What Good Is Educational Psychology?

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s. What Good is Educational Psychology?

¡- The Case of Cognition and Instruction 1/

t: Richard E. Mayer 1/ Department ofPsychology University of California at Santa Barbara

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1- Research on cognition and instruction has made considerable progress in recent years, in terms of contributions both to cognitive theory and to educational practice. Two important contribu tions are psychologies ofsubject matter, which specify how people learn school subjects such as reading and mathematics, and teaching of cognitive strategies, which fosters improvements in t- how students learn and think. In short, the thesis ofthis essay is that psychology and education are good for one another. When it comes to the role of psychology in education, there is nothing as beneficial to practice as a good theory. When it comes to the role of education in psychology, IS there is nothing as beneficial to theory as a good practical problem. Although much has been ac ~- complished, the promise of educational psychology in the 21 st century rests in the deve10pment ofan educationally relevant science ofhow people leam. III

1- It is not easy being an educational psychologist these days. To minished strength-of psychology as a force in education 1- our colleagues in psychology, we are too educational, a dis (see Levin & O 'Donnell, 1999; Mayer, 1993). To sorne in the paraging label reflecting our interest in studying education educational research community, psychology has become an 1- ally relevant problems rather than contrived laboratory tasks. irrelevant and troublesome irritation. My goal in this artiele is le To our colleagues in education, we are too psychological, a to provide examples showing that educational psychol disparaging label reflecting our interest in basing educational ogy-far from being dead or irrelevant-is a vibrant field that practice on scientific research methods and theories rather has been experiencing unprecedented success in understand than relying on popular opinion and doctrine. We disturb psy ing educational issues. It is ironic, and for me, frustrating, that chology by failing to accept contrived artificiallaboratory re at a time when educational psychology has matured to the search as the ending-point for psychological research. We point where its promise for contributing to both education and disturb education by failing to accept good intentions, expert psychology has never been greater, this is the time that it is in opinions, and doctrine-based elaims as the rationale for edu jeopardy ofbeing rejected by both fields. Now that psycholo cational practices. Yet, it is precisely the juxtaposition of gists and educators finally have something worthwhile to talk these two criticisms that create the unique potential of educa about, it would be unfortunate for both fields if the conversa tional psychology to advance both psychological theory and tion was elosed. educational practice. Educational psychology refuses to tum its back on the study of practical educational problems as a source of rich research questions, and educational psychol What Ooes Education Have to ogy refuses to turn its back on the role of scientific research Offer Psychology? methods and theory in answering educational questions. Psychology is a field that has been amazingly successful in THE MUTUAL OEPENOENCE OF studying important human issues within highly artificial, per PSYCHOLOGY ANO EOUCATION haps sterile, environments. The result is the development of research-based theories that are so limited that they are The pages of educational research periodicals have been widely recognized as trivial. By the 1950s, the grand theories filled with obituaries cheering the death-or at least the di- ofleaming had died because of their inability to account for leaming beyond rats running mazes and pigeons pecking Requests for reprints should be sent to Richard E. Mayer, Department of keys. By the 1970s, cognitive psychology, with all of its pre Psychology, University of California at Santa Barbara, CA 93106. E-mail: cisely measured reaction times down to the millisecond, was [email protected] about to die of its own irrelevance (Neisser, 1976). What 84 MAYER

saved cognitive psychology from its demise was a shift in fo and education focused mainly on practical issues, and (c) a cus to realistic situations, including educational ones (Mayer, two-way street between psychology and education in which 1992, 1996,2001). Today, in sorne research centers, educa both disciplines work together for their mutual benefit. Will tional and cognitive psychology appear to be merging. the two-way street endure as we enter the 21 st century or will What cognitive psychology needs is the challenge of ex psychology and education again fall back into their former I ! plaining leaming and cognition in realistic situations. To de noncornmunicative stance? The thesis of this brief essay is velop theories of leaming and cognition that are relevant, that much is to be gained by continuing the conversation be psychologists need to examine realistic leaming situations. tween psychology and education. Educational venues offer exactly what cognitive psychology I needs: questions about how people leam to read, to compre hend what they read, to write, to compute, to solve mathemat ics problems, to think scientifically, to think historically, to WHAT CAN HAPPEN WHEN COGNITION leam a second language, and so on. Cognitive psychology is ANO INSTRUCTION MEET? enriched by the challenge of developing theories that account for educationally relevant leaming and cognition. An exam What can happen when psychology and education meet? In pIe is Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, and Glaser's (1989) re this section, Ibriefly surnmarize sorne oftheproductive results search on how successful and unsuccessful problem solvers of the collaboration between cognitive psychologists-who study worked-out examples in science textbooks-research aim to understand how people leam-and educators-who that contributes to cognitive theories of analogical reasoning aim to understand how to help people leam. Two important as well as educational practice in science teaching. contributions ofthis collaboration between cognition and in struction are the development ofpsychologies of subject mat ter, and the teaching of cognitive strategies. What Ooes Psychology Have to Offer Education?

