Educational Psychology: Developing Learners

Citation

Ormrod, J. E., Anderman, E. M., & Anderman, L. H. (2023). Educational Psychology: Developing Learners (11th ed.). Pearson.

Chapter Summary

The eleventh edition has fifteen chapters: an opening chapter on teaching and educational psychology, then three parts on development and diversity, learning and motivation, and classroom strategies. Pearson describes the book's approach as moving between theory and application. Readers are asked to understand concepts by examining their own learning, then shown how to apply them as teachers, with classroom examples and authentic artifacts from real children. The authors' preface names the features carried over from earlier editions: a conversational writing style, "Experiencing Firsthand" features, organisational tables and diagrams, attention in every chapter to development and to diversity, and a steady emphasis on classroom application. For this edition the authors say they trimmed highly specific research details that practising teachers do not need, updated all fifteen chapters, and discussed technology throughout, both as a teaching tool and as part of students' lives. Jeanne Ormrod revised Chapters 1 and 6–9; Eric and Lynley Anderman revised Chapters 2–5 and 10–15. The edition is sold with an eText and MyLab Education, which add self-check quizzes, application exercises, licensure-exam case analyses and video explanations.

Chapter 1: Teaching and Educational Psychology

The introductory chapter presents educational psychology as a discipline that informs teaching, and sets up the book's habit of linking research to classroom decisions.

Part I: Development and Diversity (Chapters 2–5)

• Chapter 2, Cognitive and Linguistic Development: how thinking and language develop through childhood and adolescence.
• Chapter 3, Personal and Social Development: the personal and social sides of development, alongside the cognitive side treated in Chapter 2.
• Chapter 4, Group Differences: differences between groups of learners. The preface adds that diversity is also discussed within every chapter.
• Chapter 5, Individual Differences and Special Educational Needs: differences among individual students, including students with special educational needs.

Part II: Learning and Motivation (Chapters 6–11)

• Chapter 6, Behaviorist Views of Learning: learning explained through observable behaviour and its consequences.
• Chapter 7, Learning, Cognition, and Memory: cognitive accounts of how information is processed, stored and retrieved.
• Chapter 8, Complex Cognitive Processes and Self-Regulation: higher-level thinking and students' regulation of their own learning.
• Chapter 9, Learning and Cognition in Context: learning and cognition considered in their contexts, one of the themes Pearson says this edition integrates.
• Chapters 10–11, Motivation: Confidence, Values, and Needs; Motivation, Affect, and Engagement: two chapters on why students engage with learning, from self-confidence and values to emotion and engagement.

Part III: Classroom Strategies (Chapters 12–15)

• Chapter 12, Creating a Setting Conducive to Learning: the classroom environment as a setting for learning.
• Chapter 13, Instructional Strategies: approaches to teaching.
• Chapter 14, Classroom Assessment Strategies that Promote Learning: assessment used to support learning, not only to measure it.
• Chapter 15, Summarizing Students' Achievements and Abilities: how students' achievements and abilities are summarised and reported.

Key Concepts

Chapter 1 and Part I

• Educational psychology: the study of learning, development and motivation as a basis for teaching.
• Cognitive and linguistic development: changes in thinking and language with age.
• Personal and social development: growth in the personal and social domains.
• Group and individual differences: variation among learners, including special educational needs.

Part II

• Behaviorist learning: learning as change in behaviour shaped by consequences.
• Cognition and memory: how information is processed and remembered.
• Self-regulation: learners' control of their own learning.
• Learning in context: the social and cultural setting of cognition.
• Motivation and affect: confidence, values, needs and emotion as sources of engagement.

Part III

• Productive learning environment: classroom conditions that support learning.
• Instructional strategies: teaching methods matched to how students learn.
• Assessment for learning and summary assessment: classroom assessment that promotes learning, and the summarising of achievement and ability.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Written for future teachers. The preface describes a conversational style and a deliberate removal of research detail that practising teachers do not need. Pearson stresses concrete examples and authentic artifacts from real classrooms.
• Learning from one's own experience. The "Experiencing Firsthand" features, which the preface lists among the book's long-standing elements, match the publisher's description of understanding concepts by examining one's own learning before applying them as a teacher.
• Development and diversity in every chapter. Besides the dedicated chapters on development and on group and individual differences, the preface says each chapter considers developmental issues and diversity. Pearson also highlights integrated coverage of technology, contexts of learning and neuropsychology.
• A clear three-part structure that runs from the learner, through theories of learning and motivation, to classroom practice. A course can follow the book in order.

Limitations

• Breadth over depth. Fifteen chapters cover the whole field, and the authors say they removed specific research findings. Students who need the research base will want a handbook or a theory text alongside.
• Tied to a digital package. Many of the interactive features (quizzes, application exercises, licensure-exam cases, video explanations) are in the eText and MyLab Education rather than the printed book.
• An American teacher-education framework. Features such as the licensure-exam activities are designed for teacher preparation in the United States, and readers elsewhere will need to adapt them to their own system.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the course's general textbook and the natural first read for students training to teach. Two other books suit the same early stage in different ways. Daniel Willingham's Why Don't Students Like School? is a short, readable account of what cognitive science says about memory, attention and practice, a lively companion to Chapters 7–8. Carol Dweck's Mindset is a popular book on beliefs about ability, relevant to the motivation chapters.

For more depth on Part II, Dale Schunk's Learning Theories: An Educational Perspective compares behaviourist, cognitive, social-cognitive and constructivist theories in detail. The National Academies reports How People Learn and How People Learn II synthesise research on learning across contexts and cultures, and the second is freely available online. Piaget's The Child's Conception of the World is a classic primary source in developmental psychology, useful alongside Chapter 2. Schutz and Muis's Handbook of Educational Psychology is the research handbook of the field, for readers who need the scholarly literature behind this textbook's summaries.

How to Use This Book

The book is aimed at students in teacher education, usually in a first course in educational psychology. No prior psychology is required.

• Core: Chapter 1, then Part II (Chapters 6–11), the centre of any educational psychology course. Read Chapters 6–9 in order: they move from behaviourist views to cognition, complex processes and learning in context.
• Development and diversity: Chapters 2–5. Prospective primary teachers should study Chapter 2 closely, and every reader should study Chapters 4–5.
• Practice: Chapters 12–15, best read during or just before a school placement, when the assessment chapters can be tried on real work.

Do the "Experiencing Firsthand" activities rather than skipping them; they are how the book links concepts to your own learning. If your course uses MyLab Education, use the self-check quizzes after each chapter. For each theory, write one paragraph on what it would mean for a lesson you might teach, and compare it with the strategies in Chapter 13. Follow up chapters of particular interest in Schunk or the How People Learn reports.