Educational Psychology Research Research Articles

Spanish research in Educational Psychology from a gender perspective (2008-2018)

Spanish research in Educational Psychology from a gender perspective (2008-2018)

A psychological perspective of agency and structure within critical realist theory: a specific application to the construct of self-efficacy

ABSTRACT The discipline of psychology has been under-represented in the critical realist account of the relationship between structure and agency. In this paper a critical realist perspective of educational psychology research focuses on the psychological analysis of the individual and what might be considered as ‘real' and having causal power. Bhaskar's criteria for an entity to be ontologically real are applied to the psychological entity of self-efficacy in the context of a typical piece of classroom teacher-pupil interaction. The role of self-efficacy alongside other psychological, social and cultural entities is presented as a causal mechanism for the generation of Archer’s internal conversation which leads to agency. Self-efficacy is further examined in relation to criteria of ontological depth and emergence. This perspective creates the basis for a consistent ontological framework across educational psychology and that of the social sciences and a sound basis for interdisciplinary research and theory development.

Teacher enthusiasm and students’ social-behavioral learning engagement: The mediating role of student enjoyment and boredom in Chinese EFL classes

Teacher enthusiasm is attracting growing attention in educational and learner psychology research. There is evidence that teacher enthusiasm is contagious in class and positively affects student emotions. Their fundamental role in shaping student engagement has also been well documented. However, the links – between teacher enthusiasm and student emotions, and between student emotions and engagement – remain underexplored in instructed second language acquisition. The present study adopted a mixed-method approach to examine the complex relationships between perceived teacher enthusiasm, emotions (enjoyment and boredom), and social-behavioral learning engagement among 2,002 learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) from 11 universities in China. Quantitative analyses showed small to large correlations between perceived teacher enthusiasm, enjoyment, boredom, and social-behavioral learning engagement. In addition, student enjoyment and boredom were found to co-mediate the relationship between perceptions of teacher enthusiasm and student social-behavioral engagement in English classes. Qualitative interviews with nine students provided insights into the potential causes of the statistical patterns. Theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed, followed by directions for future research.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Publications in the Web of Science Category of Educational Psychology in the Last Two Decades

EnglishEducational psychology is a discipline with a relatively long and intricate history. This study contributes to the understanding of the most recent developments of educational psychology research through the exploration of 35,210 articles published in all journals indexed in the Web of Science educational psychology category for the 2000-2019 period. The results of the study show that the volume of research on educational psychology has doubled during this period and a few journals accumulate most of the research produced in the discipline. Most studies have been published in the English language and in the United States, although research produced in China has experienced the greatest growth. Recent research on educational psychology has predominantly addressed 16 research themes over the last 20 years, although research on child-age students, teaching and teacher education, learning and education, assessment and testing, socio-cultural diversity, learning environments, and educational measurement have captured the greatest attention. EnglishLa Psicologia educativa es una disciplina con una historia relativamente larga e intrincada. Este estudio ayuda a conocer los desarrollos mas recientes de la investigacion en psicologia educativa a traves de la exploracion de 35,210 articulos publicados en todas las revistas indexadas en la categoria de psicologia educativa de Web of Science durante el periodo 2000-2019. Los resultados del estudio muestran que el volumen de investigacion en psicologia educativa se ha duplicado durante este periodo y unas cuantas revistas acumulan la mayor parte de la investigacion producida en esta disciplina. La mayoria de los estudios se han publicado en ingles en Estados Unidos, aunque la investigacion desarrollada en China ha experimentado el mayor crecimiento. Investigaciones recientes en psicologia educativa abordan sobre todo 16 temas de investigacion en los ultimos 20 anos, aunque la investigacion en estudiantes en edad infantil, en ensenanza y educacion del profesorado, aprendizaje y educacion, evaluacion y pruebas, diversidad sociocultural, entornos de aprendizaje y medicion educativa han captado la mayor atencion.

