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The Role of Educational Psychology in TeacherEducation: Three Challenges for EducationalPsychologistsHELEN PATRICK a , LYNLEY H. ANDERMAN b , PAIGE S. BRUENING c & LISA C. DUFFIN da Department of Educational Studies , Purdue Universityb School of Educational Policy and Leadership , The Ohio State Universityc Department of Education , Capital Universityd Department of Psychology , Western Kentucky UniversityPublished online: 19 Apr 2011.

To cite this article: HELEN PATRICK , LYNLEY H. ANDERMAN , PAIGE S. BRUENING & LISA C. DUFFIN (2011) The Role ofEducational Psychology in Teacher Education: Three Challenges for Educational Psychologists, Educational Psychologist,46:2, 71-83, DOI: 10.1080/00461520.2011.538648

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EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST, 46(2), 71–83, 2011Copyright C© Division 15, American Psychological AssociationISSN: 0046-1520 print / 1532-6985 onlineDOI: 10.1080/00461520.2011.538648

The Role of Educational Psychology inTeacher Education: Three Challenges for

Educational Psychologists

Helen PatrickDepartment of Educational Studies

Purdue University

Lynley H. AndermanSchool of Educational Policy and Leadership

The Ohio State University

Paige S. BrueningDepartment of Education

Capital University

Lisa C. DuffinDepartment of Psychology

Western Kentucky University

We argue that this is a crucial time for educational psychology as a field to refocus its attentionon the evidence base for its contribution to teacher education. In revisiting the recommendationsof the APA Division 15 committee charged with examining the role of educational psychologyin teacher education (Anderson et al., 1995), we note positive changes in educational psychol-ogy courses for preservice teachers. We then identify and discuss three immediate challengesfor educational psychologists: (a) communicating the relevance of educational psychologyresearch to the wider education community, (b) developing collaborative relationships withcolleagues in teacher education programs that support a common discourse and shared visionof effective teacher preparation, and (c) documenting the ways that educational psychologycourses make a difference to the practice of graduating teachers and to the educational experi-ences of their K–12 students. We conclude with suggestions for addressing these challenges.

Most educational psychologists probably believe that an im-portant role of educational psychology is to contribute tothe education of preservice teachers. This has certainly beenthe case throughout the history of our discipline (Dewey,1897/1998; Hilgard, 1996; James, 1899; Thorndike, 1910).Furthermore, educational psychologists have considerableexpertise in learning, development, motivation, classroommanagement, and assessment—content that is integral to ef-fective teaching and vital for prospective teachers to learn.

Correspondence should be addressed to Helen Patrick, Department ofEducational Studies, Purdue University, 100 North University Street, WestLafayette, IN 47907-2098. E-mail: hpatrick@purdue.edu

But does our involvement in teacher education make a differ-ence in terms of how graduating teachers teach? Are teachersmore effective for having taken our courses? Presumably webelieve so, but how do we know? And how do we convinceothers who may be skeptical about the role of educationalpsychology in teacher education? These are questions we1

have been reflecting on a lot lately, with concern. We be-lieve that this is a crucial time for educational psychologyas a field to refocus its attention on the evidence base for its

1To distinguish “we” the authors, from “we” educational psychologists(who also include the authors), from this point we refer to educationalpsychologists in general in the third person.

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contribution to teacher education. The purpose of the presentarticle, therefore, is to stimulate discussion and action withinour field.

PRESERVICE TEACHER EDUCATION IN THE1980s

During the 1980s teacher educators responded to their critics,particularly criticisms about the preparedness of new teach-ers (e.g., National Commission on Excellence in Education,1983), by reforming teacher education (The Holmes Group,1986, 1995). A central objective of these reform efforts wasto create greater curricular coherence within programs. Thatis, courses were to be chosen, aligned, and sequenced so thatthey build on each other to create a strong foundation, andlead to preservice teachers gaining “a sense of the intellectualstructure and boundaries of their disciplines, rather than [stu-dents] taking a series of disjointed, prematurely specializedfragments” (The Holmes Group, 1986, p. 16). After the re-structuring, educational psychology tended to be positionedperipherally in teacher education programs, in contrast tothe central position it held before. For example, educationalpsychology was often sequenced as a prerequisite or “gate-keeper” course to teacher education programs, which perhapscommunicated that “real” teacher education began with thecourses that followed. This change, coupled with the typicalsituation of educational psychologists’ home departmentsbeing outside those that house teacher educational programs(often labeled “Curriculum and Instruction”), led to edu-cational psychologists often being marginalized (Berliner,1992).