Education is a field facing monumental practical problems Psychologies of Subject Matter that are ofien addressed through well-intended fads, expert opinions, and doctrine-based agendas (Levin & O'Donnell, One ofthe most productive accomplishments of educational 1999). The result is educational practice that has advanced psychology has been the development of psychologies of very little over the last century and still is rarely based on subject matter (Bruer, 1993; Mayer, 1999; Shulman & proven instructional techniques. Yet, there is no more impor Quinlan, 1996). Psychologies of subject matter concem tant societal task than the education of youth. leaming and instruction within specific school subjects such What education needs is a set of scientifically valid meth as reading, writing, mathematics, science, and history. In ods of instruction based on research evidence and tested the stead of examining how people leam in general, psychologies ory. Help in meeting this need is precisely what psychology of subject matter examine topics such as how people leam to has to offer. The scientifically sound research methods of read, leam to write, leam to think mathematically, leam to psychology constitute one of the greatest inventions of the think scientifically, and leam to think historically. 20th century and hold great promise for improving educa One ofpsychology's original goals-throughout the first tional practice. Instead of being embarrassed by a commit half of the 20th century-was the development of a single ment to examine educational issues using scientific research all-encompassing general theory ofleaming (Mayer, 2001). methods, educational psychologists should be proud to be In its search for the one true theory of leaming, psychology able to extend the domain of science into education. Re generated several of them ranging from Thomdike's search-based psychological theory can help guide the design connectionism to Hull's mathematical leaming theory to of instructional methods and materials. Skinner's behaviorism to Gestalt theory. By midcentury, it In short, psychology needs something real to study, and had become clear that psychology's search for a general the education provides it; education needs a scientific methodol ory of leaming was a failure, and eventually the grand theo ogy for addressing its problems, and psychology provides it. ries ofleaming melted away. Education offered the challenge It is a match made in heaven that has had a somewhat difficult ofunderstanding how people leam in real school content ar history here on earth. As Mayer (1992) showed, the relation eas; having failed to establish general theories based on con between psychology and education has moved through three trived laboratory leaming tasks, psychology finally accepted phases in the 20th century: (a) a one-way street from psychol the offer. In short, education rescued psychology from its ogy to education in which psychology was supposed to de fruitless search for a general theory of leaming. In place of velop theories of leaming and education was supposed to educationally irrelevant general theories, educational psy apply them, (b) a dead-end street for psychology and educa chologists began to develop specific theories tailored to spe tion in which psychology focused on noneducational issues cific subject areas. EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 85

