What is educational psychology and what is its goal?

What is educational psychology?

The psychology of education or also calledEducational Psychology, is abranch ofpsychology that deals with thestudy of learning to achieve human development, emphasizing that psychology is the science that specializes incognitive processes. (1)

In this context, educational psychology is the study of how welearn and how we teach andis also responsible for addressingproblems related to the learning process ofschool-age children.

In this regard, there are many theories developed by researchers such asJean Piaget (2), Albert Bandura (3) andLevVygotsky (4), which describedifferent perspectivesrelated to learning.

Important: Educational psychologydesigns objectives and establishes appropriate strategies, so that students can develop their cognitive skills and improve the model and management of educational centers.

What is the goal of educational psychology?

Educational psychology is focused on several aspects, taking into consideration thatits object of study is the human being. Here we mention the main objectives of educational psychology:

1. Study human learning

Learning is understood as the process with which the human being modifies and acquires abilities, skills, knowledge, behaviors and valuesthrough study, experience, instruction, reasoning and observation.

This is how educational psychology focuses on understanding from the cognitive perspective, how learning works in the human being. This objective defines the pedagogical relationship between teacher and student.

2. Determine methods to develop cognitive skills

The psychologists who deal with this discipline work, after characterizing the population, to design and develop the appropriate learning methods according to the individual and collective abilities of the students.

That is why at the educational level, students develop different types of learning , among which we can name the kinesthetic , auditory , visual,   sociocultural among others.

3. Understand motivation in learning

One of the characteristics of educational psychology is that it has a special interest in studying the motivations that human beings have towards learning and from this point of view, it wants to know in depth these motivations , both individual and collective, that drive the human being. to acquire knowledge.

You should know: The human being has an innate motivation to access new knowledge, which allows him to understand and relate to his environment.

4. Detect educational needs

Another of the objectives pursued by educational psychology is the detection of individual and collective needs in educational matters of human beings.

Note: Basic needs in this topic could include reading and writing, then doing math, and as the individual progresses through this progressive learning, new educational needs are created in line with their goals and ambitions.

5. Promote educational processes

The educational process is very complex and needs to adapt to the evolution of new knowledge, which necessarily requires renewing teaching and learning programs with new demands and challenges.

To highlight: The psychology of education intervenes in this adaptation process, with a view to Promoting Educational Processes as well as making them dynamic and accessible in all geographic spaces.

What methods are used in educational psychology?

Educational psychology is based on several methods in the teaching and learning process, which we briefly comment on:

1. Inductive

The inductive teaching method consists of a didactic strategy that focuses on student learning, to develop in him the skills of analysis, interpretation and research. (5)

You should know: Educational psychology uses this method to Teach how to obtain a general conclusion from particular premises , that is, it provides the student with the necessary elements to generate generalizations, favoring the induction of conclusions.

2. Deductive

Note: The application of the deductive method allows educational psychology to describe the investigation through generally accepted principles or theories, which allows the student to infer conclusions for particular situations.

3. Analytical

In relation to the analytical method, educational psychology promotes the study of the facts as a whole, separating the elements that make it up. With this, he manages to determine their importance, the relationship between them, how they are organized and how these elements are related and from there draw conclusions.  (6)

4. Synthetic

In this method, and unlike the analytical method, the conclusion is obtained from the parts of a whole, relating each of them to get the principle to the general rule.

In this context, the student ‘s ability to work with apparently unrelated elements is stimulated and he proceeds to combine them until they constitute a structure that was previously not well defined.

Key Findings

• Educational psychology deals with the study of learningto achieve human development.
• Educational psychology is also concerned with the study of how we learn and how we teach.
• Educational psychology designs objectives and establishes the appropriate strategies for learning and teaching.
• This discipline focuses on understanding from a cognitive perspective,How learning works in humans.