Thematic Analysis of My "Coming Out" Experiences Through an Intersectional Lens: An Autoethnographic Study.

For lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth, identity development is one of the most critical developmental task. LGBTQ youth are shown to be at risk for a variety of risk factors including depression and suicidal ideation and attempts due to how their identities are appraised in heteronormative societies. However, most LGBTQ educational psychology research have highlighted protective factors that are primarily relevant to support LGBTQ white-youth. One of the major developmental theories, Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development, has identified adolescence as the period where identity development occurs. However, through an intersectional lens, identity development appears to encompass more than adolescence but also emerging adulthood, a developmental stage not accounted for by Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development. The primary goal of this study is to seek to understand and question Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development through an intersectional lens of an autoethnography of my LGBTQ experiences. An autoethnographic approach [diary entries (N = 9), conversations (N = 12), interview (N = 1), social media websites and blogs (N = 2), and drawing (N = 1)] is used to understand my LGBTQ-person of color (POC) experiences of “coming out” or self-disclosure during my adolescence through emerging adulthood. Data was collected on April 2020 and spanned from 2006 through 2020 to account for the developmental period of adolescence and emerging adulthood (ages 13 through 27). Thematic analysis revealed four themes across the two developmental periods: (1) confusion and conflict between my gay and ethnic identity as a closeted adolescent, (2) my first “coming out” as a gay adolescent and “it got better,” (3) frustration arising from the internal conflict between my gay and POC identity as an emerging adult, and (4) frustration arising from external experiences with the flaws of LGBTQ community inclusivity. Results reflected a continuous theme of identity exploration and struggle through both adolescence and emerging adulthood, highlighting the need for future research to replicate similar experiences from other intersectional individuals during emerging adulthood stage, a developmental stage that is considered in between Erikson’s adolescent and young adulthood developmental stage.

Replication is important for educational psychology: Recent developments and key issues

Replication is a key activity in scientific endeavors. Yet explicit replications are rare in many fields, including education and psychology. In this article, we discuss the relevance and value of replication in educational psychology and analyze challenges regarding the role replications can and should play in research. These challenges include philosophical, methodological, professional, and utility concerns about replication in education and the social sciences more broadly. Finally, we discuss strategies that may address these concerns in educational psychology research.

Implications of the open science era for educational psychology research syntheses

Extensive debate of potentially common, yet questionable research practices that lead to biased findings within social and health sciences has emerged over the last decade. These challenges likely apply to educational psychology, though the field has been slow to address them. This article discusses current research norms, strategic solutions proposed under the broad rubric of “open science,” and the implications of both for the way research syntheses in educational psychology are conducted and the quality of the information they produce. Strategies such as preregistration, transparent reporting, open materials and data, and registered reports stand to address significant threats to the validity of research syntheses. These include challenges associated with publication, dissemination, and selective reporting biases, comprehensive information retrieval, and opportunities to execute unique analytic approaches. A final issue is the development of parallel solutions that address biases in the decision making and practices of researchers conducting and evaluating research syntheses.

Reviewing Educational and Social Psychology Research Trends and Perspectives: Developing Competencies for a New Era

Reviewing Educational and Social Psychology Research Trends and Perspectives: Developing Competencies for a New Era

School Engagement, Academic Achievement, and Self-Regulated Learning

School engagement occupies a place of reference in recent educational psychology research owing to its potential to address poor school results and school dropout rates. However, there is a need for a unifying theoretical framework. The study proposed the characterization of school engagement and explored the extent to which different profiles are associated with academic performance and self-regulation. With a sample of 717 5th and 6th year primary school students, this study was carried out via the latent profile analysis (LPA). Two groups of low school engaged students—one characterized by low behavioral engagement (5.02%) and the other by low emotional engagement (6.55%)—were distinguished. The majority of participants showed moderately high (31.95%) or moderate (56.48%) levels of school engagement in its three dimensions. Students with high engagement had the best grades and managed their time and study surroundings better, were the most strategic in seeking information, and showed less maladaptive regulatory behavior. The differences between students exhibiting low behavioral and emotional engagement and those exhibiting moderate levels in these dimensions may center upon the management of contextual resources and management of information and help. This research supports the need to approach the study of school engagement by observing the combination of its emotional, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions.

