Educational psychology is a social psychology that studies human learning, the effect of educational intervention, teaching psychology and school organization under the educational situation.

The focus of educational psychology is to apply psychological theory or research results to education. Educational psychology can be used to design courses, improve teaching methods, promote learning motivation and help students face various difficulties and challenges in their growth.

The terms "educational psychology" and "school psychology" are often used interchangeably, but people who usually engage in theoretical work and research are often called educational psychologists, while those who engage in practical work in schools or school-related fields are classified as school psychologists. Educational psychology pays attention to students' learning and development, especially to students with special educational needs (whether gifted children or children with emotional and behavioral problems) in practice.

Through the relationship with other disciplines, it is also helpful to understand educational psychology. First of all, educational psychology is based on psychology, and the relationship between the two disciplines is like the relationship between medicine and biology, or the relationship between engineering and physics.

From the perspective of educational psychology, many specialized fields can be developed to study educational problems, including teaching design, educational technology, curriculum development, organizational learning, special education, classroom management and so on. Educational psychology obtains nutrients from cognitive science and learning science, but it also reacts to these disciplines.

In universities, the major of educational psychology is usually located in the department of education, which may be due to the lack of educational psychology in the teaching materials of introduction to psychology.

What are Herbart's educational psychology thoughts?

Herbart believes that pedagogy can only become a science on the basis of scientific theory.

In his view, practical philosophy, that is, ethics and psychology, should be the basis of pedagogy. He said: "Education, as a science, is based on practical philosophy and psychology. The former shows the purpose, while the latter shows the ways, means and obstacles of educational achievement "(edited by Zhang Huanting: Selected Works of Western Bourgeois Education, p. 288). Herbart's ethics and psychology are closely related to his philosophy.

In philosophy, he is an objective idealist. He believes that the universe is made up of countless independent "realities".

"Reality" is eternal and unknown. But they will interact and influence each other.

This interaction and influence constitute all kinds of things in the universe, and people only know everything produced by the interaction and influence of "reality", not "reality" itself. Because "reality" is immutable and unknown.

? Herbart established his system of psychology and ethics based on his philosophical thoughts. (1) psychology? Herbart believes that psychology is the most important theoretical basis of pedagogy and the first science to establish scientific pedagogy.

According to his philosophy, Herbart thinks that the human soul is also one of countless realities in the universe. It exists independently of the body and has nothing at first. When it is combined with the body, it will inevitably begin to feel with various organized substances, and then form representations or concepts. Herbart concluded that concept is the most basic element of people's psychological activities, and it is the basis of all people's psychological activities. All people's psychological activities are just the activities of ideas.

In Herbart's view, the soul receives many feelings through the body and further forms ideas. In this way, countless ideas gather in people's consciousness, some are suppressed because of their small strength, precipitated under the "threshold of consciousness", and some float above the "threshold of consciousness" because of their great strength. These are the concepts that dominated people's consciousness at that time. But all kinds of ideas are not static, but often move and struggle.

For various reasons, some concepts suppressed under the threshold of consciousness will appear above the threshold of consciousness through other concepts, while some concepts above the threshold of consciousness will be reduced to the threshold of consciousness because of the weakening of power. The mutual enhancement of similar concepts will promote the presentation of concepts, while the mutual weakening of heterogeneous concepts will hinder the presentation of concepts. In a word, the movement and contradiction of ideas determine the whole content of human psychology.

Therefore, Herbart believes that psychology is the science of studying ideas, that is, the science of studying the emergence, combination and disappearance of ideas. For example, some ideas coordinate with each other to produce a pleasant feeling, on the contrary, they conflict with each other to produce an unpleasant feeling.

One idea is more powerful than another, that is, desire or desire. The combination of desire and the idea of realizing desire is will.

Memory is an activity or a game of ideas. The idea that memory is suppressed reappears above the threshold of consciousness.

Forgetting is that ideas are suppressed under the threshold of consciousness. Attention and thinking focus many thoughts on one thing.

The active activity of thought produces interest. ? To sum up, it can be seen that Herbart attributed any psychological phenomenon to conceptual activities.

Therefore, he believes that education must constantly expand the concept of children, and expanding the concept of children mainly depends on imparting knowledge through teaching. By imparting knowledge, children can not only acquire all kinds of knowledge and develop their thinking ability, but also enhance their feelings and cultivate their will.

? Herbart believes that ideas have assimilation function, that is to say, old ideas in people's minds can assimilate and absorb new ideas, make them supplemented and enriched, and form new ideas on the original basis. He called this process "apperception".

Synaesthesia is of great significance in the teaching process, and the whole teaching process is mainly a process of synaesthesia. ? Herbart completely attributed the complex psychological process to the activity process of ideas, which is obviously wrong.

The law of human psychological phenomenon has not been correctly revealed, so his psychology has not become a science. But at the same time, we should also see that Herbart's thought and apperception psychology theory are of theoretical significance in education compared with Locke's.

He deeply studied the internal activities of human consciousness and tried to reveal its regularity, demanding that teaching be firmly based on psychology, which played a positive role in promoting the movement of educational psychology, promoting the research of psychological science and the emergence and formation of educational psychology. In addition, although Herbart's conceptual psychology is out of date, a series of psychological problems he put forward, such as consciousness threshold, subconscious, concept and apperception, are still widely used by modern psychology.

