Educational Psychology — Important Questions, Solved

• Growth = quantitative change (height, weight, size); Development = qualitative + quantitative, progressive change.
• Growth stops at maturity; development continues lifelong (birth → death).
• Growth is physical/cellular; development is overall functional organisation.
• Growth is a part of development; development is the wider term.
• Growth is measured directly; development is inferred from behaviour.

• It is a continuous and lifelong process.
• Follows an orderly sequence (cephalo-caudal & proximo-distal).
• Proceeds from general to specific responses.
• Rate of growth differs from child to child (individual differences).
• All dimensions (physical, mental, social, emotional) are interrelated and predictable.

• Havighurst: a task arising at a certain period of life — success brings happiness & later success, failure brings difficulty.
• Arise from physical maturation, social/cultural pressure and personal values.
• Infancy/childhood: walking, talking, toilet control, social skills, reading readiness.
• Adolescence: accepting one's body, emotional independence, vocational choice, value system.
• Importance: guide the timing and goals of teaching (readiness).

• The learner — growth, development, needs, individual differences.
• The learning process — how learning, memory and motivation operate; theories of learning.
• The learning situation / environment — classroom climate, methods, aids, group dynamics.
• The teacher — role, qualities, mental health.
• Intelligence, creativity and personality.
• Guidance, counselling and mental health.
• Evaluation and assessment of learning.

• Growth — quantitative physical increase.
• Development — progressive, qualitative, lifelong change.
• Maturation — development due to heredity/innate unfolding, not practice (e.g., walking, puberty).
• Relationship: maturation readies the organism → growth gives the physical base → development is the outcome of maturation + learning.
• Readiness for learning depends on maturation (reading readiness).
• All three are continuous and interdependent.

• Rapid physical and sexual growth (puberty).
• Emotional instability — the "storm and stress" period (Stanley Hall).
• Heightened interest in and curiosity about the opposite sex.
• Strong peer-group influence; urge for independence.
• Search for identity; self-consciousness.
• Idealism, hero-worship, day-dreaming.
• Development of abstract reasoning and moral sense.

• Physical problems — rapid bodily changes, body-image worries.
• Emotional problems — instability, anxiety, inner conflicts.
• Social problems — peer pressure, adjustment, freedom vs. control.
• Sex-related curiosity and confusion.
• Educational / vocational problems — career choice, competition, exam stress.
• Family conflicts — generation gap.
• Moral and identity confusion.

• Provide proper guidance and counselling.
• Give appropriate sex education.
• Treat them with sympathy, friendliness and understanding.
• Channel their energy through games, hobbies and co-curricular activities.
• Offer vocational guidance and career information.
• Provide good role models and a healthy environment.
• Give opportunities for independence and responsibility; avoid harsh punishment; build self-esteem.

• Non-volitional (involuntary) — without will; enforced (by instinct) and spontaneous (by interest/sentiment).
• Volitional (voluntary) — needs will and effort (e.g., studying for an exam); implicit & explicit.
• Habitual attention — formed by repeated habit.

• Attention is selective — focuses on one object at a time.
• Has a narrow span (limited objects at once).
• Constantly shifting / fluctuating — never perfectly fixed.
• Involves motor adjustment — sense organs orient to the stimulus.
• Increases the clarity of perception; has cognitive, conative and affective sides.

• Perception = interpreting sensations meaningfully → "sensation + meaning".
• Gestalt laws: figure–ground, proximity (nearness), similarity.
• Closure (mind completes gaps), continuity (good continuation).
• Prägnanz / simplicity and common fate (common movement).

• Memory = retention and reproduction of past experience.
• Process: learning → retention → recall → recognition.
• Kinds: sensory, short-term (STM), long-term (LTM).
• Also: immediate, rote, logical, and habit memory.

• Rapidity — quick to learn/memorise.
• Good retention — holds material for a long time.
• Stability / faithfulness — accurate, without distortion.
• Readiness of recall — recalls promptly when needed.
• Serviceableness — recalls only the relevant material at the right time.

Objective / external factors (in the stimulus)

• Intensity, size, colour, movement, change, repetition, novelty, contrast, location.

Subjective / internal factors (in the person)

• Interest, motive, basic needs, mental set, emotion & mood, habit, past experience, attitude.

