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Educational Psychology: The Psychology of Learning

According to Merriam Webster’sdictionary, “Psychology is defined as themental or behavioural characteristics ofan individual or a group.” It affects thelearning of the individual and theirperception about the phenomenon andhappenings around them.

Learning on the other hand refers to thechange in behaviour or attitude basedon acquiring new knowledge, skills,opinions, and values. However, it is notnecessarily linked to performance,which is the application of ‘learning’ inone’s daily life.

Educational psychology plays a vitalrole in the eLearning industry. It is the study of how human beings learn and inculcate their learning’s in their dailylives. Understanding the psychology of learning carries its own importance. The courses that are being developedfor the target audience (be it adults, children, professionals, mid-sized workers, or entrepreneurs) carry a zerovalue if the behaviour of the latter is unaffected.

The educational psychology takes into account the various domains of learning and links it with the humanexperiences in order to facilitate the learning process.

The eLearning industry relies primarily on the goal of making its target audience learn. Until and unless, weunderstand what human educational psychology is all about and apply it while designing and developing trainingmaterials, we won’t be able to achieve our goal of making the learner learn. Keeping this in mind, all trainingmaterials should be developed considering certain key features.

Some of the key features are:

State the benefits of the training to motivate the learner to learn

Provide specific, observable and relevant objectives

Present the content in an interesting manner using a variety of media

Provide adequate and relevant interactivities to keep the leaner involved and engaged throughout thecourse

Give frequent opportunities for practice and provide guidance

Ensure that the new skill/knowledge is absorbed and transferred in their daily lives

These features are framed keeping in mind the universal need of learners, – although some of the features mightbe tweaked to suit the geographical, cultural, and chronological needs of the learners.

Nowadays, with the increasing competition and raised industry benchmarks, new ideas are being employed tomake a course “different” from the rest. Most of the times these courses which appear very rich graphically, havevery less content and the information is not laid according to the basic rules of educational psychology. Thisresults in the end user feeling ‘amused’ rather than feeling ‘learned’. This kind of knowledge fades away within avery short time span and doesn’t reap long term benefits. Yes, making a graphic rich course is a cherry on top of

the cake; however, it is the responsibility of the instructional designers/content writers to create a course thatfollows the theories of learning.

Hence, it is necessary for everyone involved in the eLearning industry (primarily those who deal with the content)to keep themselves well versed with fundamentals of educational psychology and its effect on human pedagogy.At the same time keep an eye on the new market trends and seamlessly blend it with educational psychology tocreate effective courses.

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