A Database for Learning Numbers by Visual Finger Recognition in Developmental Neuro-Robotics.

Numerical cognition is a fundamental component of human intelligence that has not been fully understood yet. Indeed, it is a subject of research in many disciplines, e.g., neuroscience, education, cognitive and developmental psychology, philosophy of mathematics, linguistics. In Artificial Intelligence, aspects of numerical cognition have been modelled through neural networks to replicate and analytically study children behaviours. However, artificial models need to incorporate realistic sensory-motor information from the body to fully mimic the children's learning behaviours, e.g., the use of fingers to learn and manipulate numbers. To this end, this article presents a database of images, focused on number representation with fingers using both human and robot hands, which can constitute the base for building new realistic models of numerical cognition in humanoid robots, enabling a grounded learning approach in developmental autonomous agents. The article provides a benchmark analysis of the datasets in the database that are used to train, validate, and test five state-of-the art deep neural networks, which are compared for classification accuracy together with an analysis of the computational requirements of each network. The discussion highlights the trade-off between speed and precision in the detection, which is required for realistic applications in robotics.

Development and Application of a Scale for Assessing Pre-Service Teachers’ Beliefs about the Nature of Educational Psychology

Epistemological beliefs are subjective views about the nature of knowledge and knowing. A large number of research approaches are dedicated to this field. Yet, there is no research investigating the beliefs that pre-service teachers have towards educational psychology, a highly relevant domain for their prospective profession. Based on this theoretical background, two studies have been conducted. In the first study, epistemological beliefs with regard to contemporary educational psychology research and their change during a research-based lecture on educational psychology have been assessed ( N = 82). In a second study, the aim was to examine these epistemological beliefs during different phases of a pre-service teacher programme ( N = 252). Findings indicate that students entering a programme are already partly aware of the nature of educational psychology. Results also reveal that students’ knowledge and beliefs develop during the programme, although the relevance of educational psychology as being a central part future professional practice is not recognized. Findings also imply that especially the trust in scientific quality and the awareness of the importance of this field for teacher training and practice could be enhanced. Possible solutions could include more research-oriented courses and a more reflected integration of educational psychology within the curriculum.

Unraveling the “smart but evil” stereotype: Pre-service teachers' evaluations of educational psychology researchers versus teachers as sources of information

Abstract. To guide their professional practice, (pre-service) teachers consider information from a variety of sources. One prerequisite for source preference is the extent to which a source is considered as expert, integer, and benevolent (i.e., its ascribed epistemic trustworthiness). Recent research indicates that pre-service teachers ascribe more expertise but less integrity and benevolence to educational researchers than to practitioners ( Merk & Rosman, 2019 ). However, whether this so-called “smart but evil” stereotype holds true for different epistemic aims is still unknown. In a study with N = 389 pre-service teachers, we analyzed (a) which overarching epistemic aims (i.e., to understand educational research vs. to gather practical knowledge) pre-service teachers have when entering university courses in educational psychology, (b) whether they ascribe higher expertise but lower integrity and benevolence to educational psychology researchers as compared to teachers (i.e., the “smart but evil” stereotype), but also (c) whether these trustworthiness ratings differ for different epistemic aims, and (d) whether pre-service teachers' ascriptions of epistemic trustworthiness to researchers are associated with their perceived usefulness of educational research for teaching practice. We used a within-subject design, asking participants to rate the epistemic trustworthiness of educational psychology researchers versus teachers for two epistemic aims (explanations vs. practical advice). In short, the results only partially support a “smart but evil” interpretation; they show that trustworthiness ratings are in fact adapted to epistemic aims. Hence, our results show that different epistemic aims influence how the trustworthiness of an information source is evaluated.

