The Goals Of Educational Psychology Essay

When most people think about psychology, they think about mental illness, counselors and therapy (Goodfriend, 2015). The field of psychology is large, with one of the most popular areas being educational psychology (Goodfriend, 2015). Johann Herbart is considered to be the father of educational psychology and he believed that learning was influenced by intrest in the subject and teacher (“Educational Psychology,” 2015). Educational psychology is a field that studies and applies theories and concepts from all of psychology in an educational setting (Goodfriend, 2015). The goal of educational psychology is to make any teacher-student relationship as positive as it can be, so the students can learn to the best of their potential (“Educational Psychology,” 2015).
The study of the learning process, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows for understanding of differences (“Educational Psychology,” 2015). The cognitive perspective studies how people acquire, perceive, remember and communicate information (Goodfriend, 2015). The behavioral perspective, in contrast, studies the tendency to modify our behavior due to consequences (Goodfriend, 2015). Rewards and punishments in a classroom help to motivate students in both good and bad ways (Goodfriend, 2015). Developmental psychology studies how people change over the course of their life (Goodfriend, 2015). This will assist teachers decide how abstract or concrete their lessons need to be depending on how old…