Handbook of psychology volume 7 educational psychology

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Research to Policy for Guiding Educational Reform

CONTRIBUTIONS OF EDUCATIONAL

PSYCHOLOGY TO EFFECTIVE REFORM

In looking across the chapters in this volume and other recent

work in the field of educational psychology, a number of

trends emerge. Most significant from my perspective are the

following:

• Acknowledging the complexity of human behavior and the

need for integrative theories and research that contextual-

ize teaching and learning in schools as living systems that

are themselves complex, dynamic, and built on both indi-

vidual and relational principles.

• Looking at humans and their behavior holistically and

focusing not only on cognitive and intellectual processes,

but also on social and emotional processes that differen-

tially influence learning, motivation, and development.

• Situating the study of teaching and learning in diverse

school contexts and in particular content domains with a

mix of quantitative and qualitative methodologies.

• Seeing teachers as learners whose own professional de-

velopment must mirror the best of what we know about

learning, motivation, and development.

• Rethinking critical assumptions about human abilities

and talents,  reciprocity in teacher and learner roles, and

the function and purpose of schooling so that we can

better prepare students for productive contributions to a

global world and lifelong learning with emerging tech-

nologies.

• Acknowledging the central role of learners’ thinking

and perceptions of their experiences in learning and

motivation—for all learners in the system, including

teachers, administrators, parents, and students.

We are in an exciting era of transformation and change—

an era where the knowledge base in educational psychology

has the opportunity to play a significant role in shaping our

K–20 educational systems for the better. Particularly relevant

to educational reform is knowledge being gained in the fol-

lowing areas, many of which have been highlighted in prior

chapters in this volume. My intention here, however, is to de-

scribe more broadly how other areas of research in the field of

educational psychology are informing issues in educational

reform and the design of more effective learning systems.

Dealing With Increased Student Diversity

An issue of growing concern is the record number of students

entering public and private elementary and secondary

schools (Meece & Kurtz-Costes, 2001). This population is

more diverse than ever before, with almost 40% minority stu-

dents in the total public school population. Wong and Rowley

(2001) offer a commentary on the schooling of ethnic minor-

ity children, cautioning that researchers should be sensitive to

the cultural biases of their research with populations of color,

recognize the diversity within ethnic groups, limit compar-

isons between groups, integrate processes pertaining to eth-

nic minority cultures with those of normative development,

examine cultural factors in multiple settings, balance the

focus on risks and problems with attention to strengths and

protective factors, and examine outcomes other than school

achievement. There is a need for comprehensive and coher-

ent frameworks that allow differentiation of common issues

(e.g., all children being potentially resistant to school because

of its compulsory nature) to identify additional factors (e.g.,

cultural dissonance between school norms and ethnic culture

norms) related to resistance to school. Multiple contexts

should be studied, longitudinal studies undertaken, and

sophisticated statistical tools applied.

Okagaki (2001) argues for a triarchic model of minority

children’s school achievement that takes into account the

form and perceived function of school, the family’s cultural

norms and beliefs about education and development, and the

characteristics of the child. The significant role of percep-

tions, expectations for school achievement, educational

goals, conceptions of intelligence, and self-reported behav-

iors and feelings of efficacy are discussed as they influence

successful strategies for the education of minority children.

Home, school, and personal characteristics must all be con-

sidered, with particular attention paid to practices that fa-

cilitate positive teacher-child and child-peer interactions.

The culture of the classroom must be made more visible

and understandable to children from different cultural

backgrounds—carefully considering the depth and clarity of

communications with parents, helping students and parents

see the practical relevance of obtaining a good education,

thinking through how what we do in schools might have

stereotyping effects for students, and recognizing that fami-

lies have different theories about education, intelligence,

parenting, and child development.

It is generally recognized that unacceptable achievement

gaps exist between minority and nonminority children and

that dropout rates are higher for some ethnic groups. Longi-

tudinal research by Goldschmidt and Wang (1999) using

National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) database

on student and school factors associated with dropping out in

different grades shows that the mix of student risk factors

changes between early and late dropouts, with family charac-

teristics being most important for late dropouts. Being held

back was the single strongest predictor of dropping out for

Contributions of Educational Psychology to Effective Reform

589

both early and late dropouts, but misbehaving was the most

important factor in late dropouts. Hispanics are more likely to

drop out than are African Americans and African Americans

are more likely to drop out than are Whites. These differ-

ences are partly accounted for by differences in family, lan-

guage, and socioeconomic factors. Associations between

racial groups and factors such as being below expected grade

levels, working while in school, and having poor grades also

contribute to the differences in cultural groups.