Marginalization was not just associated with program se-quencing and requirements. It was seen, at least by some, asa consequence of how educational psychology was taught topreservice teachers; the courses “insured our irrelevance tothose in the world of educational practice” (Berliner, 1992,p. 149). Educational psychology tended to be characterizedby teacher educators, practicing teachers, and students them-selves as contributing abstract, decontextualized, and univer-sal content that did not help students see the relevance of thetheories that were taught or make meaningful and practicalconnections with real educational situations (Berliner, 1992;Peterson, Clark, & Dickson, 1990). Furthermore, textbookswere criticized as overly encyclopedic, with multiple per-spectives presented on the same topic. For example, chapterson motivation typically include an introduction to Maslow’shierarchy of needs, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation,attributions, perceptions of self-competence, self-efficacy,expectancy and value, mastery and performance goal ori-entations, and goal setting. The array of theories and con-structs that textbooks present within each topic may reflectpublishers’ desires to market textbooks broadly, and thushave “something for everyone.” Unfortunately, some educa-tional psychology instructors may interpret the inclusion of

so many perspectives as signaling experts’ views that preser-vice teachers need to know all of this information. Attemptingto include all of a textbook’s content into a syllabus, how-ever, can lead to an emphasis on “covering content” at theexpense of developing sound conceptual understanding—students may learn the “what” but not the “why,” “when,”or “how” that are essential for the application of knowl-edge. Furthermore, presenting an array of similar constructsand theories, without critique or integration, may lead toconfusion (L. Anderman & Leake, 2005). For example, aretheoretical constructs interchangeable? If not, do they worktogether, and if so, how? In short, there was concern thattextbooks did not present a clear and unified message aboutwhat teachers should know or do (Kiewra & Gubbels, 1997).These multiple perspectives, in conjunction with the per-ceived irrelevance of the theories to teaching, contributed toa decline in specific educational psychology courses withinteacher education programs (Woolfolk Hoy, 2000).

CHANGES FROM THE 1990s IN TEACHINGEDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY TO

PRESERVICE TEACHERS

In response to concerns about the field’s relevance, therewas a flurry of interest and conversation among educationalpsychologists during the late 1980s2 and through the 1990s.Discussions about the nature of their contribution to teachereducation and how psychologists could contribute more cen-trally to the preparation of future teachers were prominent.

In the early 1990s the Educational Psychology Divi-sion (Division 15) of the American Psychological Associ-ation (APA), under the leadership of David Berliner, cre-ated a committee that was charged with examining the roleof educational psychology in teacher education. This com-mittee published its recommendations in Educational Psy-chologist (Anderson et al., 1995). These recommendationswere followed by a number of highly visible, field-wideactivities intended to promote change. A special issue ofEducational Psychologist, guest edited by Blumenfeld andAnderson (1996), highlighted selected approaches whereeducational psychologists were taking up the challenge ofteaching educational psychology in more meaningful waysto prospective teachers. Division 15 sponsored a 2-day con-ference, held in Scottsdale, Arizona, in 1996, that focusedspecifically on the teaching of educational psychology. TheTeaching Educational Psychology Special Interest Group wasformed within the American Educational Research Associ-ation (AERA) in 1994. That group subsequently launched,in 2004, Teaching Educational Psychology, a peer-reviewedonline journal with a mission of communicating about teach-ing educational psychology to preservice and in-service

2For a review of similar concerns prior to the 1980s, see Feldhusen(1976) and Hilgard (1996).

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EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AND TEACHER EDUCATION 73

teachers, administrators, policy makers, and the public(http://www.teachingeducpsych.org/). Finally, a second con-ference on the Teaching of Educational Psychology was spon-sored by Division 15 at the 2009 APA conference in Toronto,Canada.

