Foundations of Education

Educational psychology has developed over many centuries to include a wide array of perspectives. In the 4th and 5th Centuries BC, respectively, Aristotle and Plato mused about the role of teachers and methods of teaching. In the 17th Century, John Locke famously posited that people are born with minds that are blank slates (tabula rasa) awaiting to be developed through their experiences in the world. Conversely, in the 18th Century, Wilhelm Wundt began to examine internal, unseen aspects of the mind, such as human consciousness.

The 19th and 20th Centuries were a particularly fruitful time for educational psychology. The philosopher John Dewey introduced the idea of functionalism and experiential learning, reasoning that people’s thoughts and behaviours are the result of their responses and interactions with stimuli in their environments. Dewey posited that it is through these interactions people develop adaptive (aka functional) response behaviours and thoughts that allow them to function within environments. Edward Thorndike expanded on Dewey’s concept of functionalism by examining how connections between environmental stimuli and people’s responses to stimuli could be strengthened or weakened.

Other theorists, more directly tied to the field of psychology, (e.g., John Watson and B.F. Skinner – both proponents of behaviourism) took the idea of responding to stimuli within environments to the extreme. Watson and Skinner argued that people were inactive recipients of knowledge. From their perspective, human learning consisted only of stimulus/response reactions. This behaviourist view notably lacked any inclusion of internal aspects of human functioning (e.g., reflection on experience and mindful decision making), as well as the influence of social and cultural factors. In contrast, other prominent theorists at the time incorporated internal, social, and cultural perspectives into their theoretical frameworks.

Cognitive theories of development emerged in the late 1950s and continue to hold prominence today. Cognitive educational psychologists are interested in the internal workings of the mind. Specifically, they seek to understand how processes related to behaviours, thoughts, and emotions are organized in the mind of an individual and how they change with age and experience.

Many cognitive psychologists (e.g., Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Benjamin Bloom) argue that cognitive development unfolds in a stage-like manner, dependent upon physical maturation. These theorists posit that the organization of the brain changes with maturation, thereby allowing people to think more abstractly as they get older. While “stage theories” of development are useful for describing cognitive growth, it is important to remember there is great diversity in children’s rates of development – differences that are often linked to social, cultural and genetic differences amongst children.

Social constructivist theories of development that explore the influence of environment on development also began to emerge in the 20th Century. Social constructivist theories of development are built upon the premise that knowledge is an active process, formed in social contexts and shaped by people’s past learning experiences, beliefs, social experiences, and motivations. Social constructivist theorists, such as Albert Bandura, expanded beyond aspects of behaviourism (e.g.,, the concept of reinforcement) to also include social influences on the development of behaviour.

Bandura’s Social Learning Theory posits that knowledge is formed by observing how others (role models) respond to social, emotional. and intellectual events. From Bandura’s point of view, development occurs when people see others performing behaviours. They then attempt to imitate those behaviours themselves in social contexts. Behaviours are encouraged, refined, or discontinued through this process as people receive feedback about their behaviours from their social environments.

Another major contributor to the field of constructivism was Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky’s Social Cultural Theory views development as socially guided. From this perspective, interactions with others who are supportive and more knowledgeable spurs internal development by guiding learners beyond their current abilities to perform more complex tasks.

Constructivist viewpoints remain popular in the 21st Century. Currently, many educational researchers are expanding on the work of Vygotsky, Bandura, and others by examining how social contexts, learners’ characteristics, and teachers’ characteristics (e.g., beliefs, histories, motivations, and teaching styles) contribute to the development of underlying competencies for learning within diverse contexts.

Kohlberg, L. (1984). The psychology of Moral Development: The Nature and Validity of Moral Stages (1st ed.). Harper & Row.

Piaget, J. (1962). The stages of the intellectual development of the child. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 26, 120.

National Research Council (US) Panel to Review the Status of Basic Research on School-Age Children; Collins WA, Ed. Development During Middle Childhood: The Years From Six to Twelve. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1984. Chapter 3, Cognitive Development In School- Age Children: Conclusions And New Directions. URL: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216774/

Seifert, K., & Sutton, R. (2021, February 27). Major Theories and Models of Learning. University of Manitoba & Cleveland State University. URL: https://socialsci.libretexts.org/@go/page/10821

Vygotsky, L.S. (2021). Lectures on the psychology of development. Kul’turno-istoricheskaia psikhologiia, 17 (2), 5-22. URL: https://doi.org/10.17759/chp.2021170201

Woolfolk, A., Winne, P.H & Perry, N. E. (2020). Educational Psychology, Seventh Canadian Edition. Pearson.