Interventions that show promise for reversing these nega-

tive trends include social support and a focus on positive

school climates. Lee and Smith (1999) report research on

young adolescents in the Chicago public schools that indi-

cates there needs to be a balance of challenging and rigorous

academic instruction with social support in the form of

smaller, more intimate learning communities. Such a balance

tends to eliminate achievement differences among students

from different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds—

particularly in math and reading. The biggest disadvantages

in achievement are for students who attend schools with both

little social support and low academic challenge and rigor;

thus, social support is particularly effective when students

also are in schools that push them toward academic pursuits.

The balance needs to be one with a focus on learning and on

learner needs.

Studying Development of Academic Motivation

Ryan and Patrick (2001) studied the motivation and engage-

ment of middle school adolescents as a function of their

perceptions of the classroom social environment. Changes in

motivation and engagement were found to be a function of

four distinct dimensions of the environment: (a) promoting

interaction (discuss with, share ideas, get to know other stu-

dents), (b) promoting mutual respect (respect each other’s

ideas, don’t make fun of or say negative things to others),

(c) promoting performance goals (compare students to oth-

ers, make best and worst test scores and grades public, make

it obvious who is not doing well), and (d) teacher support

(respect student opinions, understands students’ feelings,

help students when upset or need support in schoolwork). In

general, if students perceived teacher support and perceived

that the teacher promoted interaction and mutual respect, mo-

tivation and engagement were enhanced. On the other hand,

if students perceived that their teacher promoted perfor-

mance goals, negative effects on motivation and engage-

ment occurred. Students with supportive teachers reported

higher self-efficacy and increases in self-regulated learn-

ing, whereas with performance-goal-oriented teachers, stu-

dents reported engaging in more disruptive behaviors. Ryan

and Patrick conclude that becoming more student-centered

means (a) attending to social conditions in the classroom

environment as perceived by students and (b) providing

practices that enhance students’ perceptions of support, re-

spect, and interaction.

Our work with kindergarten-through college-age students

over the past 8 years has revealed that learner-centered prac-

tices consistent with educational psychology’s knowledge

base and the learner-centered psychological principles en-

hance learner motivation and achievement (McCombs, 2000a,

2001a; McCombs & Whisler, 1997; Weinberger & McCombs,

2001). Of particular significance in this work is that student

perceptions of their teachers’ instructional practices accounts

for between 45–60%, whereas teacher beliefs and perceptions

only account for between 4–15% of the variance in student

motivation and achievement. The single most important do-

main of practice for students in all age ranges are practices

that promote a positive climate for learning and interpersonal

relationships between and among students and teachers. Also

important are practices that provide academic challenge and

give students choice and control, that encourage the develop-

ment of critical thinking and learning skills, and that adapt to

a variety of individual developmental differences.

Using teacher and student surveys based on the learner-

centered psychological principles, called the Assessment of

Learner-Centered Practices (ALCP), teachers can be assisted

in reflecting on individual and class discrepancies in percep-

tions of classroom practice and in changing practices to meet

student needs (McCombs, 2001). Results of our research

with the ALCP teacher and student surveys at both the sec-

ondary and postsecondary levels have confirmed that at all

levels of our educational system, teachers and instructors can

be helped to improve instructional practices and change to-

ward more learner-centered practices by attending to what

students are perceiving and by spending more time creating

positive climates and relationships—critical connections so

important to personal and system learning and change.

For students who are seen as academically unmotivated,

Hidi and Harackiewicz (2000) provide insights from a review

of research related to academic motivation. The literature on

interests and goals is reviewed and integrated, and the authors

urge educators to provide a balance of practices that are sen-

sitive to students’ individual interests, intrinsic motivation,

and mastery goals—with practices that trigger situational

interest, extrinsic motivation, and performance goals. This

balance helps to shift the orientation to an internalization of

interests and motivation and to promote positive motivational

development for traditionally unmotivated students. The

importance of the roles of significant others (e.g., teachers,

parents, coaches) is also highlighted in terms of eliciting and

590

Research to Policy for Guiding Educational Reform

shaping interests and goals in their students and children.