Enhancing research excellence through diversity and transparency.

It is an honor, a privilege, and an enormous responsibility to serve as the editor of the Journal of Educational Psychology (JEP), the leading outlet for high-quality empirical research in the field of educational psychology. The journal’s stellar reputation and standing in the field have continuously grown under the leadership of my predecessors (including those during the last 4 decades: Joanna Williams, Samuel Ball, Robert Calfee, Joel Levin, Michael Pressley, Karen Harris, Art Graesser, and Steve Graham). They have ensured that the work submitted and published in the journal represents the best empirical research in educational psychology and education more broadly. I recognize that the publication standards each editor sets in the journal not only have a direct impact on what gets published but also influence research practices and, consequently, the training of new scholars. My main priority is to be a good steward of this legacy and continue to enhance the journal’s commitment to research excellence through greater emphasis on diversity and transparency . (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

Medicalização da educação e da sociedade no Brasil: Trilhando caminhos

: This article aims to study the phenomenon of medicalization of education and society. It aims to present the experience of a Brazilian organization to face the process of medicalization of education and society represented by the principles and actions carried out by the Forum on Medicalization of Education and Society. It is also proposed to present in which social and historical context this collective was constituted and highlights important developments of this movement for education, health, rights of children and adolescents and for research in School and Educational Psychology.

Pohyby očí, selektívna pozornosť a profesijné videnie učiteľov a učiteliek

The assumption, that the experimental research using eye-tracking technology, is the exclusive part of cognitive psychology and neurosciences domain, is not valid anymore. The interest in scanning eye movements has spread into many fields of applied research, including educational psychology. Present study focuses on the eye-tracking data potential for more complex understanding of attentional processes that constitute an important part of teachers’ professional vision. The essential selective attention mechanisms are linked with eye movements and professional vision and analyzed from the interdisciplinary point of view. Firstly, the mechanisms of visual attention and eye movements are discussed with an emphasis on attentional selectivity as an important visual orientation tool. Secondly, the essential characteristics of eye-tracking as a methodological tool are introduced. Thirdly, the concept of professional vision is discussed in the attentional context. The last part represents a review of eye-tracking research in educational psychology, with a focus on the professional vision by comparing pre-service teachers with expert teachers. In conclusion, the potential of eye-tracking use in similar studies and its implications for attentional processes and pre-service teachers training are discussed.

Evaluating cultural and linguistic load of IQ scores for English language learners

ABSTRACT The assessment of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students, including students who are learning English as a second language (English language learners, ELL), is a challenge for many school psychologists who have limited training and practice opportunities with students from these populations. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the percentage of racial/ethnic minority students enrolled in kindergarten through high school in the U.S. was 50% in 2014; and, the percentage of students who were learning English as a second language constituted 9.4% in 2014. Given the diverse demographics in public schools, the provision of state-of-the-art psychological services to children and youth from CLD backgrounds is an increasingly important concern. The present study evaluated the degree to which the Woodcock-Johnson III Cognitive Culture-Language Interpretive Matrix (C-LIM) accurately distinguishes between test scores of English-speakers and English language learners. Prior research has indicated that the C-LIM may not accurately measure the cultural and linguistic demand of standardized tests as intended. Results of the present study indicated that C-LIM individual decisions have low accuracy. Implications for school and educational psychology researchers and practitioners are discussed.