• Meaningful / logical learning rather than rote.
• Association and organisation (grouping, chunking).
• Use of mnemonic devices.
• Rehearsal, recitation and over-learning.
• Spaced (distributed) practice, not cramming.
• Whole or part method as suits the material.
• Good attention & motivation; reduce interference; multi-sensory learning; regular revision (SQ3R).

• Biological / physiological motives — hunger, thirst, sleep, sex.
• Social motives — affiliation, achievement, power, approval.
• Personal / psychological motives — interest, attitude, aspiration, self-actualisation.
• Conscious and unconscious motives.

• Deficiency (D) needs — lower four (physiological, safety, love, esteem); arise from lack/deprivation.
• Growth (Being) needs — self-actualisation; arise from the desire to grow.
• D-needs reduce tension when met; B-needs increase with fulfilment (never fully satisfied).
• D-needs are prepotent — must be met before growth needs emerge (Maslow).

• Intrinsic — drive from within (interest, curiosity, joy of the task); long-lasting.
• Extrinsic — drive from outside (marks, rewards, praise, prizes, punishment); useful but less durable.
• Teacher's aim: gradually move pupils from extrinsic toward intrinsic motivation.

• E. L. Thorndike; theory of S–R bonds / connectionism; cat-in-a-puzzle-box experiment.
• Learning is by trial and error — random responses → errors eliminated → correct response stamped in.
• Primary laws: Readiness, Exercise (use & disuse), Effect.
• Secondary laws: multiple response, set/attitude, prepotency of elements, response by analogy, associative shifting.

• Ivan Pavlov; experiment on a dog's salivation.
• UCS (food) → UCR (salivation); CS (bell) paired repeatedly; CS alone → CR.
• Processes: acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalisation, discrimination.

• B. F. Skinner; "Skinner box" with rat/pigeon — lever press → food.
• Operant behaviour operates on the environment; learning is shaped by its consequences.
• Reinforcement: positive (add pleasant) & negative (remove unpleasant) — both strengthen; punishment weakens.
• Schedules of reinforcement; shaping by successive approximation.

• Classical (Pavlov): response is elicited by a stimulus — involuntary, reflexive; learner is passive.
• Operant (Skinner): response is emitted then reinforced — voluntary; learner is active.
• Classical = association of two stimuli (S-type); Operant = association of response with consequence (R-type).
• In classical, reinforcement comes before the response; in operant, it comes after the response.
• Classical explains attitudes/emotions; operant explains skill and habit learning.

• Jean Piaget — cognitive constructivist; key terms: schema, assimilation, accommodation, equilibration.
• Sensorimotor (0–2 yrs) — senses & actions; object permanence.
• Pre-operational (2–7) — language, symbols, egocentrism, no conservation.
• Concrete operational (7–11) — logical thinking about concrete things; conservation, classification.
• Formal operational (11+) — abstract, hypothetical, scientific reasoning.

• John Dewey — "learning by doing"; education is life itself, not preparation for life.
• Knowledge is constructed through active experience and problem-solving.
• Stresses reflective thinking and the project method.
• Favours a democratic, child-centred classroom.

• The "third force" — Maslow & Carl Rogers; focuses on the whole person, self, growth and free will.
• Maslow — hierarchy of needs and self-actualisation; a positive view of human nature.
• Rogers — student-centred learning, unconditional positive regard, the teacher as a facilitator.
• "Freedom to learn"; emphasis on feelings, self-concept and personal meaning.

• Thorndike's classification into three types:
• Abstract intelligence — handling ideas, words and symbols.
• Concrete / mechanical intelligence — handling objects, tools and machines.
• Social intelligence — dealing with people and social relations.

• Intelligence is a single, unitary, general power that operates in all mental activity.
• The mind acts as one whole faculty ("monarchic" — one ruler).
• Held by early psychologists (Binet, Terman leaned toward general ability).
• Criticised — intelligence is not one undifferentiated entity.

• Thorndike — intelligence is made of many independent factors, not one general factor (atomistic view).
• Each activity needs a specific combination of factors/bonds.
• Attributes of intelligence: level, range, area, speed.
• Recognises abstract, mechanical and social intelligence.

• Individual tests — one person at a time (Binet–Simon, Stanford–Binet, Wechsler); detailed, good for clinical use, but time-consuming.
• Group tests — many at once (Army Alpha & Beta); economical and quick, but less personal.
• Each may be verbal or non-verbal / performance type.

