Educational psychologist
Encyclopedia
An educational psychologist (many countries use this term to signify those who provide services to students, their teachers
, and families while other countries use this term to signify academic training in the discipline of educational psychology, with no intention of preparing persons to provide services) is a psychologist
with a Master’s degree in Educational psychology
(many, perhaps most school/educational psychologists are prepared only at the undergraduate level at this moment) whose differentiating functions are diagnostic and psycho-educational assessment
, psychological counseling in educational communities (students, teachers
, parents and academic authorities), community-type psycho-educational intervention, and mediation
, coordination, and referral to other professionals, at all levels of the educational system. The term educational psychologist for those who provide services is applicable mainly in UK, its former colonies and some European countries.
is a so well developed discipline that allows different specializations: a) clinical and health psychology, b) work and organizational psychology, c) educational psychology
, etc. .What differentiates an educational psychologist from other psychologists or specialists is constituted by an academic triangle whose vertexes are represented by three categories: teachers
, students and curricula (see diagram). The use of plural in these three cases assumes two meanings: a) the traditional or official one and b) other more general derived from our information and knowledge society. The plural also indicates that nowadays we can no longer consider the average student or teacher, or a closed curriculum
, but the enormous variety found in our students, teachers
and curricula. The triangle vertexes are connected by two-directional arrows, allowing four-fold typologies instead of the traditional two-way relationships (e.g., teacher-student). In this way, we can find, in different educational contexts, groups of good teachers and students (excellent teaching/learning processes and products), groups of good teachers but bad students , and groups of bad teachers and good students, producing in both cases lower levels of academic achievements. In addition, we can find groups of bad teachers and bad students (school failure).
This specific work of an educational psychologist takes place in different contexts: micro-, meso- and macro-systems . Microsystems
refer to family contexts, where atmosphere, hidden curriculum, and expectations and behaviors of all family members determine, to a large extent, the educational development of each student. The term mesosystem refers to all variety of contexts found in educational institutions, knowing that different variables such as geographical location, institution marketing or type of teachers and students, etc., can influence the academic results of students. Macrosystem has a much more general and global nature, leading us, for example, to considerer the influence that the different societies or countries have on educational final products. One illustrative example of this level can be the analyses carried out on data gathered by the PISA reports.This approach would be the essence of educational psychology versus school psychology for many of U.S. educational researchers and for Division 15 of APA.
involves collecting information, in a valid and reliable way, about the three target groups of the triangle diagram (in their respective contexts): teachers
, students and curricula . Evaluation is divided in at least two main types: diagnosis (dysfunctions detection such as physical, sensory and intellectual impairments, dyslexia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, pervasive development disorders or autism spectrum disorders) and psycho-educational evaluation (detection of curriculum difficulties, poor school atmosphere or family problems, etc). Evaluation
implies detection, and, thanks to this, prevention
.
A second function, very relevant too, is psychological counseling . This must be directed to: a) students, in their various dimensions (intellectual, obviously, but also their social, affective and professional dimensions); b) parents, as ‘paraprofessionals’ who may implement programs, selected or developed by educational psychologists, to solve their child/student problems; c) teachers, to whom will be offered psycho-educational support to face psychological difficulties that may be found when implementing and adapting curricula to diversity shown by students; d) academic authorities, who will be helped in their decision-making, regarding the teaching (teaching process) and administrative duties (providing necessary support for students with specific educational needs, decisions about promotion to the next level, and so on).
A third function based on communitarian interventions, with three main facets: corrective, preventative, and optimizing interventions . If disruptive behavior occurs in particular moments and contexts, then a corrective intervention is required. If the aim is school violence
reduction, then tertiary preventive intervention programs are needed. If an early diagnosis of learning difficulties
is carried out, then psychologist has undertaken secondary prevention. If the aim is to use psycho-educational programs to prevent future school failure, then a primary preventative intervention program is put into practice. The complement to all of these interventions is constituted by a series of optimizing activities, meant for the academic, professional, social, family, and personal improvement of all agents in educational community, especially learners.
