Handbook of Educational Psychology

Citation

Schutz, P. A., & Muis, K. R. (Eds.). (2024). Handbook of Educational Psychology (4th ed.). Routledge.

Chapter Summary

The fourth edition is a research handbook of 31 chapters in about 800 pages, sponsored by Division 15 of the American Psychological Association and written by a diverse group of scholars of educational psychology and the learning and motivational sciences. It is arranged in six sections: an introduction, philosophical, theoretical and methodological approaches, foundational areas, teaching and learning, emerging technologies, and a concluding chapter. The publisher says that, compared with the third edition, it adds chapters on inquiry worldviews, Critical Race Theory, cognitive neuroscience and emerging technologies, and that its authors share a concern with social justice, situated approaches to inquiry and progressive methods.

Chapter 1: An Introduction to the Handbook of Educational Psychology, Fourth Edition

The editors' introduction forms Section 1 on its own and frames the volume and its changes from earlier editions.

Chapters 2–4: Hast Thee any Philosophy? Unearthing the Value of Philosophy for Educational Psychology; Inquiry Worldviews, Approaches to Research, and Mixed Methods in Educational Psychology; Examining Race in Educational Psychology: The Need for Critical Race Theory

Section 2, on philosophical, theoretical and methodological approaches, begins with the value of philosophy to the field, then inquiry worldviews and mixed methods, then the case for Critical Race Theory.

Chapters 5–8: Cross-Cultural Research on Learning and Teaching; Taking a Situative Approach to Research in Educational Psychology; Contributions of Complex Systems Approaches, Perspectives, Models, and Methods in Educational Psychology; Educational Psychology and Educational Policy: Intersections and New Directions

The rest of Section 2 covers cross-cultural research, the situative approach, complex systems, and the relation between educational psychology and policy.

Chapters 9–13: Motivation; Emotion and Emotion Regulation; The Role of Passion in Education; Identity and Learning: Student and Teacher Identity Development; Belief Change

Section 3, "Inquiries in Foundational Areas," opens with motivation, emotion, passion, identity and belief change, the constructs the publisher says have received substantive updates.

Chapters 14–17: Self-Regulation; Exceptionalities; The Roles of Peers in Students' Cognitive and Academic Development; Cognitive Neuroscience and Education

The remaining foundational chapters treat self-regulation, exceptionalities, the role of peers, and the contribution of cognitive neuroscience.

Chapters 18–20: The Relevance of Educational Psychology Research in Teacher Education; Asset-Based Pedagogy; Educating with Collective Intersectional Care: Attending to, Embodying, and Enacting Women of Color Feminisms in Learning Spaces

Section 4, "Inquiries in Teaching and Learning," begins with teacher education and two chapters on pedagogy that draw on asset-based and intersectional perspectives.

Chapters 21–24: Mathematics Teaching and Learning; Social Studies Education; Science Learning and Teaching; Literacy

The subject chapters of Section 4 cover mathematics, social studies, science and literacy.

Chapters 25–30: New Literacies: Expanding the Conversation to Include Data Literacies; Intelligent Tutoring Systems: How computers achieve learning gains that rival human tutors; Technology Rich Learning Environments: Theories and Methodologies for Understanding Solo and Group Learning; Cyberbullying; Gaming in Educational Contexts; Virtual Reality and Educational Psychology

Section 5 gathers the inquiries into emerging technologies: new and data literacies, intelligent tutoring systems, technology-rich learning environments, cyberbullying, gaming and virtual reality.

Chapter 31: The Prejudiced Past and Progressive Future of Educational Psychology

The concluding chapter, Section 6, looks back at the field's history and forward to where it might go.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–8: Approaches to inquiry

• Inquiry worldviews and mixed methods: the philosophical stances behind research and the combination of methods, discussed in Chapter 3.
• Critical Race Theory: the framework Chapter 4 argues educational psychology needs in order to examine race.
• Situative and complex systems approaches: perspectives that study learning in context and as part of interacting systems (Chapters 6 and 7).

Chapters 9–17: Foundational areas

• Motivation, emotion and passion: core constructs of the field, covered in Chapters 9 to 11.
• Identity and belief change: how students and teachers develop identities and revise beliefs, covered in Chapters 12 and 13.
• Self-regulation: the learner's management of their own learning (Chapter 14).

Chapters 18–31: Teaching, technology and the field's future

• Asset-based pedagogy: teaching that builds on what learners bring (Chapter 19).
• Intelligent tutoring systems: computer tutors whose learning gains, according to the chapter title, rival those of human tutors (Chapter 26).
• Data literacies: an extension of the new-literacies conversation (Chapter 25).

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Breadth in one volume. Thirty-one chapters span philosophy and methods, motivation and identity, subject learning and technology, so the book can serve as a map of the field.
• A deliberate update. The publisher lists the additions since the third edition: inquiry worldviews, Critical Race Theory, cognitive neuroscience and emerging technologies. The contents show chapters on cyberbullying, gaming and virtual reality as well.
• Reflection on the field itself. The first and last parts examine philosophy, methods, policy and the discipline's history, including its prejudices, so the book does not only summarise findings.
• Respected endorsements. The publisher quotes David Berliner, co-editor of the first edition, who praises its updated reviews and its direct treatment of social problems, and Gale Sinatra, who calls it a useful resource for course content and research and notes its more inclusive and progressive view of the field.

Limitations

• Reference, not an introduction. The publisher addresses scholars, teacher educators, policy makers and graduate courses; beginners will meet specialised terms without a gentle build-up.
• Size. About 800 pages in 31 chapters by different authors means the quality and depth of the chapters are independent of each other, and few readers will read the whole book.
• Selective subject coverage. The subject chapters are limited to mathematics, social studies, science and literacy, so learning in other areas, such as the arts, is not treated separately.

Where It Fits in the Course

In the educational psychology course, this is the research handbook, to be read after at least one general book. Ormrod, Anderman and Anderman's Educational Psychology: Developing Learners is a teacher-focused introduction to development, cognition, motivation and context. Schunk's Learning Theories compares the major accounts of learning. Both are better first steps before the Handbook's chapters on motivation, self-regulation and situative approaches.

How People Learn and How People Learn II are consensus reports on the science of learning, and Willingham's Why Don't Students Like School? and Dweck's Mindset are short trade books on cognitive science and beliefs about ability. Piaget's The Child's Conception of the World is a primary source in developmental psychology. The Handbook is where to go next to follow a topic into the current research literature.

How to Use This Book

The book is intended for scholars in educational psychology and the learning and motivational sciences, teacher educators, practicing teachers and policy makers, and the publisher presents it as suitable for graduate courses in educational psychology and research methods. A first course in educational psychology is the practical prerequisite.

A practical plan: read Chapter 1 and Chapter 31 for the framing of the field, then use the section titles to select. For a research-methods course, Chapters 2 to 8 are the most relevant. For theory in a topic area, go to Chapters 9 to 17. For classroom and subject questions, use Chapters 18 to 24. For technology, use Chapters 25 to 30. Treat each chapter as a review article to read alongside the original studies it cites.