Psychology is a systematic study of behavior and mental processes including thoughts and emotions and factors that influence them. Study of psychology includes the study of behaviour, human as well as of animals. (This is the definition of General Psychology)
What is behavior?
Behavior includes many psychological things like; the way we behave plus the way we walk, talk, deal with people, our dressing, our sleeping habits etc.
We develop ideas, we learn, we remember, we forget. We feel hungry, thirsty, we get angry, we feel sad, we feel happy. We worry about problems; we seek ways to cope with them. So psychology includes the observable behaviour that we exhibit as well as the hidden processes which goes on in our mind, they are thoughts, emotions and motives. There are many factors that influence our thoughts and emotions, which influence our behaviour.
What are mental processes and thoughts and emotions?
Mental processes Thoughts & emotions
The way we develop ideas feelings, hunger, thirst
the way we remember, forget anger, worry etc
What are the factors that influence our behavior and mental processes?
There are many factors that influence our behaviour but the main factors are brain, body, heredity, environment and actions of other people.
Branches of Psychology
BASIC PSYCHOLOGY APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
Search of fundamental knowledge Using knowledge to help society to carry
knowledge for knowledge on its everyday tasks, tackle their problems
& improve the quality of life.
Basic or pure psychology Branches of applied psychology
• General psychology • Clinical psychology
• Developmental psychology • Educational psychology
• Abnormal psychology • Industrial psychology
• Social psychology • Political psychology
• Experimental psychology etc… • Military psychology etc…
• So psychology is relatively a new science, it is gaining an important position in the modern society today. (professional psychological organization was formed in 1892)
• So the science psychology is 118 years old, thus the Pure Science provides the framework, theories and main ideas about the subject. It formulates principles, techniques, methods, etc.
• Applied Psychology provides us information and gives guidelines to improve people’s life, peoples’ behavior, students learning, etc.
What is educational psychology?
• Educational psychology is a science of education. It aims at improving processes and products of education. It supplies the means and ways as well as the science and technology for helping the teachers, the teacher trainers, the educational planners. The administrators and counseling personnel’s in their respective areas of activity so that will be able to help the going generation in their pursuit of education.
• Educational psychology mainly deals with the problems, processes and products of education. It studies human behavior, particularly the behavior of the learner in relation to his educational environment. So educational psychology studies the behavior of the learner in relation to his educational needs and his environment.
• To understand educational psychology few important definitions will be discussed…
• Skinner (1958): educational psychology is that branch of psychology which deals with teaching and learning. That means for improving the methods and products of the teaching learning process. It is centered on the processes of teaching and learning. So if the processes are improved the learners may learn better.
• Crow & crow (1973): educational psychology describes and explains the learning experiences of an individual from birth through old age. (Discussion)…
• Peele (1956): educational psychology is the science of education. Followed by discussion… this is a discipline which can be used to improve the process and products of education in scientific way.
Is educational Psychology a science of education?
Education psychology is a science because it uses scientific methods of study, it is a systematic study and it arrives at generalizations after testing and research.
What are the aims of education?
Education aims at shaping the behavior of the students in a desirable way It also provides guidance to bring about all-round development of their personality.
Educational psychology helps in planning the processes of teaching and learning.
It helps the teacher to improve their teaching, it gives ideas to improve the classroom behaviour of the students, it also helps the teacher to divide the students into appropriate groups, it also helps the teacher to understand their students’ abilities and difficulties. All these knowledge and guidance helps the school authorities to improve their teaching and provide individual guidance to the students and the parents.
Nature of Educational Psychology
Nature of educational psychology is scientific.
1. Educational psychology possesses a well organized, systematic and universally accepted body of facts supported by the relevant psychological laws and principles.
2. It is constantly in search of truth. E.g. learner in relation to his educational environment.
3. It employs scientific methods and adopts a scientific approach for studying the learner’s behavior.
4. The processes and products of these studies are, sufficiently scientific. So that comes out research in the field of educational psychology.
5. Educational psychology does not take anything for granted. There are definite cause linked with a behavior and cause and behavior are related.
6. Educational psychology is mostly concerned with the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of happenings in the present instead of caring for past.
7. It is a positive science rather than normative science. It provides the key to the ‘how’, ‘when’ and ‘where’ of education.
8. Educational psychology findings are reliable.
Scope of Educational Psychology
• Educational psychology is the science of education which mainly deals with the problems of teaching and learning and helps the teacher in his task of modifying the learner’s behavior and bringing about an all-round development of his personality.
• So the subject matter of educational psychology should be centered on the process of learning for effective teaching and effective learning.
• For improving the processes and the products of the system related to teaching and learning. So to improve the above things we need to address the basic questions.
Who is being educated?
Who is the learner, what is the age of the learner, how is the growth and development of the learner. What are the individual differences among the learners, their IQ level, their aptitudes, attitudes etc?
By whom is the learner to be taught?
Competency, experience, personality, other characteristics of teachers their sense of responsibility and accountability their anxiety and motivation level all influence the learner.
What is to be taught?
What is to be taught in relation to the developmental stage of the children? Types of experiences needed for the children. Curricular and co curricular activities to be planned based on the age group and the skills to be taught to meet the needs of their age group.
How are the learning experiences to be provided?
Appropriate methods, techniques, sequences, communication between the trainer & taught, laws of learning, memory, transfer of learning, perspective, and concept.
When and where are the learning experiences to be provided?
- Classroom climate
- Institution & organizational climate
- Individual, self & group study
- Factors which affect attention
- Role of rewards & punishment
- Group & group dynamics
- Guidance and counseling.