A fourth function, or specific activity, is referral of those suffering dysfunctions to other professionals, following a previous diagnostic evaluation, with the aim to coordinate future treatment implementation. This coordination will take place with parents, teachers and other professionals, promoting collaboration among all educational agents in order to get the fastest and best case resolution.This second triangle represents the essential components of school psychology, for some European researchers or division 16 of APA
.
, it is essential a main course which prepares educational psychologists for carrying out diagnostic and psycho-educational assessment, psychological counseling to the educational communities, and all types of communitarian interventions (corrective, preventive and optimizing). This should also contain some type of external professional practices (where the specific coordination, evaluation, counseling, and intervention functions will be put into practice), as well as a final project. Equally, there are a series of theoretical areas that, due to their relevancy in the teaching/learning contexts, should be included, such as: classroom diversity, drug-dependency prevention, developmental disorders, learning difficulties, new technologies applied to educational contexts and data analysis and interpretation. In sum, taking into account all of this, perhaps educational psychologists will be able to meet adequately demands found in different educational institutions.
Teachers
Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers , one of the five Ascension Gift Ministries* Teachers , a British sitcom* Teachers Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers (ministry), one of the...
, and families while other countries use this term to signify academic training in the discipline of educational psychology, with no intention of preparing persons to provide services) is a psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
with a Master’s degree in Educational psychology
Educational psychology
Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing...
(many, perhaps most school/educational psychologists are prepared only at the undergraduate level at this moment) whose differentiating functions are diagnostic and psycho-educational assessment
Assessment
Educational assessment is the process of documenting, usually in measurable terms, knowledge, skills, attitudes and beliefs. Assessment can focus on the individual learner, the learning community , the institution, or the educational system as a whole...
, psychological counseling in educational communities (students, teachers
Teachers
Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers , one of the five Ascension Gift Ministries* Teachers , a British sitcom* Teachers Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers (ministry), one of the...
, parents and academic authorities), community-type psycho-educational intervention, and mediation
Mediation
Mediation, as used in law, is a form of alternative dispute resolution , a way of resolving disputes between two or more parties. A third party, the mediator, assists the parties to negotiate their own settlement...
, coordination, and referral to other professionals, at all levels of the educational system. The term educational psychologist for those who provide services is applicable mainly in UK, its former colonies and some European countries.
Specific facts
PsychologyPsychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
is a so well developed discipline that allows different specializations: a) clinical and health psychology, b) work and organizational psychology, c) educational psychology
Educational psychology
Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing...
, etc. .What differentiates an educational psychologist from other psychologists or specialists is constituted by an academic triangle whose vertexes are represented by three categories: teachers
Teachers
Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers , one of the five Ascension Gift Ministries* Teachers , a British sitcom* Teachers Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers (ministry), one of the...
, students and curricula (see diagram). The use of plural in these three cases assumes two meanings: a) the traditional or official one and b) other more general derived from our information and knowledge society. The plural also indicates that nowadays we can no longer consider the average student or teacher, or a closed curriculum
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
, but the enormous variety found in our students, teachers
Teachers
Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers , one of the five Ascension Gift Ministries* Teachers , a British sitcom* Teachers Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers (ministry), one of the...
and curricula. The triangle vertexes are connected by two-directional arrows, allowing four-fold typologies instead of the traditional two-way relationships (e.g., teacher-student). In this way, we can find, in different educational contexts, groups of good teachers and students (excellent teaching/learning processes and products), groups of good teachers but bad students , and groups of bad teachers and good students, producing in both cases lower levels of academic achievements. In addition, we can find groups of bad teachers and bad students (school failure).
This specific work of an educational psychologist takes place in different contexts: micro-, meso- and macro-systems . Microsystems
Microsystems
Microsystems may refer to:*Microelectromechanical systems, miniature electronic and mechanical systems less than a millimeter in size*Microsystems , a personal computing magazine of the early 1980s...
refer to family contexts, where atmosphere, hidden curriculum, and expectations and behaviors of all family members determine, to a large extent, the educational development of each student. The term mesosystem refers to all variety of contexts found in educational institutions, knowing that different variables such as geographical location, institution marketing or type of teachers and students, etc., can influence the academic results of students. Macrosystem has a much more general and global nature, leading us, for example, to considerer the influence that the different societies or countries have on educational final products. One illustrative example of this level can be the analyses carried out on data gathered by the PISA reports.This approach would be the essence of educational psychology versus school psychology for many of U.S. educational researchers and for Division 15 of APA.