) a In this seetion, 1 provide brief examples of the eontribu ofthe sehoo1 year, five times as many students were elassified ieh tions of edueational psyehology in reading, mathematies, and as readers in the trained group as in the eomparison group. 'm history. These studies demonstrate that targeted instruetion in phono ,m logieal awareness can have a strong effeet on a student's abi1- ler ity to learn to read. is Psychology O, leaming to read. What does a ehild In a reeent review, Goswami and Bryant (1992) eoneluded ,e- need to know to be able to read? Researehers have shown that the following: "There can be litt1e doubt that phono10gieal one important prerequisite eognitive skm is phonological awareness p1ays an important role in reading .... There is a1so awareness (or phonemie awareness): awareness that words evidenee that suecessful training in phono10giea1 awareness can be broken down into sound units and that sound units can helps ehi1dren learn to read" (p. 49). By earefully analyzing be eombined to form words. For example, phonologieal the speeifie knowledge needed to beeome a reader, by earry awareness involves being able to diseriminate the sounds of ing out rigorous longitudinal studies, and by eondueting eaeh ofthe three letters in the spoken word, "eat;" and being well-controlled intervention experiments, researehers have able to produce and blend the sounds of lel and la! and ItI to pinpointed a potentially important factor in eat1y reading in In say "eat." Common tests for phonologieal awareness inelude struetion-namely, phonological awareness. This line ofre lts being able to (a) tell if two words rhyme (e.g., "eat" and search is a little gem of edueational researeh because it 10 "hat"), (b) recite a list ofwords (e.g., "hat, fir, led"), (e) tap out represents a powerful example of how edueational psyehol 10 the number of sounds in a word (e.g., giving three taps for ogy can eontribute to edueation and psyehology. nt "cat"), (d) add a sound to a word (e.g., adding "e" to "at" to get n "cat"), (e) delete a sound from a word (e.g., taking away the lt- first sound in "eat" to get "at"), or (f) substitute a sound in a word (e.g., given the spoken word "park," ehange the last Psychology O, mathematics leaming. What does a sound to ItI yielding the word "part"). student need to know to learn basie arithmetie, sueh as how to What is the evidenee that phonologieal awareness is re add and subtract single-digit numbers? One coneept targeted lated to being able to learn how to read? First, students who by researchers is number sense, which ineludes the eoncept of have diffieulty in learning to read in elementary sehool seore the mentalline and the ability to use it. Number sense can be lower on tests of phonologieal awareness than students who tested by asking questions sueh as, "What number comes af are good readers (Bradley & Bryant, 1978; Stanovich, 1991). ter 7?", "Whieh is eloser to 5--6 or 21", "Which number co Second, students who laek phonologieal awareness when mes first when you are eounting-8, 5, 2, or 6?", and "Which they enter elementary sehool are more likely to fail to beeome number is bigger-5 or 41". n strong readers later in elementary sehool than are students What evidenee is there that a ehild's knowledge of the :h who enter sehool with phonologieal awareness (Bradley & mental number line is related to learning arithmetie? Case and 1- Bryant, 1985; Juel, Griffith, & Gough, 1986; Wagner & his eolleagues developed a test of students' knowledge of the ~s Torgesen, 1987). mental number line (Case & Okamoto, 1996; Griffin, Case, & o An important edueationa1 imp1ieation is that students who Capodilupo, 1995; Griffin, Case, & Siegler, 1994). When O enter elementary sehoo1 without skill in phonologieal aware they administered the test to 6-year-old ehildren, they found ness eou1d benefit from phono10gieal awareness training. F or that most of the ehildren from low soeioeconomie status ;t example, Brad1ey and Bryant (1983, 1985, 1991) provided (SES) homes laeked an adequate knowledge of the mental e phono10giea1 awareness training to 5- and 6-year-01ds in 40 number line, and also most eould not solve simple arithmetie ). 10-min sessions spread over 2 years. In one session, a student problems sueh as, "2 + 4 =_." In eontrast, most ofthe high y was shown a pieture ofa bus and asked to piek out another pie SES ehildren demonstrated adequate knowledge ofthe men s ture ofa word that started with the same sound. In another ses tal number line and also most eould solve simple arithmetie o sion, a student was shown fourpietures and asked to ehoose the problems. This line of researeh suggests that an obstaele to it onethat began with adifferent sound from the others. In yet an leaming basie arithmetie may be that sorne students enter :- other session, a student was asked to tell whether two spoken sehool without a eoneeption of a mental number lineo words rhymed. A eomparison group reeeived 40 10-min 1es Does number line training work? Ifknowledge ofa mental e sons invo1ving the same words, but the tasks involved things line is a eognitive prerequisite for learning arithmetie, then '- like sorting pietures based on their semantic eategory. students who laek this knowledge eould benefit from instrue Does phono10gieal awareness training work? Students in tion that is speeifieally targeted at helping them develop it. j the trained group showed a strong improvement on tests of For example, the "Rightstart" program eonsists of 40 s phono10gical awareness, whereas the eomparison group did half-hour sessions in which students learn how to use a mental f not. Important1y, on a reading test administered after the number line by playing various games (Griffm & Case, 1996; training, the trained group was five times more 1ike1y than the Griffin et al., 1994, 1995). The games give students experi comparison group to be able to read words eontaining two or enee in eomparing two dice to see whieh number is higher, three sounds. On a standardized reading test given at the end moving a token a10ng a number-line path based on the num- 86 MAYER

