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Johann Herbart
Considered the father of educational psychology. He believed that learning was influenced by an interest in the subject and the teacher. He thought that teachers should consider the students’ existing mental sets—what they already know—when presenting new information or material. Herbart proposed what are now known as the formal steps -
William James
Can be considerad the central figure in the
establishment of psychology in America. James's version of psychological science argued against the elementalism of the
Europeans, giving us the notion that consciousness was continuous-a stream-and not easily divisible -
Alfred Binet
Binet believed that it was important to study individual differences between age groups and children of the same age. He also believed that it was important for teachers to take into account individual students’ strengths and also the needs of the classroom as a whole when teaching and creating a good learning environment. -
Edward Lee Thorndike
Thorndike's views resulted in a major shift in psychology, and it had serious consequences for our discipline. A year later, in 1899, Thorndike was brought to Teachers College as an instructor
in psychology, where he remained a dorninant force in psychology for 43 years, writing 50 books and 400 articles, -
G. Stanley Hall
Founder of the child-study movement that James
worried about, was a promoter of psychology in ways that James must have found distasteful. Hall was APA's organizer and its first president. He was as much an educational psychologist as anything else we might label him, and that came to him
naturally -
John Dewey
Dewey and his colleagues at the University of Chicago founded the functionalist school of psychology, a way of thinking about psychology that was strongly influenced by Darwin. Dewey also recognized the uniqueness of the teacher's role as a fellow human
being in a community of learners. -
Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget is considered one of the most influential psychologists of the twentieth century, and his stage theory of cognitive development revolutionized our view of children’s thinking and learning. His work inspired more research than any other theorist, and many of his concepts are still foundational to developmental psychology. -
Benjamin Bloom
Benjamin Bloom (1903–1999) spent over 50 years at the University of Chicago, where he worked in the department of education. He believed that all students can learn. He developed a taxonomy of educational objectives. The taxonomy provided broad educational objectives that could be used to help expand the curriculum to match the ideas in the taxonomy. -
Nathaniel Gage
Nathaniel Gage is an important figure in educational psychology as his research focused on improving teaching and understanding the processes involved in teaching. He edited the book Handbook of Research on Teaching (1963), which helped develop early research in teaching and educational psychology.