Specific functions
The most noteworthy function is, without a doubt, formal (rather than informal) assessment . This evaluationEvaluation
Evaluation is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards.Evaluation often is used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice,...
involves collecting information, in a valid and reliable way, about the three target groups of the triangle diagram (in their respective contexts): teachers
Teachers
Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers , one of the five Ascension Gift Ministries* Teachers , a British sitcom* Teachers Teachers may refer to:* Teachers, people who provide schooling for pupils and students* Teachers (ministry), one of the...
, students and curricula . Evaluation is divided in at least two main types: diagnosis (dysfunctions detection such as physical, sensory and intellectual impairments, dyslexia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, pervasive development disorders or autism spectrum disorders) and psycho-educational evaluation (detection of curriculum difficulties, poor school atmosphere or family problems, etc). Evaluation
Evaluation
Evaluation is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards.Evaluation often is used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice,...
implies detection, and, thanks to this, prevention
Prevention
Prevention-to avoid doing; stay away from dangerous or risky things.Prevention refers to:* Preventive medicine* Hazard prevention, the process of risk study and elimination and mitigation in emergency management* Risk prevention* Risk management...
.
A second function, very relevant too, is psychological counseling . This must be directed to: a) students, in their various dimensions (intellectual, obviously, but also their social, affective and professional dimensions); b) parents, as ‘paraprofessionals’ who may implement programs, selected or developed by educational psychologists, to solve their child/student problems; c) teachers, to whom will be offered psycho-educational support to face psychological difficulties that may be found when implementing and adapting curricula to diversity shown by students; d) academic authorities, who will be helped in their decision-making, regarding the teaching (teaching process) and administrative duties (providing necessary support for students with specific educational needs, decisions about promotion to the next level, and so on).
A third function based on communitarian interventions, with three main facets: corrective, preventative, and optimizing interventions . If disruptive behavior occurs in particular moments and contexts, then a corrective intervention is required. If the aim is school violence
School violence
School violence is widely held to have become a serious problem in recent decades in many countries, especially where weapons such as guns or knives are involved...
reduction, then tertiary preventive intervention programs are needed. If an early diagnosis of learning difficulties
Learning difficulties
Learning difficulties may refer to:*The conditions known in North America as learning disabilities, which are called "specific learning difficulties" in the United Kingdom...
is carried out, then psychologist has undertaken secondary prevention. If the aim is to use psycho-educational programs to prevent future school failure, then a primary preventative intervention program is put into practice. The complement to all of these interventions is constituted by a series of optimizing activities, meant for the academic, professional, social, family, and personal improvement of all agents in educational community, especially learners.
A fourth function, or specific activity, is referral of those suffering dysfunctions to other professionals, following a previous diagnostic evaluation, with the aim to coordinate future treatment implementation. This coordination will take place with parents, teachers and other professionals, promoting collaboration among all educational agents in order to get the fastest and best case resolution.This second triangle represents the essential components of school psychology, for some European researchers or division 16 of APA
APA
- Associations :* Aborigines Progressive Association, an Australian organization* All Peoples' Association , a British voluntary organization* Allied Pilots Association, the certified collective bargaining agent for American Airlines pilots...
.
Academic requirements specific to educational psychologists
Nowadays it is a specific Master’s degree, a profession-oriented Master’s, which generally completes the professional preparation of educational psychologists. A degree in psychology (although necessary and essential) now seems not to be enough, since they are not designed to achieve the necessary specialization. In this Master’s degree in Educational PsychologyEducational psychology
Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing...
