Chapter 1: Concept of Psychology and Educational Psychology

The definition

o Psyche = soul, spirit, mind

o Logos = study of/research/knowledge

Psychology is the science of behaviour and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and unconscious experience as

well as thought. It is an academic discipline and a social science which seeks to understand individuals and groups by
establishing general principles and researching specific cases.

What psychologists do

o Psychologists attempt to understand the role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also
exploring the physiological and biological processes that underlie cognitive functions and behaviors.
o Psychologists explore behavior and mental processes,
including perception, cognition, attention, emotion (affective),
intelligence, phenomenology, motivation, brain functioning, and personality.

Educational psychology

Knowledge gained from psychology and applied to the activities of the classroom. It involves applying the methods
of psychology to study classroom and school life.

As the application of psychology to study educational aspects such as

o Development of individual’s: potentials, personalities, principles, and methods of teaching and learning in
classroom including classroom management, needs, motivation, assessment, guidance and counselling,
educational research and other educational matters

The importance of educational psychology

o A teacher acts as a philosopher and a guide to the students. He must know the growth and development of
the child and his requirements at different levels.
o Educational psychology helps the teacher to study the ability, interests, intelligence, needs and adopt
different techniques of teaching for effective communication.
o The utility of educational psychology for the teachers has been emphasized in both theory and practices of
teaching and learning.
o Have you ever avoided looking at the mirror when you had the chance to?
o The study of educational psychology is thus very useful for teachers for planning, organizing, and evaluating
the teaching learning activities in the class.
o The importance of educational psychology for a teacher can be divided into two aspects:

 To study teaching and learning situations:

 Individual differences: difference of students regarding their ability, interests, attitudes &
need at different levels of growth and development.

 To know the classroom teaching and learning process: classroom climate, teaching
competence for effective communication and presentation of content.

 Aware ness of effective method of teaching: the classroom teaching depends on the
teachers’ knowledge about the interest of students and methods of teaching for the
students of different age-groups

 Guidance to students: A teacher has to play different roles in school as guide, philosopher,
and leader. Guidance is a type of assistance to the students to solve their problems by
 themselves. The knowledge of psychology enables the teacher to provide necessary
educational and vocational guidance to the students of different age groups.

 Application of teaching and learning principles:

 Objectives of education: to bring about desirable change in the student’s behaviour.

 Use of audio-visual aids in teaching: many difficult concepts can be made easy and
interesting using audio-visual teaching aids. The knowledge of psychology is necessary to
plan and use teaching aids appropriately.

 Co-curricular activities: The curricular exercise develops only cognitive aspects of the child.
Therefore, other activities like games, sports scouting, girls guiding, debates, cultural
programmes are essential along with curricular activities for whole some development of
the child.