Such an intrinsic-extrinsic motivational balance is deemed

essential if educators are to meet diverse student needs, back-

grounds, and experiences—that is, to adapt to the full range

of student differences, we need the full range of instructional

approaches, and these approaches need to be flexibly

implemented.

The effects of student perceptions of their classroom

environment on their achievement goals and outcomes was

studied by Church, Elliot, and Gable (2001). The relation-

ship between student perceptions and achievement outcomes

was indirect; their influence first affected achievement goals,

which in turn influenced achievement outcomes. If under-

graduate students perceived that their instructor made the

lecture interesting and engaging (compared to a situation in

which they perceived that the instructor emphasized the

importance of grades and performance evaluations or had

grading structures that minimized the chance of being suc-

cessful), they adopted mastery goal orientations (intrinsic

motivation) versus performance goal orientations (extrinsic

motivation). The authors conclude that stringent evalua-

tion standards can lead to the adoption of performance-

avoidance goals and hinder mastery goal adoption. For this

reason, a study of both approach and avoidance orientations

is needed because it moves research toward a broader frame-

work that involves more complex integration of multiple

constructs.

On the other hand, Midgley, Kaplan, and Middleton

(2001) argue that the call to reconceptualize goal theory to

acknowledge the positive effects of performance-approach

goals is not warranted. They review studies that indicate the

negative effects of performance-approach goals in terms of

students’ use of avoidance strategies, cheating, and reluc-

tance to cooperate with peers. They stress that it is important

to consider for whom and under what conditions perfor-

mance goals are good. Emphasizing mastery goals needs to

be an integral part of all practices—particularly in this era, in

which standards, testing, and accountability dominate educa-

tional practices and deep meaningful learning is in short

supply.

In a longitudinal study of changes in academic intrinsic

motivation from childhood through late adolescence,

Gottfried, Fleming, and Gottfried (2001) found that not only

is intrinsic motivation a stable construct over time, but acad-

emic intrinsic motivation declines—particularly in math

and science—over the developmental span. For this reason,

Gottfried et al. argue that early interventions are needed to

identify those students who may be at risk for low motivation

and performance. Practices such as introducing new materi-

als that are of optimal or moderate difficulty; related to

student interests; meaningful to students; provide choice and

autonomy; and utilize incongruity, novelty, surprise, and

complexity are recommended.

Developing Students’ Metacognitive 

and Self-Regulation Competencies

Lin (2001) describes the power of metacognitive activities

that foster both cognitive and social development. To accom-

plish this goal, however, knowledge about self-as-learner

must be part of the metacognitive approach. Knowing how to

assess what they know and do not know about a particular

knowledge domain is not sufficient, and Lin’s research shows

that knowledge about self-as-learner as well as supportive

social environments help promote a shared understanding

among community members about why metacognitive knowl-

edge and strategies are useful in learning. The knowledge of

self-as-learner can also be expanded to helping students

know who they are and what their role is in specific learning

cultures and knowledge domains or tasks; thus, this research

highlights the application of the knowledge base on metacog-

nition in ways that are holistic and assist in the development

of both cognitive and social skills.

Another example of applying research that integrates cog-

nitive, metacognitive, motivational, and social strategies in

the form of self-regulated learning (SRL) interventions is

provided by Paris and Paris (2001). After reviewing what we

have learned in this area, Paris and Paris define a number of

principles of SRL that can be applied in the classroom,

including the following:

• Helping students use self-appraisal to analyze personal

styles and strategies of learning as a way to promote mon-

itoring of progress, revising of strategies, and enhanced

feelings of self-efficacy.

• Teaching self-management of thinking, effort, and affect

such as goal setting, time management, reflection, and com-

prehension monitoring that can provide students with tools

to be adaptive, persistent, strategic, and self-controlled in

learning and problem-solving situations.

• Using a variety of explicit instructional approaches and in-

direct modeling and reflection approaches to help students

acquire metacognitive skills and seek evidence of per-

sonal growth through self-assessments, charting, discuss-

ing evidence, and practicing with experts.

• Integrating the use of narrative autobiographical stories as

part of students’ participation in a reflective community

and as a way to help them examine their own self-

regulation habits.