Herbart has been engaged in psychological research all his life, trying to establish pedagogy on the basis of psychology and seeking the laws of education and teaching, which has indelible achievements in the history of pedagogy and psychology. ? (2) Ethics? Herbart applied his philosophy to social practice and put forward his own ethical system.

He attached great importance to human moral norms and emphasized the cultivation of moral concepts. He believes that the reason why people tend to be good and avoid evil is mainly because of the establishment of moral concepts. Herbart defines how to deal with the relationship between people as five moral concepts, which is the basic principle of his ethics.

These five moral concepts are:? (1) The concept of "inner freedom". Personal opinions and behaviors are required to get rid of external interference, obey inner rational judgment, truly realize the meaning of personal behavior, coordinate opinions and behaviors, and determine the direction of human behavior.

? (2) the concept of "perfection". When there are irreconcilable contradictions between opinions and behaviors, we should rely on the concept of "perfection" to solve them, that is, we should coordinate various rational abilities and make behaviors perfect.

? (3) The concept of "goodwill". When the concept of "perfection" cannot solve the contradiction between opinions and actions, and the two cannot be coordinated, the concept of "goodwill", that is, the concept of "absolute goodness", should be used to solve it.

This requires the individual's will to be in harmony with the will of others, to seek benefits for others, to maintain a goodwill attitude towards others, and not to have a "malicious conflict" with anyone, thus maintaining social stability.

What are the aspects of Pestalozzi's educational psychology?

On (1) Factor Education

Pestalozzi's educational psychology thought is mainly embodied in his teaching theory. Pesta Locke said, "For a long time, I have been looking for the common psychological root of all these teaching methods. Because I am convinced that only in this way can we find that the form of human development is determined by the laws of nature itself. Obviously, this form is a general organization based on human psychology ... The principle of teaching must come from the eternal primitive form of human mental development. " ① His theory of factor education is the concrete application of this proposition of educational psychology. The so-called elements refer to the most primitive and simple bud of human natural ability, which is an indispensable foundation for all kinds of education.

The first and most basic element of sports is joint activities. He believes that nature endows children with the ability of joint movement, which is the basis of physical development and the element of sports contact and various physical activities. Labor is an aspect of physical activity, so joint activity is also an element of labor education, which gradually extends from joint activity to complex physical activity of the whole body. The most basic and simplest element of moral education is children's affection for maternal love, which he believes is the earliest reflection and expression, and will gradually expand to other family members and even all mankind.

Pestalozzi pays attention to the elements of intellectual education and teaching. He said: "The basic elements of teaching, which is full of life but still vague, has been hovering in my mind for a long time ... Finally, like an adventure, it suddenly occurred to me that the means to make all the knowledge gained from feelings and impressions clear come from numbers and language. This is a new discovery for my work. " (1) Zhang Huanting. Selected Works of Western Bourgeois Education: Beijing: People's Education Publishing House, 1964, p. 18 1 page) Therefore, Pestalozzi believes that "number, form and language are the initial and simplest elements of all teaching." According to the theory of basic elements of numbers, shapes and words, Pestalozzi believes that teaching should first cultivate "everything starts from feeling"

Basic ability to calculate, measure and speak based on the exact understanding of what you have obtained. In teaching, calculation is suitable for numbers, measurement is suitable for shapes, and words are suitable for words. In this way, the elements of knowledge (subject) teaching can be summarized as the training of measurement, calculation and speaking skills and the training of stimulating children's thinking ability based on this. He believes that this process conforms to the psychological characteristics of children.

The theory of factor education is the main achievement of Pestalozzi's research and experiment on new methods of primary education.

(2) Teaching Principle Psychology Pestalozzi believes that educational psychology is to find a new mechanism to eradicate old education and teaching and establish a new teaching mechanism on the basis of the eternal law of human nature.

Pestalozzi believes that teaching is to help students acquire and accumulate certain knowledge through perceptual experience, and at the same time, students' intelligence must be developed through teaching. He attaches great importance to sensory organs, and he thinks that only through sensory organs can the initial correct knowledge be obtained, because "seeing and listening correctly is the first step to acquire practical knowledge." Of course, Pestalozzi's sensory feelings are not limited to sight and hearing, but include all sensory feelings. Pestalozzi established the principle of intuitive teaching. He emphasized the importance of observation in the process of acquiring knowledge and developing intelligence, and regarded intuition as the most solid foundation for developing mind. This is also in line with the psychological characteristics of junior primary school students in learning knowledge and understanding things. Therefore, the presentation and demonstration of his intuitive principle itself fully meets the requirements of his teaching psychology.

On this basis, he also emphasized the implementation of teaching rules from simple to complex, from near to far, from concrete to abstract in the teaching process.

In a word, Pestalozzi's views on educational psychology are very scattered, without a systematic system or in-depth theoretical exploration, and most of them are teaching experience materials. Nevertheless, Pestalozzi's educational reform experiment has attracted the attention of the whole world and had a great influence on the educational experiment in Western Europe.