Methods of Educational Psychology

Educational Psychology is a branch of Applied Psychology which tries to study the behavior of a learner through the responses in a learning environment. It also tries to predict on the roles of the elements of teaching learning process, namely, the learner, the teacher, the learning experience,the teaching strategy and the learning environment using the principles, laws and theories of Psychology.

It is a science as it uses scientific theories and methods in its approach to meet the objectives. This article briefly discusses the methods of Educational Psychology.

Methods of Educational Psychology:

·        There are four basic methods of educational psychology. They are introspection, observation, experiment and case studies.

·        The word Introspection is derived from two words,namely intro and section. The former means inwards and the latter means looking. In this way, introspection is a method of looking inwards.

·        In this method, a person thinks about the reasons behind the success or failure of his or her endeavors or state of existence.

·        But, this is a subjective method and there cannot be a way to measure the outcome of this method by others.

·        Moreover, the method cannot be repeated as a person cannot be in an exact state of  mind again.

·        Children,aged people and mentally challenged people cannot introspect and hence the subjects on whom this method can be applied is restricted.

·        However, it is one of the most effective methods of  bringing changes in a person’s behavior if it is carried out with a purpose.

·        It is easy to apply and does not require any costly apparatus or much of the time.

·        Observation is a method where the subject under study observed from a distance by an investigator without the former’s  awareness.

·        In Observation, the investigator can be amidst the subject under study as well.

·        But,in both the cases,the subject should not be aware that he or she is under observation.

·        Otherwise, the behavior of the subject would not be genuine and spontaneous any more.

·        Observation is to be carried out by experts only and might require training with respect to the recording of the observations, analysis and their inference.

·        Experiments are done under expert supervision on individuals or on groups  and the results are quite credible too.

·        They require the employment of costly apparatus and investment of time.

·        Case study is a detailed analysis of a particular subject with some exceptional attributes.

·        Case study requires expertise, time and money, but its results have strong implications for a wider range of subjects.

Conclusion: Every method has its own merits and demerits. It is upon the teacher to decide when to apply a particular method depending upon some compelling factors like the nature of the problem, available resources, and time of study.