ber on the die, moving a token backwards along a num cur when two people both want to possess the same object. ber-line path for a certain number of steps, and so on. Activating this schema is intended to help students organize Low SES first graders who received the training showed the material in a meaningful way. large improvements on tests of number-line knowledge, Does schema activation help students learn? Students who whereas a comparison group that received traditional mathe read a revised version of the textbook passage scored more matics instruction did no1. More importantIy, on an arithmetic than 50% higher on an essay test than did students who read test given at the end ofthe year, twice as many ofthe trained the original version ofthe passage (Beck et al., 1991). These students mastered basic arithmetic as did students in the com results show that a prerequisite to meaningfullearning ofhis parison group. Griffin and Case (1996) coneluded that "a sur tory is that students possess and activate appropriate prior prising proportion of children from 10w-income homes in knowledge. This line of research on schema activation is an North American families-at least 50% in our samp1es-do other example ofthe contribution of educational psychology not arrive in school with the central conceptual structure in to education and psychology.1t is yet another little gem ofed place that is necessary for success in first grade mathematics" ucational psychology research. (p. 102). This know1edge deficiency can be remedied through careful, focused instructiona1 activities. Number-line training is an important example ofhow educational psychology can Teaching of Cognitive Strategies contribute to education and psychology. It is another little gem in the crown of educational psychology. Another important development in educational psychology is the teaching of cognitive strategies (Pressley & Woloshyn, 1995; Weinstein & Mayer, 1986). Cognitive strategies are Psychology of history learning. As a final example, cognitive processes that the learner intentionally performs to let's considerthe knowledge that is needed forupper-elemen influence learning and cognition. Examples inelude basic tary school students to understand their history textbooks. Re processes such as using a rehearsal strategy to memorize a list search on reading comprehension has demonstrated that peo and metacognitive strategies such as recognizing whether one pIe understand a passage by relating the presented material to comprehends a passage. their relevant prior knowledge. If a student 1acks relevant In this section, I briefly summarize research on teaching of prior knowledge, the student will have difficulty in under strategies for learning lists, strategies for comprehension of standing a textbook passage. text, and strategies for solving prob1ems. For example, Beck, McKeown, Sinatra, and Loxterman (1991) asked fourth and fifth graders to read a U.S. history passage about the French and Indian War that began with the List learning strategies. Belmont and Butterfield following sentence: "In 1763, Britain and the colonies ended (1971) found that special-education students performed more a 7-year war with the French and Indians." Based on inter poorly on learning a list of six letters than did regular-educa views with students, McKeown and Beck (1990) determined tion students. In addition, the special-education students gen that most students 1acked usefu1 background knowledge such erally did not spontaneously engage in any rehearsal strategies as the idea that Britain and France both wanted the same piece (such as repeating the list aloud), whereas the regular-educa of 1and in North America, that the conflict over this land re tion students often did rehearse. However, when special educa sulted in a 7-year war called the French and Indian War, and tion students were explicitly taught to rehearse, by stating the that the colonies belonged to Britain and so they sided with list aloud, their performance on remembering lists increased to Britain, whereas the Indians sided with France. the level ofthe regular-education students. Beck et al. (1991) rewrote the passage so that it would he1p students use appropriate prior knowledge, ineluding their knowledge that two peop1e wanting the same object can lead Reading comprehension strategies. Brown and to conflic1. For example, the first sentence was expanded to Palinscar (1989; Palinscar & Brown, 1984) showed that it is include the following: possible to teach seventh graders how to use reading compre hension strategies such as questioning, in which the student About 250 years ago, Britain and France both claimed to own sorne of the same land here in North America .... In 1756, creates an appropriate question for a passage; elarifying, in Britain and France went to war to see who would get control which a student detects and corrects any potentia1 compre of the land. Because the 13 American colonies belonged to hension difficulties such as definitions of unfamiliar words; Britain, the colonists fought on the same side as Britain. Many summarizing, in which a student produces a concise summary Indians fought on the same side as France. (p. 257) for a passage; and predicting, in which a student suggests what will come next in subsequent tex1. In some studies, stu In this way, Beck et al. (1991) helped students prime their dents who were given focused and sustained training in these "conflict schema"-their prior knowledge that conflicts oc- strategies showed substantial gains in their reading compre- EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY 87 hension performance, whereas comparison students who re and to encourage psychologists to skillfully study education ceived conventional instruction did not. ally relevant problems. In short, psychology and education are good for one an other. When it comes to the role of psychology in education, Problem-solving strategies. Covington, Crutchfield, my argument is that there is nothing as beneficial to practice Davies, and Olton (1974) developed a program intended to as a good theory. When it comes to the role of education in teach elementary school students how to generate and test hy psychology, my argument is that there is nothing as beneficial potheses within the context ofdetective stories. Students who to theory as a good practical problem. Although much has received training over an extended period oftime were better been accomplished, the promise of educational psychology able to solve detective-like problems than were equivalent remains great in the new century. students who had not received training (Mansfield, Busse, & Krepelka, 1978; Olton & Crutchfield, 1969). In each case, students learned specific learning strategies REFERENCES that improved their performance on new tasks. Research on teaching of cognitive strategies represents a landmark contri Beck,1. L., McKeown, M. G., Sinatra, G. M., & Loxtennan, J. A. (1991). Re bution of educational psychology. For example, Pressley and vising social studies text from a text-processing perspective: Evidence Woloshyn (1995) argued that "cognitive strategies ... repre for improved comprehensibility. Reading Research Quarterly, 26, 251-276. sent the most important instructional advance of the past 15 Be1mont, 1. M., & Butterfield, E. C. (1971). 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