Conclusion:
Changing society – changing needs – emerging problems
Our society is rapidly changing and the life has become more and more complicated. The teachers’ role has also changed tremendously and the parents are loading more and more responsibilities on the teachers. So the teachers need to take help from the educational psychologist and other specialists in the field. The parents are not able to fulfill their responsibilities because either they are very busy or at times they do not know how to help their children.
Methods of Educational Psychology
Educational psychology is the scientific study of the behavior of the learner in relation to his educational environment. Behavior can be studied scientifically through a single technique or approach known as “observation” single technique gives rise to several methods or approaches depend upon the condition in which observation have to be recorded, the procedure adopted and tools used are as follows.
- Introspection: introspection observation of one’s own behavior by looking inward.
- Naturalistic observation: Here the behavioral events are observed and recorded under natural condition by the researcher.
- Experimentation: experiments are under taken under controlled condition and observations are recorded.
- Normative survey or field survey method: these are conducted outside the laboratories in real life setting by adopting survey techniques.
- Case study method: case study is done through observation and recording the case history. Case studies also use interview and questionnaires to collect the data. They use psychoanalysis for interpreting the behavior of a person.
- Clinical method: if a case history material & process of psychoanalysis is used for the diagnosis the treatment of the behavioral problems it is called clinical method.
- Psychophysical method: whenever some physical devices are used to observe and measure psychological problems it is called psychophysical method.
Growth and development of learner
As far as the human being is concerned, life starts with the conception in the mothers’ womb as a result of the process of fertilization of the ovum. Then the fetus grows and develops into a full fledged baby. The processes of growth and development are thus the medium and mean of bringing about changes in the organisms.
The term growth and development are often used interchangeably and regarded as synonymous terms – changes produced by the genetic & environmental factors as well as changes in physical, mental, social and emotional, including individuality.
Growth may be limited to the changes in the quantitative aspect – In size, length, height, and weight and expansion of vocabulary.
Development implies the overall change which occurs in both the quantitative as well as qualitative aspect that is development comes a wider and more comprehensive meaning than growth development is a complex process.
Thus both growth & development imply changes in one’s behavior and personality make-up.
Human developmental stages
1 Infancy Birth to 2 yrs.
2 Childhood 3rd yrs. to 6yrs. 7th yrs. to 12 yrs.
3 Adolescence 13th yrs. To 19 yrs.
4 Adulthood 20th yrs. to 60 yrs.
5 Old hood 61th yrs. Till death
Principles of development
Development though is individual phenomenon, has became found to follow a logical and sequential pattern from conception onward. It is operated by general rules or principles.
- Principle of continuity.
- Principle of lack of uniformity in the developmental rate.
- Principle of individual difference
- Principle of uniformity of pattern
- Principle of proceeding from general to specific responses.
- Principle of integration
- Principle of cephalocudal and proximodistal growth.
- Principle of predictability
- Principle of spiral versus linear advancement.
Factors influencing Growth & Development
Growth and development are influenced by variety of factors. Factors are divided into two parts: Internal factors, External factors
Internal Factors
- Heredity factors
- Biological & constitutional factors
- Emotional factors
- Social factors
External Factors
- Environment in mother’s womb
- Environment after birth
- Accidents and incidence in life
Theories of development
Theories of development are given by many different psychologists. They are as follows:
- Theory of psycho-sexual development by Freud.
- Psycho-social theory of development by Eric Erikson
- Theory of cognitive development by Jean Piaget
- Theory of moral development by Kohlberg
The course of one’s life is divided into certain specific stages. Each of these stages chronologically extended over a definite period in years & is characterized by typical norms of behavioral characteristics which are specific to the particular stage in all the different dimension of the makeup of one’s personality.
To understand each student’s behavior we need to keep in mind the Principle of individual differences and plan our lessons based on the individual’s needs. As teachers we need to arrange suitable learning experiences according to their needs, age, differences, and aptitudes.
Chief characteristics of Infancy
Self love, instinctive behavior, emotions begin to organize, observation, imitation, emotions begin to organize foot physical development, cognitive development,. The child is attached to parents and dependent.
Chief characteristics of Early Childhood (0 to 2 years)
Early childhood starts from 0 to 2 years. This is the age of lots of curiosity, fast physical development, all kinds of psychomotor development, intellectual development, walking, moving, talking, concept forming and cognitive development starts, they become mobile they like to do outdoor activities and playing different games where motor activities are involved.
Chief characteristics of Adolescent Age
Teen age is a period of fast physical changes. It is a period of stress & strains. Various developments take place during this period. They develop in all the aspects like physical, social, emotional, intellectual and moral development.
Physical onset of adolescence
- Development of reproductive organs & secondary sex characteristics. They enter into puberty.
- At that time self images is very much dependent on their body image they became aware about their looks, and they are very conscious about their looks.
- Adolescence develops sets of morals and learns about what is right and what is wrong. They start forming values and learn to make decisions.
Problems of adolescence
- Conflicts within the family. They sometimes get into arguments with parents, teacher.
- Fiction with parents – depends on parenting style.
- Teenage pregnancy (some teenagers become sexually cutie)
- Suicide – a growing tendency
- Change in social behaviors
- Peer pressure – friends become more important
- They get attracted to opposite sex friends.
What can you do as a teacher of adolescence?
- Talking to the adolescence more often
- Giving guidance to the adolescence
- Hardly open discussion with students
- (Developing) positive outlook to things they are involved.
- Mostly they need guidance about their bodily changes, emotions, sexual urge and sex education etc.
- They also need guidance on studies, careers their relationship with friends, parents etc.
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