3.1.2 Methods of educational psychology

Explained

1. Introspection.

• Meaning: a person looks into his own mind and describes what he feels, thinks or perceives (Morgan: the subject describes his own mental reaction to a stimulus).
• Views: William James: psychologists must rely on it first and always; Stout: it shows the nature of experience and the laws of mental process; Kant objected that consciousness cannot be both the subject matter and the method.
• Merits: the easiest and most economical method; needs no apparatus or laboratory; the only direct access to one's own feelings; trained introspectors give more objective reports.
• Limits: subjective, cannot be checked by others (low reliability and validity); not possible with children, animals, the mentally ill or the illiterate; the mental state changes when observed (anger fades the moment we study it), so it is really retrospection; needs trained introspectors. Behaviourists rejected it.

2. Observation.

• Meaning: the observer watches and records another person's behaviour as it happens, assuming that outward behaviour reflects inner states.
• Kinds:

• Rules: observe the whole situation; plan aims and recording tools; a manageable number of subjects; fixed time; a skilled observer; observe several times in different situations.
• Tools: checklists, rating scales (always, often, sometimes, rarely, never), anecdotal records (short factual note of a significant incident written soon after), diaries, audio and video recording.
• Merits: objective; natural behaviour; usable with all ages, animals and the abnormal; simple or advanced tools.
• Limits: shows only overt behaviour, not thoughts; observer bias; behaviour changes when people know they are watched; behaviour varies with time and place; observers interpret differently (define categories and record in numbers to reduce this).

3. Experimental method.

• Meaning: change one factor (IV) under controlled conditions and measure its effect (DV).
• Stages (BRAOU, seven): state the problem → form a hypothesis → make a prediction → test (experiment) → analyse results → discussion → report writing.
• Hypothesis comes from inductive reasoning (from facts to a general idea); a prediction is drawn from it by deductive reasoning. A good hypothesis is tentative, simple, testable and falsifiable (can be shown wrong).
• Example: does praise raise homework completion? IV = praise; DV = rate of homework completion; controlled: age, intelligence, time.
• Kinds of variables:

• Operational definition: saying exactly how a variable is measured ("sleep-deprived = under five hours of sleep").
• Controlling extraneous variables:

• Designs: single-group (before and after); parallel (equivalent) groups; rotation. Field experiment = in a real classroom; quasi-experiment = uses existing groups without random assignment.
• Merits: cause and effect; objective; replicable; precise.
• Limits: artificial setting; costly and slow; human behaviour hard to control; ethical limits; animal findings do not always apply to humans.

4. Research vocabulary (APPSC 2019).

• A sample that is very small, made of volunteers only, or from a single school is not representative.
• Population survey = census; sample survey = a representative part; it saves time and money but always carries some error.

5. Survey, questionnaire and interview.

• Survey: quick picture of the present for very large numbers; depends on the honesty and memory of respondents; social desirability (answering to look good) distorts it; shallow for complex behaviour; does not show cause.
• Questionnaire: written list answered by the respondent; closed (yes/no, choices) or open; cheap, reaches many, anonymous; needs literate respondents, low return; closed items are weak for feelings. G. Stanley Hall used questionnaires widely (child-study movement).
• Interview: face to face; structured (same questions in fixed order) or unstructured; works with illiterate people and children; slow, interviewer bias.

6. Case study and clinical method.

• Case study: collects everything about one person or one unit (a family, a school): family, educational, medical and social history, tests, observation, interviews with parents and teachers. Used most in clinical and life-span developmental psychology; good for a pupil's adjustment and emotional problems; holistic; a rich source of hypotheses. Limits: time, money and effort; findings cannot be generalised; depends on informants' memory and honesty.
• Clinical method: goes from diagnosis to treatment and follow-up; used by counsellors and clinical psychologists. Piaget used a clinical interview (flexible questions, following the child's answers).

7. Correlation method.

• Positive: both rise together (class attendance and marks). Negative: one rises as the other falls (hours of TV and marks). Zero: no relation.
• Useful when variables cannot be changed for ethical or practical reasons. Chief limit: no proof of cause.

8. Other methods named in textbooks.