• Charles Spearman; based on factor analysis (statistics).
• 'g' factor — general intelligence, innate, common to all mental activity.
• 's' factors — many specific abilities, each for a particular task.
• Every activity = g + s; 'g' is the most important.
• He later admitted some group factors as well.

• L. L. Thurstone — intelligence = a group of Primary Mental Abilities (PMA), not a single 'g'.
• Seven PMAs: Verbal comprehension (V), Word fluency (W), Number (N), Space (S), Memory (M), Perceptual speed (P), Reasoning (R).
• Each ability is relatively independent.
• A person is described by a profile of these abilities.

• J. P. Guilford; a three-dimensional model — Operations × Contents × Products.
• Operations (5): cognition, memory, divergent production, convergent production, evaluation.
• Contents (4–5): figural, symbolic, semantic, behavioural.
• Products (6): units, classes, relations, systems, transformations, implications.
• 5 × 4 × 6 = 120 factors (later extended to 150/180).
• Divergent production is the basis of creativity.

• Howard Gardner — intelligence is plural, not single.
• Linguistic, Logical-mathematical, Spatial, Musical.
• Bodily-kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Naturalistic.
• (Existential is sometimes added as a ninth.)

• David Wechsler; an individual intelligence test for adults.
• Verbal scale — information, comprehension, arithmetic, similarities, digit span, vocabulary.
• Performance scale — picture completion, block design, picture arrangement, object assembly, digit symbol.
• Yields Verbal IQ, Performance IQ and Full-scale IQ.
• Uses the deviation IQ (not MA/CA); useful for adults and for non-verbal assessment.

• Based on Wallas' four-stage model.
• Preparation — defining the problem and gathering information.
• Incubation — setting the problem aside; unconscious mental work.
• Illumination — the sudden flash of insight / the "aha" moment.
• Verification — testing, refining and evaluating the idea.

• Sigmund Freud; stresses the unconscious mind (iceberg).
• Levels: conscious, preconscious, unconscious.
• Structure: Id (pleasure), Ego (reality), Superego (morality).
• Psychosexual stages; the ego uses defense mechanisms against anxiety.

• A well-balanced, harmonious personality in which physical, mental, emotional, social and moral aspects work together.
• Marks: self-awareness, emotional stability, good adjustment.
• Realistic goals, social responsibility and a balanced outlook.
• The aim of education is to develop such an all-round, integrated personality.

• Personality is unique, dynamic, organised and psychophysical.
• It is goal-directed and a product of heredity + environment; consistent yet modifiable.
• Uses to the teacher: understand individual differences, identify maladjusted pupils, give guidance, choose suitable methods, and develop a balanced personality in pupils.

• Biological / hereditary — physique, nervous system, endocrine glands, intelligence, temperament.
• Environmental — family, school, peer group, society, culture, mass media.
• Psychological — motives, emotions, self-concept, frustration and conflict.
• Heredity and environment interact — heredity sets the potential, environment shapes its expression.

Type approach (classify into categories)

• Hippocrates — four humours (sanguine, choleric, melancholic, phlegmatic).
• Kretschmer — pyknic, asthenic, athletic, dysplastic.
• Sheldon — endomorph, mesomorph, ectomorph (somatotypes).
• Jung — introvert, extrovert (and ambivert).

Trait approach (measurable traits)

• Allport — cardinal, central and secondary traits.
• Cattell — 16 PF; source traits vs surface traits.
• Eysenck — extraversion, neuroticism, psychoticism dimensions.
• Type = simple but rigid; Trait = more scientific and measurable.

• Interview — face-to-face questioning (structured or unstructured); direct but can be subjective.
• Rating scale — an observer judges a person's traits on a graded scale.
• Questionnaire / inventory — a written set of items answered by the person (self-report).
• These are subjective / non-projective methods of assessment.

• The subject projects inner, unconscious feelings onto an ambiguous, unstructured stimulus.
• Rorschach Ink-Blot Test — ten inkblots; the person tells what each looks like.
• TAT (Thematic Apperception Test) — Murray & Morgan; ambiguous pictures, the person tells a story.
• Free Association Test (FA) — the person responds with the first word/idea a stimulus brings to mind.
• Others: CAT, Sentence-Completion, Word-Association and Draw-a-Man tests.