What do you mean by Educational Psychology?

Education and psychology aim at the same thing-behavior of the individual. The former seeks to modify and refine the behavior and the latter tries to study the behavior as it is. Educational psychology thus deals with both of them and means the science of behavior and the process of modifying the behavior for the betterment of the individual as well as society. In short, educational psychology is the psychology relating to education or the study of human behavior in educational situations.

Educational psychology has two dimensions Education and Psychology. It is the scientific study of human growth and development, heredity and environment, maturation and learning which have immense significance from the educational point of view. It largely influences the determination of educational objectives, designing curriculum, selection of methods and media and evaluation of learning outcomes.

Teaching-learning process is the central point of educational psychology. Its main concern is to provide suitable learning experiences according to the needs and conditions of the individual or child. It seeks to evolve the principles and conditions of learning and tries to make the human learning effective.

Nowadays learning is given priority over teaching. It is more emphasized than teaching. Learning is found crucial topic in educational psychology. Due to great importance being given to learning many educationists mean education psychology as a psychology of learning. Therefore, educational psychologist are mainly concerned “why to learn”, “what to learn”,” how to learn” and when to learn”.

Thus educational psychology aims at making the learning process of the students more effective and efficient. It seeks to make learning more meaningful, lasting and economical. It is designed to help teachers to help pupils, so that the teaching- learning process will be successful. In fine it tries to make education a success.

Some Important Definition of Educational Psychology:

1. Crow & Crow – “Educational psychology describes and explains the learning experiences of an individual from birth through old age.”

2. C. E. Skinner – “Educational psychology deals with the behavior of human being in educational situation. It is concerned with the study of human behavior or personality its growth, development and guidance under the social process of education.”

3. Judd – “Educational psychology is a scientific study of the life stages in the development of an individual from the time he is born until he becomes an adult.”

4. W.C. Trow – “Educational psychology is the study of psychological aspects of educational situation.”