A formação do psicólogo perpassada pela inclusão educacional no ensino superior – relato de experiência

O presente estudo tem como objetivo descrever as atividades realizadas por três psicólogas que desenvolveram o estágio psicoeducativo no Programa de Apoio Psicopedagógico (PAP) da Universidade de Fortaleza (UNIFOR) na perspectiva da psicologia educacional, perpassada pela proposta de acessibilidade e respeito às diferenças no Ensino Superior. Trata-se de um relato de experiência de estágio em Psicologia Educacional e pesquisa documental, referente aos registros da orientadora de estágio, relatórios e transcrições de atendimento em diário de campo das três estagiárias do curso de Psicologia. O local do estudo, conhecido como PAP, é o setor responsável pela promoção da acessibilidade e da inclusão da universidade, além de se constituir campo de estágio para os estudantes de Psicologia. As estagiárias, em questão desenvolveram as suas atividades em períodos diferentes (2015-2019), de acordo com a data do ingresso na universidade e da colação de grau, de cada uma, e da oportunidade de estágio oferecida pelo programa. Adotou-se análise temática, definindo os núcleos temáticos: agente de acessibilidade e inclusão; apoio psicopedagógico; apoio psicológico; e facilitadoras de oficina de habilidades emocionais. Compreendeu-se que devido a pluralidade das atividades realizadas no estágio, ocorreu o desenvolvimento de competências e habilidades para lidar, acolher e acreditar nas pessoas com deficiência ou necessidades educacionais específicas. Conclui-se que, para as três estagiárias, essa vivência na perspectiva da Psicologia Educacional ofertada pelo PAP, contribuiu significativamente para a modificação de olhares, de conceitos, de comportamentos e de novas construções conceptivas acerca das diferenças e do respeito a elas no âmbito do Ensino Superior.

Why talk about qualitative and mixed methods in educational psychology? Introduction to special issue

This article is an introduction to a special issue on qualitative and mixed methods research in educational psychology. In this special issue, we focus on contemporary research by educational psychologists who are using qualitative and mixed methods to highlight the complexity and rigor of their approaches and how their methodological choices are expanding the field of educational psychology. The articles reflect a different format and voice than is typical for Educational Psychologist in that authors share their inquiry worldviews, address issues of equity, discuss their reflexivity, and explain how they ensured trustworthiness while investigating the complex, socially and historically situated contexts of classrooms, schools, and educational systems. We believe the issues and research approaches discussed in this special issue will be valuable for graduate students who are exploring these research approaches and for all scholars who are weighing the costs and benefits of qualitative and mixed methods research.

Defining the new concept of sustainable success – A state-of-the-art analysis on the phenomenon

Research on success and sustainability has been somewhat limited and narrow. Yet, in the current world, a positively oriented understanding about the concept of sustainable success is needed. The purpose of this research was to analyze what kind of research about sustainable success has been conducted and what the elements of sustainable success according to research found around this topic are. These questions were answered through a literature review or a state-of-the-art review that focused on nine articles that were chosen for a more detailed analysis. The findings illustrate how success and sustainability appeared as research targets and what the main elements of success and sustainability were in the data. None of the articles under review used positive psychological knowledge or strength-based approaches in their definition of success and sustainability. The need for a conceptual definition for sustainable success appeared evident. From the perspective adopted in this research, sustainable success consists of positive development, flourishing, and well-being, and also top performances. It is based on positive educational psychological knowledge. Educational psychological research alongside multidisciplinary perspectives can provide new and innovative ways of understanding and guiding people's behaviors toward sustainability.

Multilevel mixed methods research and educational psychology

We discuss possible uses of multilevel mixed methods (M3) research in educational psychology. To begin, we describe M3 research and how such research can enable researchers to investigate potential variation at the group level and at the subgroup/individual level. We discuss why M3 research designs are well-suited to investigate contextualized, nested phenomenon in education. Then, we describe the five purposes for conducting mixed methods research and provide examples of how M3 designs can address these purposes. Next, we discuss our inquiry worldviews and how they inform our research. We describe three key assumptions (ontological realism, epistemic pluralism, and methodological eclecticism) and provide an example to illustrate how these assumptions can shape one’s research. Finally, we discuss how M3 research can be used to address equity and share several lessons we have learned as researchers who use mixed methods research.