EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY: ITS SCOPE AND LIMITS

Abstract

S ummary . An examination of current textbooks of educational psychology and educational research suggests that the scientific paradigm has been accepted too readily. This article explores the way in which the ‘territory’ of educational research has been defined and limited, by assumptions about scientific methods of enquiry and objective forms of measurement. It is argued that the reductionism found in current psychological explanations of the teaching‐learning process has prevented fuller, and more realistic, descriptions in which the whole social context of teaching is considered, in terms of rules which govern what happens in classrooms.