Many positive changes in educational psychology coursesfor preservice teachers resulted from activities such as thosejust mentioned. In particular, responses addressed the warn-ing that principles and concepts from educational psychol-ogy will be viewed as relevant for teachers “only whenthey are learned in forms that render them useful in thecontext of classroom teaching” (Anderson et al., 1995, p.44). There has been greater use of cases to contextual-ize content, illustrate its relevance, promote critical analy-sis of situations, and represent some of the complexity ofclassrooms (Sudzina, 1997; Woolfolk Hoy, 1996). Books ofcase studies (e.g., Greenwood & Fillmer, 1999; Ormrod &McGuire, 2007) that include developmental, learning, moti-vational, management, and assessment issues have becomemore plentiful and popular. Publishers of educational psy-chology textbooks have made ancillary materials such asvideo-based cases increasingly available; some to instruc-tors and others to students also, whether as DVDs pack-aged with textbooks or through access to case-rich websites(Ormrod, 2006; Woolfolk Hoy, 2008). The inclusion of casestudy examples and Theory into Practice vignettes in text-books has become standard. In general, textbooks have re-mained encyclopedic rather than becoming streamlined (i.e.,organized around central ideas), due largely to the varieddemands of instructors (Brophy, 2006). This is changing alittle, however. Some textbook publishers have begun to of-fer instructors the opportunity to select, from a range ofchapters, just those they want included for a specific course,thus creating somewhat customized, leaner versions of text-books. Although this approach does not address the prob-lem of multiple theories and constructs, some of which in-structors may not wish to address, being included in thesame chapter, it does provide a way to eliminate topics thatare not part of a particular educational psychology course(i.e., topics that may be taught in a separate course in someinstitutions).

It is now 15 years since educational psychology’s lat-est call to action. It seems to us that educational psychol-ogists have in general heeded the call to make their con-tent more relevant and meaningful to preservice teachersand to emphasize connections between theory and class-room application. With these changes, it may be expectedthat the field’s reputation would be enhanced and its po-sition in teacher education programs strengthened. Howis educational psychology situated within teacher educa-tion now? We suspect many would say that educationalpsychology continues to be marginalized, often not hav-ing a central role in teacher education, despite the rele-vance and significance of the field to educational prac-tice.

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY CONTENTAND TEACHER EDUCATION

In examining current documents that outline necessary com-ponents of teacher education, we believe it is clear that con-tent that educational psychologists consider central to theirdiscipline is integral to teacher education. For example, inthe United States, the National Academy of Education (NAE;2005) published a set of knowledge and skills that teachersneed to know and be able to do in order to be highly effective.In their evaluation, teachers require extensive “knowledgeof learners and how they learn and develop within socialcontexts” (NAE, 2005, p. 5). Furthermore, “understandingchildren, how they develop, and how they learn is critical foreffective instruction. . . . Teachers need to understand generaldevelopmental progressions, as well as individual differencesin development” (pp. 9–10). The NAE contended that highlyeffective teachers understand cognitive processing, metacog-nition, and motivation and that regardless of the type of train-ing program teacher educators receive, candidates in all pro-grams should receive comprehensive education in these coreareas (see also Bransford, Derry, Berliner, Hammerness, &Beckett, 2005). In fact, they reported that teachers who arethe most prepared to teach are those well versed in develop-ment, learning, and assessment (they also noted pedagogicalcontent knowledge, which is outside educational psychol-ogy). Furthermore, having had coursework on these topics isassociated with increased likelihood of staying in a teachingcareer (NAE, 2005).

The focus on educational psychology content has alsobeen acknowledged as vital by agencies that accredit teachereducation programs. For example, in the United States theNational Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education(NCATE) requires that teacher education programs meet cer-tain standards in order to adequately prepare teacher candi-dates for the teaching profession. Standard One delineatesthe content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge andskills, pedagogical and professional knowledge and skills,and the professional dispositions necessary for teacher can-didates to develop in order for them to help all students learn(NCATE, 2008). Some of this knowledge, including studentlearning, school and family contexts, assessment, languageacquisition, and cultural influences on learning, falls clearlywithin the scope of typical educational psychology classes.Many of these same topics are also included in the stan-dards of the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and SupportConsortium (1992) and, in many states, the licensure require-ments to teach. Other countries require preservice teachersto meet similar standards before they teach independently(e.g., Germany; German Federal Ministry of Education andResearch, 2004; Australia; Queensland College of Teachers,2006; United Kingdom; Training and Development Agencyfor Schools, 2007).