Contributions of Educational Psychology to Effective Reform

591

Additional principles are suggested by Ley and Young

(2001, pp. 94–95) for embedding support in instruction to

facilitate SRL in less expert learners. These principles are

• Guide learners to prepare and structure an effective learn-

ing environment; this includes helping learners to manage

distractions by such strategies as charts for recording

study time and defining what is an effective distraction-

free study environment for them.

• Organize instruction and activities to facilitate cognitive

and metacognitive processes; this includes strategies such

as outlining, concept mapping, and structured overviewing.

• Use instructional goals and feedback to present student

monitoring opportunities; this includes self-monitoring

instruction and record keeping.

• Provide learners with continuous evaluation information

and occasions to self-evaluate this includes helping stu-

dents evaluate the success of various strategies and revis-

ing approaches based on feedback (Ley & Young, 2001,

pp. 94–95).

Redefining Intelligence and Giftedness

As pointed out in this volume (see chapters by Sternberg and

by Olszewski-Kubilius), there is a growing movement in the-

ory and practice to reconceptualize what is meant by intelli-

gence and giftedness. For example, Howard Gardner, in an

interview by Kogan (2000), strongly argues that schools

should be places where students learn to think and study

deeply those things that matter and have meaning; schools

should also help students learn to make sense of the world.

He advocates a three-prong curriculum aimed at teaching—

through a multiple intelligences approach—truth, beauty, and

goodness. To teach truth, Gardner believes children need to

understand the notion of evolution—including species varia-

tion and natural selection—and an appreciation of the strug-

gle among people for survival. To teach beauty, Gardner

would choose Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro as a pinna-

cle of beauty that portrays characters with deeply held emo-

tions, offers the opportunity to help students appreciate other

works of art, and inspires new creations. To teach goodness,

Gardner chooses helping students understand a sequence of

events such as the Holocaust, which shows what humans are

capable of doing in both good and bad ways and provides a

way for students to learn how others deal with pressures and

dilemmas. Methods such as dramatic, vivid narratives and

metaphors are recommended for involving students in their

learning.

Other new developments influencing our understanding of

intelligence are interdisciplinary fields of research that can

offer multiple perspectives on complex human phenomena.

Ochsner and Lieberman (2001) describe the emergence of

social cognitive neuroscience that allows three levels of

analysis: a social level concerned with motivational and so-

cial factors influencing behavior and experience; a cognitive

level concerned with information-processing mechanisms

that underlie social-level phenomena; and a neural level con-

cerned with brain mechanisms that instantiate cognitive

processes. Although still in its infancy, this multidisciplinary

field promises to provide new insights about human function-

ing that can be useful in studying learners and learning in

complex living systems such as schools. It also follows the

trend toward more integrative and holistic research practices.

Consistent with this integrative trend is work by

Robinson, Zigler, and Gallagher (2000) on the similarities

and differences between people at the two tails of the normal

curve—the mentally retarded and the gifted. As operational-

ized in tests of intelligence, deviance from the norm by per-

formance two standard deviations from the mean (IQ of

70–75 or lower or IQ of 125–130 or higher) typically defines

individuals who are mentally retarded or gifted, respectively.

In looking at educational issues, Robinson et al. raise the

following points:

• A one-size-fits-all paradigm for education does not ac-

commodate individual differences in level and pace of

learning—creating major problems for meeting the needs

of diverse students in the current system designed for the

average student.

• Strategies and approaches that work well with gifted chil-

dren need to become models for improving the school

experiences of all children.

• The basic philosophies and values of American schools

are in keeping—at least theoretically—with the concept of

adapting to individual differences in abilities, thereby pro-

viding an opportunity for our schools to become models

of how best to deal with students in the two tails of the

normal curve.

• More work is needed to solve the problems of economic

and ethnic disadvantages that skew distributions of IQ

scores and lead to discrimination by gender, race, and eth-

nic origin in terms of overplacement of minority students

in special services and underrepresentation of minority

students in gifted services.

• Research agendas in areas such as neurodevelopmental

science, brain function, and genetics need to look at both

ends in longitudinal studies that can provide insight into

how to design interventions that overcome current mal-

adaptive approaches to learning and performance that can

hinder retarded and gifted students.