unit 2

1. Approaches of Educational
Psychology

2. Psychologists attempts to discard the methods based on
speculation and provided scientific base to the subject of
education for the study of behaviour. These efforts gives
birth to a number of school of thoughts and systems of
psychology. Such as:
• Structuralism
• Functionalism
• Cognitivism
• Behaviourist theory
• Humanistic theory
• Constructivist theory
• Gestalt psychology
• Psychoanalysis
• The emergence of these systems affects the process and
products of education.

3. Structuralism
• Wundt a German professor was mainly
responsible for the evaluation of this school of
psychology.
• He opened the first psychological laboratory in
Leipzig in 1879 with the purpose of systematic
study of mind.
• He focused his experiments on conscious
experiences involving one's thoughts, feelings,
sensations, perceptions and ideas. So, his
approach to psychology is called structuralism.

4. Introspection and self observation
Wundt and his students conducted experiments in
the laboratory by using the art of introspection
and self observation.
The subjects were usually asked to exactly what
they were experiencing at the moment when
they were exposed to stimuli such as light, colour,
sound or the feel of an object.
Psychologist record their perceptions and feelings
and then presenting their analysis of the activities
of the mind.

5. Edward Bradford Titchener
One of the well known product of Liepzig laboratory- was
titchener who became professor of psychology at Cornell
University. According to him:
• “psychology may be regarded as the science of
conciousness or the study of experience”. Conciousness can
be broken and analysed into three basic elements:
• Physical sensation
• Feelings
• Images
• He concluded that structure of human mind was made up
of more then thirty thousand seprate sensations, feeling
and images.

6. In this way wundt and his followers like titchner
known as structuralists, tried to provide a
systematic study of the mind through the
study of its structure by adopting
introspection as the main technique.

7. Criticism
• It is unable to cover all aspects of human
bahaviour. Such as: individual differences,
motivation and abnormal behaviour.
• It discussed the mind by parts not by process
• It adopts the introspection method can
neither be regarded as objective, reliable or
valid.

8. Merits and contributions in Education.
• Structuralism helped in establishing psychology
as an independent and organized discipline by
separating it from philosophy and metaphysics.
• It provided the method of introspection. Despite
of wide criticism introspection is regarded as one
of the important method to study the behaviour.
Because what goes on an individuals mind can be
explained only by individual himself.
• Structuralism have credit to establish the first
psychological laboratory.