In the United States, most states require that teacherspass tests for certification. The PRAXIS series of exams,

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designed to measure knowledge and skills believed to benecessary for beginning teachers (Educational Testing Ser-vice [ETS], 2004, 2009), is the test used most commonly bystates at present. Teachers must pass a selection of these ex-ams, with the composition dependent on grade level, subjectarea, and state (ETS, 2009). Two PRAXIS II exams involvecore educational psychology content: Principles of Learn-ing and Teaching (PLT), and Elementary Education: Cur-riculum, Instruction, and Assessment (EE: CIA). The PLTexam, with four versions that span different grade ranges,contains knowledge and application of student developmentand the learning process, individual differences, motivation,the learning environment, assessment, and measurement the-ory. It also requires competence in reading and analyzingcurrent research and applying it to classroom settings. At thetime of writing, a passing PLT score is required by 20 states.The EE: CIA exam includes knowledge and application oflearning theories, motivation strategies, instructional strate-gies, and assessment and evaluation procedures. Currently,15 states require their elementary teachers to pass it; 7 ofthose also require teachers to have satisfactory scores on thePLT. Concepts addressed in the PLT and EE: CIA examsare all central to educational psychology courses (Sutton,2004), and all or most of the 255 topics within the PLT areaddressed in the predominant educational psychology text-books (Seifert, 2008).

Finally, the APA Education Directorate’s Center for Psy-chology in Schools and Education has recently developeda set of online modules, designed specifically for inserviceteachers, to provide recommendations for practice based onpsychological research (Novotney, 2009). The Center hasgained the support of numerous key accreditation agencies(including NCATE, the National Association of State Boardsof Education, and the teacher certification office of ETS) forincorporating “core psychological principles and knowledgeto be used in setting standards for teacher licensing, certifica-tion and the accreditation of teacher education” (Novotney,2009, p. 71).

Given all of the developments outlined in this and theprevious section, it would seem that educational psycholo-gists and their courses would be playing a central role inpreservice teacher education programs. To us, however, thatdoes not seem to be the case. In the following section wediscuss challenges that we believe educational psychologistsmust confront if they are to play an integral role in prepar-ing teachers and contributing to their ongoing professionaldevelopment.

CHALLENGES THAT EDUCATIONALPSYCHOLOGISTS FACE CURRENTLY WITHIN

TEACHER EDUCATION

The thoughtful reflection on and significant revision of manyeducational psychological offerings for preservice teachers,

coupled with the increased focus on psychological standardsfor teacher certification just described, should conceivablyhave led to increased participation by psychologists in teachereducation programs and a greater recognition of the legiti-macy of educational psychology courses, compared to thelate 1980s. There is little evidence, either systematic or anec-dotal, however that this change has occurred. Indeed, anecdo-tal evidence suggests to us that the educational psychologists’role in teacher education continues to be marginal.

In revisiting the recommendations of the Division 15 com-mittee (Anderson et al., 1995), we argue that only some havebeen addressed, most notably changing the way that educa-tional psychologists teach their content to preservice teach-ers. Other important recommendations that have not beenaddressed sufficiently, in our opinion, include (a) communi-cating the relevance of educational psychology research tothe wider education community, (b) developing collaborativerelationships with colleagues in teacher education programsthat support a common discourse and shared vision of ef-fective teacher preparation, and (c) documenting the waysthat educational psychology courses make a difference tothe practice of graduating teachers and to the educationalexperiences of their K–12 students.

