Enhancing Education: Improving Learner Outcomes with Principles of Psychology

Abstract

In our world, which is fraught with problems and fallacies, education is heralded as a beacon of hope and change. Some might say that this is vague and abstract, but this thought can be translated into reality by an effective symbiosis between the principles of education and psychology. Education can be seen as the administrator and psychology can be viewed as its efficient manager. Psychology, with its strong theoretical background and empirically verified principles, can play an important role in improving the process of education. This chapter is an endeavour to explore these concepts in the context of improving educational outcomes for all learners based on the ideology of various theories spelt out in Psychology. Education is a phenomenon whose success is dependent on many factors. Similarly, the antecedents and the consequences of the same are also manifested in many forms. In an endeavour to understand this properly, we rely on the characteristics of certain key players. These are children, parents, teachers, and the institutional and government policies, that integrate all these individuals into the framework of education. Teachers or educators play the role of enhancing the knowledge base, developing the current and future skills of children, and mediate the personality of children to adapt to different situations. From the pre-school period, children spend quality time with educators and peers who are very different from parents and family. Here, they get a more objective assessment of themselves and have clear parameters to understand their capabilities and efficiencies. Thus, school and the social agents associated with the institution become a very important part of a child’s life.