EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

George G. Thompson, Eric F. Gardner and Francis J. Di Vesta Educational Psychology The facts and principles of modern psychology are now applied to a almost every dimension of human affairs. The potential applications to educational theory and practice are legion. Psychology has gradually become the most important of the recognized sciences that undergird the arts of educational guidance and classroom instruction. Since almost every phase of psychology is potentially applicable to educational procedures, the problem of preparing a new and possibly more useful textbook in educational psychology begins with a thoughtful selection of those facts and principles judged to be most relevant to the teacher’s work. In planning the present textbook we conferred several hours weekly over an entire year before any formal writing was attempted. Outlines were developed, exchanged and revised, and then reformulated until we felt that we had arrived at a plan for a truly functional interpretation of the most useful generalizations that modern psychology can offer the classroom teacher. We then spent two additional years writing and illustrating the final manuscript. As a result of these endeavors, our textbook emerged in its present form composed of five parts. The First Part presents an overview of educational psychology and sets the stage for the remaining sections. The Second Part on evaluation and measurement is concerned with understanding the individual pupil as a prerequisite for effective teaching. The Third Part deals with the teacher’s many roles and functions in guiding the learning processes of her pupils. The Fourth Part of our book is oriented toward adjustment of the pupil as learned behavior and the teacher’s influence on the personality development of her pupils. The Fifth Part includes two chapters on the teacher’s adjustments to the profession, the community, and to life in general. We were determined to eliminate the nonfunctional topics that somehow get perpetuated in many textbooks and to select those research findings and principles that bear promise of being most useful to today’s teacher. Systematic observations and measurement techniques are presented as valuable tools for the teacher in evaluating the achievements, interests, adjustment, and psychological growth potentials of her pupils. The traditional and the contemporary principles of learning are interwoven with numerous applications to classroom usage. Along with the principles of personal adjustment and individual striving, they have been organized within a framework of dynamic social relations and group functioning.

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