Concern about these three issues has been voiced numer-ous times, both prior to the committee’s recommendationsand since (e.g., Berliner, 1992; Carroll, 1963; Chase, 1998;Cohen, 1973; Peterson et al., 1990, Scandura et al., 1978;Woolfolk Hoy, 2000). However, we believe the stakes have in-creased dramatically. At the time of writing, university-basedteacher education programs in general are coming under con-siderable and increasing criticism and pressure from policymakers. Notably, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan(2009a) has publicly characterized schools of education as“the Bermuda Triangle of higher education” and describedteacher preparation programs as doing “a mediocre job” andas being in need of “revolutionary change—not evolution-ary tinkering” (Duncan, 2009b; Sawchuk, 2009). Althoughhe did not identify what these revolutionary changes mayinvolve, the comments were in the context of references toalternative certification programs such as Teach for America.As teacher education programs scramble to restructure them-selves yet again, the continued participation of educationalpsychologists becomes particularly at risk.

A logical response to intense budgetary constraints andpressure to cut existing courses to make room for new re-quirements is to scrutinize existing courses, faculty positions,and even program areas themselves. If distinct educationalpsychology courses are not viewed as being critical to teachereducation, they, and the faculty and instructors who teachthem, are vulnerable. Thus, the consequences of not meetingcurrent challenges satisfactorily affect educational psychol-ogists directly (e.g., McInerney, 2006; Zaragoza, 2009).

We assume that teachers will be better prepared to teachif they learn about students’ learning, motivation, and de-velopment and their assessment from instructors with a

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specialized background in those topics (i.e., educational psy-chologists). This is the same argument made typically in ref-erence to K–12 education—that students’ learning dependson teachers having deep content knowledge in the subjectsthey teach (Zumwalt & Craig, 2005). Many popular instruc-tional constructs that are based in developmental and educa-tional psychology, such as conceptual change (Carey, 1985;Mason, Gava, & Boldrin, 2008), the zone of proximal devel-opment (Fernandez, Wegerif, Mercer, & Rojas-Drummond,2001; Vygotsky, 1978), and instructional scaffolding (Nuss-baum, Hartley, Sinatra, Reynolds, & Bendixen, 2004; Wood,Bruner, & Ross, 1976), are also complex and, in our ex-perience, easily misinterpreted or trivialized by instructorswithout strong disciplinary expertise. Given that educationalpsychology contributes much of what is critical for teachersto know, we believe that reductions in educational psycholo-gists’ involvement in teacher education will have significantdeleterious outcomes for teachers, teacher education pro-grams, and ultimately K–12 students.

We argue that there are three issues that pose immediatechallenges for educational psychologists and require theirurgent attention. We discuss each of these challenges in thefollowing sections.

Challenge 1: Highlight the Relevance ofEducational Psychology Research for Educators

One reason for the continuing marginalization of educationalpsychologists in many teacher education programs may bethat they do not take seriously enough the importance of prac-tice in their own research. This concern is hardly new. Forexample, Berliner (1992) has argued that educational psy-chologists must truly understand educational contexts andsituate their work clearly within them, rather than viewingschools or classrooms just as sites where psychological prin-ciples play out (see also Salomon, 1995). Furthermore, com-municating the relevance of educational psychology researchfor the world of practice was part of the impetus for the re-forms of the 1990s (Anderson et al., 1995).

Despite the recurring calls for explicit links with practice,however, it still seems to be the case that most empiricalresearch in educational psychology is written primarily foran academic audience, and predominantly for other educa-tional psychologists (Chase, 1998). Furthermore, it appearsthat many researchers do not take issues of ecological valid-ity seriously. This concern is not new, either; 35 years agoBrophy (1974) cautioned,

All too often, educational research involves the application ofan unrealistically restrictive paradigm, borrowed from con-trolled laboratory conditions, to a classroom featuring contin-uous dynamic interaction. This not only makes the laboratoryparadigm difficult to apply; it also leads to trivial researchresults or to results which have little if any external validity

despite their rather impressive internal validity (reliability,reproducibility). (p. 48)

Instead, the call for increased relevance in empirical studiesseems, in most cases, to be addressed by relatively brief state-ments about the implications for practice, usually providednear the end of discussion sections.

