activates a behavior, either negative or positive, in humans. In educational system, motivation is used to describe the wants or needs in a student that direct his/her behavior towards learning.
The types of motivation frequently defined are intrinsic and extrinsic.
Psychology is the scientific study of human behaviour and thought processes.
Therefore, educational psychology can be defined as a branch of psychology that is concerned with the learner, learning and instructional processes and the different conditions of learning (PDE 706 P6)
Ways to foster motivation in the classroom
a) Identify growth choices
b) Create an esteem around them and let them realize that they are the potential leaders of our country
c) Provide incentives for learning
d) Encourage learning for its own sake
e) State the goals and objectives for learning
f) Provide safety
g) Give them sense of belonging and love
h) Reward positive behaviour and punish negative ones
i) Praise students in ways big and small. But lavish praise does no-one any good.
j) Track improvement and reinforce
k) Spread excitement like virus.
Psychology is the scientific study of human behaviour and thought processes.
Therefore, educational psychology can be defined as a branch of psychology that is concerned with the learner, learning and instructional processes and the different conditions of learning.
The stages involved in the memory process are encoding, consolidation, storage and retrieval.
Stages or components of the memory system
1. Encoding: It is the transformation of physical energy from the environment to a form that is suitable for memory storage.
2. Consolidation: It may be considered as part of the encoding stage, or storage stage or a memory state in its own right. It consists of processes that stabilise the memory trace after initial acquisition.
3. Storage: It refers to the maintenance of information over time.
4. Retrieval: It is the utilisation of information in storage. It involves active search for stored material. (PDE 706 P120)
Relevance of educational psychology to the teacher.
1. It helps teachers to understand individual differences amongst students and cater for them accordingly.
2. It helps teachers understand methods of diagnosing learning difficulties.
3. It helps teachers improve on his administrative skills
4. It helps teachers understand the principles behind various teaching methods and when to use each.
5. It helps teachers understand measurement of learning outcomes using various assessment methods.
6. He/she should understand the nature of learning and those conditions that make learning very effective. (PDE 706 P130).
Learning environment is a physical space that provides the conditions for directed attention and deliberate effort for learning to occur.
Role of a teacher
He is a mediator in learning, that is, one who assists the learner to search for and utilize the information in ways which bring about observable benefits both to him and the larger society.
He provides leadership in the quest for knowing.
He/she should encourage the learner to develop the ability to ask questions.
He/she should understand the nature of learning and those conditions that make learning very effective.
(PDE 706 P127, P130).