It has experienced three stages of development, namely, initial stage, development stage and mature stage.

(1) Pioneering stage (from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century): ushinski, Russia, was called "the founder of Russian educational psychology", and Kaptchelev published Educational Psychology in 1877, which is the first book named after educational psychology in the world.

1903, American psychologist Thorndike published Educational Psychology, which became the first monograph on educational psychology in the west. Thorndike's educational psychology marks the birth of educational psychology.

(2) Development stage (1920s-1950s): Behaviorism research dominated in the late 20s, emphasizing the objectivity of psychology and attaching importance to experimental research. Represented by Thorndike, Watson, Hull and Skinner, a series of studies on animals and humans have been carried out, and important achievements have been made. Because there is little research on educational situation, it has little guiding effect on educational practice. Dewey took another research route, combined with school teaching practice, emphasized pragmatic "learning by doing" and carried out practical activities of teaching reform, which had a far-reaching impact on education.

At this time, Soviet educational psychologists represented by Vygotsky and Rubinstein advocated that educational psychology was an independent branch of psychology, emphasized the role of education and teaching in children's development, and put forward "cultural development theory" and "internalization theory", which laid a theoretical foundation for the development of Soviet educational psychology.

During this period, the content of educational psychology has been greatly expanded. It not only absorbed the research results of children's psychology and psychometrics, but also accepted Freud's thought, and the contents about children's personality, social adaptation and mental health also entered the field of educational psychology. With the rise of program teaching and teaching machines in 1950s, the content of educational psychology was greatly influenced by the viewpoint of information theory.

At this time, China's educational psychology was mainly influenced by the West. Fang Dongyue translated "Practical Psychology of Education" by Ogara in Japan in 1908, which is the first book on educational psychology in China. From 65438 to 0924, Liao Shicheng compiled the first textbook of educational psychology in China.

(3) Mature and perfect period (1960s to present): In the early 1960s, American educational psychologist Bruner and others attached importance to the combination of educational psychology theory and teaching practice, and humanistic psychologist Rogers also put forward the student-centered idea. With the development of information technology, especially computers, American educational psychologists have done a lot of research on the conditions and effects of computer-assisted teaching. After 1980s, multimedia computers came out, which made computer-aided teaching reach a new level. At this time, educational psychologists mainly study the characteristics of this kind of learning, such as cultivating students' metacognitive ability and self-monitoring ability.