We suspect the field’s slow progress in this regard stems, atleast in part, from the tension between meeting both psychol-ogists’ and educators’ expectations simultaneously (Good &Levin, 2001; Scandura et al., 1978). Classroom-based re-search, with its greater ecological validity, is often judgedas inadequate on scientific grounds (e.g., sample size, lackof random assignment). However, educational psychologistscannot assume that simply deriving a list of principles fromrelatively decontextualized studies is appropriate for makingrecommendations to practitioners. One challenge for edu-cational psychologists, who stand at the intersection of thepsychological and educational worlds, therefore, is to honorexternal validity to the same extent as they do internal va-lidity. This may be prompted, perhaps, by viewing externalvalidity as a nonnegotiable component of what is judgedto be “good” empirical research (see also Krathwohl, 1974).Such a perspective, however, will involve a considerable shiftin both the values and practices of researchers and journaleditors.

Regardless of how educational psychologists choose toaddress it, the disconnect between much educational psy-chology research and practitioners’ needs and concerns re-mains. As a result, the relevance of educational psychologyto teachers and teaching continues to be less than apparent toothers outside the discipline. This difficulty is related to thesecond challenge—having collaborative and mutually valuedrelationships between faculty in educational psychology andother domains of teacher education.

Challenge 2: Develop CollaborativeRelationships and Shared Visions With TeacherEducation Colleagues

In addition to communicating and highlighting the impor-tance of educational psychology research for educationalpractice, educational psychologists need to be proactivein forming relationships with colleagues in other areas ofteacher education programs. Although many in the field haveworked hard, and successfully, to make educational psychol-ogy courses relevant and meaningful, the changes that havebeen made are often not recognized outside their domain.It has been our experience that many colleagues in teachereducation hold significant misconceptions about educationalpsychology courses, such as content being irrelevant to teach-ers (e.g., “Our students don’t need lectures on Freud!”)or pedagogy being decontextualized. Such misconceptionsmay result from those colleagues’ limited exposure to thekinds of improvements in educational psychology instruction

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described previously and, perhaps, to their own less-than-ideal experiences as students themselves.

Furthermore, it has been our experience that some of oureducation colleagues do not recognize many concepts andprinciples they find important, such as conceptual changeor cognitive development, as psychological in nature. There-fore, the demand for psychological content to be taught inteacher preparation programs will not necessarily strengthenthe involvement of educational psychology courses or fac-ulty in those programs. Educational psychology faculty, andeducational psychology as a discipline, must engage activelywith other teacher educators by establishing professional re-lationships beyond their own departments. This includes ini-tiating conversations (both in person and in professional con-ferences and journals) about teacher preparation and practice,rather than waiting to be invited for input. One important as-pect of these conversations might be communicating morefully to teacher educator colleagues about the content, scope,and design of current educational psychology courses.

The Division 15 committee addressed the issue of rela-tionships between educational psychology faculty and therest of the teacher education program. Their recommenda-tions encouraged faculty collaboration across traditional di-visions within teacher education and noted that “this requiresthat faculty with different expertise in teacher educationdevelop a common discourse for thinking about teaching”(Anderson et al., 1995, p. 153). Of note, teacher educatorswere also making the same recommendation. The HolmesGroup (1986), composed of leaders of colleges of educationacross the United States, noted that “the disciplinary anddepartmental structure of universities is a symptom of lim-ited faculty involvement and leadership in important issuesthat extend beyond the boundaries of the academic major”(p. 63). They urged “unprecedented cooperation across de-velopmental and disciplinary lines . . . [so that] faculty fromthese diverse realms, who rarely work together now, wouldhave to work closely to change the structure of the cur-riculum and to sharply improve the quality of teaching”(p. 18).

Rather than increased collaboration across departmentsor disciplinary areas, however, the placement of educationalpsychology courses outside the “real” teacher education pro-grams (e.g., as prerequisites) in many institutions suggeststhat the demand for more psychological content is evoking adifferent response. There appear to be two recent and grow-ing trends: toward faculty outside educational psychology (a)offering courses in areas such as learning (usually with a pre-dominant or exclusive sociocultural emphasis) or classroommanagement, or (b) claiming that issues of students’ learn-ing, development, motivation and assessment are addressedin methods courses. In either case, it is argued, there is no needfor separate educational psychology courses. These trends inthe United States are consistent with the following concernexpressed by McInerney (2006) about educational psychol-ogy in Australia:

At my institution, for example, we have had to fight a contin-uing battle over the years to preserve an identifiable presencein course structures. . . . [One] battle was against the con-sistently argued case that educational (and developmental)psychology should be integrated with other foundations andcurriculum areas in composite subjects. In this latter case,the identity and quality of educational psychology offeringshave often been compromised. (p. 14)

The trend of core psychology content being taught by peoplewithout specialized educational psychology knowledge maybe exacerbated by the fact that, although NCATE (2008),Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium(1992), and many accrediting agencies in the United Statessupport the content integral to educational psychology, theydo not detail minimal requirements for instructors of differentcontent or specify any particular course as being necessaryfor the development of effective teachers.