, it is essential a main course which prepares educational psychologists for carrying out diagnostic and psycho-educational assessment, psychological counseling to the educational communities, and all types of communitarian interventions (corrective, preventive and optimizing). This should also contain some type of external professional practices (where the specific coordination, evaluation, counseling, and intervention functions will be put into practice), as well as a final project. Equally, there are a series of theoretical areas that, due to their relevancy in the teaching/learning contexts, should be included, such as: classroom diversity, drug-dependency prevention, developmental disorders, learning difficulties, new technologies applied to educational contexts and data analysis and interpretation. In sum, taking into account all of this, perhaps educational psychologists will be able to meet adequately demands found in different educational institutions.
See also
- Assessment
- Child developmentChild developmentChild development stages describe theoretical milestones of child development. Many stage models of development have been proposed, used as working concepts and in some cases asserted as nativist theories....
- Competency evaluationCompetency evaluationIn applied linguistics and educational psychology, competency evaluation is a means for teachers to determine the ability of their students in other ways besides the standardized test.Usually this includes portfolio assessment...
- Counseling psychologyCounseling psychologyCounseling psychology is a psychological specialty that encompasses research and applied work in several broad domains: counseling process and outcome; supervision and training; career development and counseling; and prevention and health...
- CurriculumCurriculumSee also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...
- Developmental psychologyDevelopmental psychologyDevelopmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...
- EducationEducationEducation in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
- Educational evaluationEducational evaluationEducational evaluation is the evaluation process of characterizing and appraising some aspect/s of an educational process.Q. 3 Discuss the role of standards and criteria in educational evaluation...
- Educational psychologyEducational psychologyEducational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing...
- E learning
- Learning curveLearning curveA learning curve is a graphical representation of the changing rate of learning for a given activity or tool. Typically, the increase in retention of information is sharpest after the initial attempts, and then gradually evens out, meaning that less and less new information is retained after each...
- Learning difficultiesLearning difficultiesLearning difficulties may refer to:*The conditions known in North America as learning disabilities, which are called "specific learning difficulties" in the United Kingdom...
- Learning disabilities
- Learning stylesLearning stylesLearning styles are various approaches or ways of learning. They involve educating methods, particular to an individual, that are presumed to allow that individual to learn best. Most people prefer an identifiable method of interacting with, taking in, and processing stimuli or information...
- Learning theoryLearning theoryLearning theory may refer to:* Learning theory , the process of how humans learn** Behaviorism** Cognitivism** Constructivism** Connectivism* Computational learning theory, a mathematical theory to analyze machine learning algorithms...
- Learning theory (education)Learning theory (education)In psychology and education, learning is commonly defined as a process that brings together cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences and experiences for acquiring, enhancing, or making changes in one's knowledge, skills, values, and world views . Learning as a process focuses on what...
- PISAPisaPisa is a city in Tuscany, Central Italy, on the right bank of the mouth of the River Arno on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is the capital city of the Province of Pisa...
- Performance evaluationPerformance EvaluationPerformance Evaluation is an international journal published by Elsevier. The current Editor-in-chief is Philippe Nain. The journal was previously published by North-Holland Publisher.-Editors:*1981–1986 Hisashi Kobayashi*1987–1990 Martin Reiser...
- Program evaluationProgram evaluationProject evaluation is a systematic method for collecting, analyzing, and using information to answer questions about projects, policies and programs, particularly about their effectiveness and efficiency...
- PsychologyPsychologyPsychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
- Psychological testingPsychological testingPsychological testing is a field characterized by the use of samples of behavior in order to assess psychological construct, such as cognitive and emotional functioning, about a given individual. The technical term for the science behind psychological testing is psychometrics...
- School counselorSchool counselorA school counselor is a counselor and an educator who works in elementary, middle, and high schools to provide academic, career, college access, and personal/social competencies to K-12 students...
- Special educationSpecial educationSpecial education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
- StudentStudentA student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
- TeacherTeacherA teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
External links
- British Psichological Society
- Division 15 of the American Psychological Association
- Division 16 of the American Psychological Association
- Educational Psychology - An International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology
- Educational Psichologist (Journal)
- Journal of Educational Psychology
- National Association of Principal Educational Psychologist
- National Educational Psychological Service
- Professional Organizations and Affiliations
- The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing