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The various schools of psychology contribute a great deal to the establishment of educational concepts, theories, and principles.
Structuralism
- is founded by Wilhelm Wundt but was formally established by his student, Edward Titchener. - It focused on reducing mental processes down into their most basic elements. - science of conscious experience and that trained observers could accurately describe thoughts, feelings, and emotions through a process known as introspection.
Functionalism
- was heavily influenced by the work of William James and the theory of evolution of Charles Darwin. - It sought to explain the mental processes in a more systematic and accurate manner. - Rather than focusing on the elements of consciousness, functionalists focused on the purpose of consciousness and behavior. - also emphasized individual differences, which had a profound impact on education.
Behaviorism
- It was based upon the work of thinkers such as: John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B. F. Skinner. - suggests that all behavior can be explained by environmental causes rather than by internal forces. - Behaviorism is focused on observable behavior. - Theories of learning including classical conditioning and operant conditioning were the focus of a great deal of research.
Gestalt Psychology
Originating in the work of Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler a school of thought that looks at the human mind and behavior as a whole. Wertheimer summarizes it this way: "There are wholes, the behaviour of which is not determined by that of their individual elements, but where the part-processes are themselves determined by the intrinsic nature of the whole. It is the hope of Gestalt theory to determine the nature of such wholes" (1924).
Issues in Development
Two central issues have been debated for decades among developmental psychologists. One relates to the degree to which development is affected by experience, and the other to the question of whether development proceeds in stages.
Schemas
Piaget believed that all children are born with an innate tendency to interact with and make sense of their environments. As a child learns, he adds new information to what he already knows. His brain is continually reorganizing, adapting, and restructuring. This elaborate network of organized information is called a schema.
For example, a young child may have the following schema for the alphabet:
Gradually, this schema becomes much more complex as the child learns the sounds for the letters, how to print or write cursive, which letters are vowels, and how to blend letter sounds to read words.
Each letter of the alphabet will have information attached to it. For example, a schema for the letter h might look like this:
Assimilation, Accommodation, and Equilibration How do schemas develop over time? Piaget believed that children use two cognitive processes to develop their schemas over time: assimilation and accommodation.
Assimilation takes place when individuals use their existing schemas to make sense of the events in the world. It involves trying to relate something new to something that we already know.
Accommodation, on the other hand, takes place when an individual changes an existing schema so that it can explain the new experience. This occurs when the new information does not fit well with our existing schemas, causing us to expand or elaborate on the older schema to make sense of the new information.
According to Piaget, when a new information could not be fully handled by existing schemes, it creates a state of disequilibrium, or an imbalance between what is understood and what is encountered. People naturally try to reduce such imbalances by focusing on the stimuli that cause the disequilibrium and develop new schemes or adapting old ones until equilibrium is restored. This process of restoring balance is called Equilibration.
Characterized by: Dependence of thinking processes and understanding on sensory and motor processing (e.g., tasting, touching, grasping). Goal-directed behavior. Object permanence arises at the end of the stage.
Characterized by: Reliance of thinking processes on perception more than logic. Use of symbols (e.g., language, numbers, images). Imaginary play, Animism, Egocentrism.
Characterized by: Use of mental operations to solve problems. Conservation, transformation, reversibility, classification, seriation, transitivity
Characterized by: Propositional logic. Hypothetical deductive reasoning. Analogical reasoning. Combinatorial reasoning. Probability and proportional reasoning.
Sensorimotor: Age 02 Preoperational: Age 27 Concrete operational: Age 711 Formal operational: Age 11+
Dependence of thinking processes and understanding on sensory and motor processing (e.g., tasting, touching, grasping) Goal-directed behavior Object permanence arises at the end of the stage
Reliance of thinking processes on perception more than logic Use of symbols (e.g., language, numbers, images) Imaginary play, Animism Egocentrism
Use of mental operations to solve concrete problems operational: 711 Conservation, transformation, reversibility Classification, seriation, transitivity
Propositional logic Hypothetical deductive reasoning Analogical reasoning, Combinatorial reasoning Probability and proportional reasoning
References
Calderon, J (2003). Foundations of Education. Manila: Rex Bookstore, Inc. Cherry, K. (n.d). Major Schools of Thought in Psychology. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/schoolsthought.htm Moreno, R. (2010). Educational psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Slavin, R. (2006). Educational psychology: theory and practice (8th ed). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Video References
Youtube videos
Sensorimotor Stage (slides 22/23) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alZXoALQJr4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjBh9ld_yIo Preoperational Stage (slides 24/25) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eZJorPIlk4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M244b2aDcz8 Concrete Operational Stage (slides 26/27) www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mTnAlOTMwc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alZXoALQJr4 Formal Operational stage (slides 28/29) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X4qGp4R5cs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9BoAn9lRqE