The definition of school education and education immediately raises some important questions: what is the nature of human beings, and what is the nature of society or culture that expects children to succeed? These bigger problems are involved in the course of educational psychology, but they are easier to solve in the course of developmental psychology and basic education. This is why these courses are prerequisites for educational psychology courses.

Educational psychology is the combination or overlap of two independent research fields. The first is psychology, which can be defined as the scientific study of thought and behavior (or behavior and psychological process), especially when it is related to individual human beings. Please note that it is a scientific study of thought or psychological process (hidden or internal) and behavior (open or external). People who study psychological phenomena are not necessarily limited to the study of human beings (a lot of animal-related research has been developed), nor are they limited to the study of individuals. However, when studying individual groups, the focus is usually on the performance of individuals in the group, rather than the study of the group as a whole. Scientists who study animals and people from the perspective of group behavior and institutional behavior usually form an alliance with sociology, while individuals who pay attention to human culture and belief system usually form an alliance with anthropology.

The second field of educational psychology research is education, or more specifically school education, as mentioned above. That is to say, the main focus of psychology is the scientific study of psychology and behavior (or psychological process and behavior) under the background of formal socialization and development of individual human potential.

Therefore, educational psychology is a unique scientific discipline in psychology, including research methods and the resulting knowledge base. Its main concern is to understand the process of teaching and learning in a formal environment, and to develop methods to improve related operations and procedures. Educational psychologists are interested in various topics, such as learning theory; Teaching methods; Motivation; Cognitive, emotional and moral development; And parent/child relationship.