In the west, modern substantive education theory is based on associative psychology, which comes from the theory of mental state. Associationism or psychoanalysis is the most influential theory, which holds that the mind is a psychological state. British educator Locke and philosopher Hume are pioneers of modern associative psychology. Locke first put forward the word "association". Hume first denied that the mind is an entity. In his view, taking the mind as a spiritual entity is an illusory abstraction formed by people's psychological habits, while psychological life is a continuation of perception or mental state and a combination of some concepts linked by association. The philosopher D. hartle is the founder of associative psychology. He is a psychological atomist, reducing psychological life to atoms, which produce everything that can be observed in combination. According to the concept of joint theory of psychological atomism, associative psychology holds that the mind is only a container to accept external impressions and a collection of consciousness or psychological States. Psychological phenomena such as perception, memory, imagination and understanding are all the results of association or combination of various psychological atoms.

German educator J.F. Herbart absorbed the thought of British associative psychology, thinking that the essence of the mind is unknowable, and people only know the phenomenon of the mind, that is, the idea. What he called "concept" has both the connotation of perception and the connotation of concept. Herbart believes that the mind is unified. He opposes functional psychology to divide the mind into different faculties. He said that the old psychology used "feeling" to explain everything, while the new psychology used "movement of ideas" to explain everything. In his view, all psychological activities of people are activities of various concepts; All human psychological phenomena: imagination, thinking, emotion, will, etc. , is nothing more than the concept of deformity; And the mind is the stage of conceptual activities. He denies the objective source of psychological content, so his psychology belongs to idealism. Herbart called all the knowledge provided to students in education, including natural and social knowledge, concepts. He said: knowledge is what is written in front of it in ideas. All kinds of teaching materials contain many ideas, which are first understood by students and then become ideas in their consciousness. New ideas are assimilated or absorbed by old ideas that already exist in consciousness, which Herbart calls "apperception". Education lies in the process of acquiring ideas and promoting apperception. He attaches great importance to curriculum and teaching materials, which embodies the position of substantive education.

The theory of entity education based on the theory of associative psychology holds that: ① education lies in stimulating appropriate ideas to build the mind. The mind has nothing at birth. The ability of the mind is not ready-made; The mind depends on the combination of ideas, and ideas are the product of experience. Therefore, the main task is to enrich the content of the mind with thoughts. ② Education should aim at material things. The raw materials for building the mind are all kinds of ideas. Courses and teaching materials that prompt external things and produce ideas have a primary position. Therefore, education does not attach importance to the cultivation function of curriculum and teaching materials, or the promotion of knowledge transfer to students' ability development, but attaches importance to the specific content and practical value of curriculum and teaching materials, so that students can acquire rich knowledge. ③ We must pay attention to the organization of courses and teaching materials. The mind relies on the combination of ideas to form concepts and categories. The organization and procedure of courses and textbooks directly affect the organization and procedure of the mind.

The theory of substantive education based on the theory of associative psychology came into being when the choice of courses and textbooks of formal education theory could not meet the needs of the further development of capitalist economy and science and technology.

Contrary to the formal education theory, the substantive education theory maintains and advocates the practical education direction that began to rise at the beginning of18th century. On the basis of positivism, British educator Spencer put forward the comparative value of knowledge in 1950s. He insisted on practical education, while attacking classicism and scholasticism in British education at that time, thinking that the development of general intelligence was secondary and emphasizing the practicality of courses and textbooks. He linked his educational thoughts with the needs of bourgeois industrial development more directly than Herbart School. /kloc-for a long time after the mid-9th century, substantive education had a great influence on the teaching practice of primary and secondary schools in Europe and America.

Both substantive education theory and formal education theory belong to early bourgeois teaching theory. In the process of historical development, both of them have studied and demonstrated some aspects of teaching content. However, there is one-sidedness in both knowledge transmission and ability training (see the theory of formal education).