The issue of who teaches educational psychology contenthas become more salient in the current economic climate.Colleges or schools of education, indeed universities, areunder immense pressure to cut costs. This has resulted incourses being cut, faculty positions lost, and even programseliminated. For example, the University of Florida’s educa-tional psychology program was closed in 2009 (Zaragoza,2009) and, in 2010, Arizona State University’s Mary LouFulton Institute and Graduate School of Education was dises-tablished. Accompanying this change was the establishmentof the Mary Lou Foulton Teachers College, with faculty out-side teacher education being dispersed among other collegesand positions being eliminated (Perkins, 2010). Decisionsabout which courses, programs, or departments will be af-fected are undoubtedly influenced by others’ perceptions oftheir value, a point related to the third challenge we believethat educational psychologists need to address.

Challenge 3: Produce Evidence of the Benefitsof Educational Psychologists’ Involvement inTeacher Education

The third challenge facing educational psychologists is toclearly establish that their courses make a difference in termsof teachers’ knowledge, self-efficacy, and practice, that is,to demonstrate that teachers benefit from learning educa-tional psychology from educational psychologists. As wehave mentioned already, this is an assumption we think mosteducational psychologists probably hold, but at present it re-mains an unanswered empirical question. This is researchthat needs to be conducted. The third challenge—identifyingand communicating the relevance and value of educationalpsychology to practitioners, teacher educators, and policymakers—is related to the previous two we have discussed,however, it may have the most significant implications.

Over the years, educational psychologists have been en-couraged to submit their instruction of preservice teachers to

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empirical investigation (e.g., Carroll, 1963; Scandura et al.,1978). This research has occurred to some extent. We haveidentified six general types of studies about educational psy-chology courses. These types, with representative examples,are (a) content analyses of educational psychology textbooks(e.g., Ash & Love-Clark, 1985; Seifert, 2008; Wininger &Norman, 2005, 2010), (b) descriptions of activities or ap-proaches that instructors use in their educational psychologycourses (e.g., Blumenfeld, Hicks, & Krajcik, 1996; Paulus& Roberts, 2006; Renninger, 1996; Taylor & Nolen, 1996),(c) analyses of the development of preservice teachers’ lan-guage and knowledge throughout educational psychologycourses (e.g., Chernobilsky, Dacosta, & Hmelo-Silver, 2004),(d) descriptive analyses of inservice or preservice teach-ers’ thoughts about educational psychology courses (e.g.,Feldhusen, 1970; Kiewra & Gubbels, 1997; Tan, 2006), (e)comparisons of two or more ways to teach some aspect of ed-ucational psychology (e.g., Durwin & Sherman, 2008; Nir-ula & Peskin, 2008; Salisbury-Glennon & Stevens, 1999),and (f) comparisons of preservice teachers’ understanding ofcontent before and after instruction in educational psychol-ogy courses (e.g., Joram & Gabriele, 1998; Lonka, Joram, &Bryson, 1996).

There is a dearth of research, however, that shows that in-volvement in educational psychology courses leads to betterteaching from graduating teachers or greater learning fromtheir students, compared to not having taken such courses(Floden & Meniketti, 2005). This is a serious omission. Aswith the previous issues we have discussed, the need for em-pirical evidence of the effectiveness of educational psychol-ogy courses has been noted in the past. For example, Petersonand her colleagues (1990) argued that the field needs to “focusnot only on the learning and teaching of educational psychol-ogy but also on understanding how educational psychologyas a course of study influences the knowledge of candidatesin teacher preparation [emphasis added]” (p. 324). In thecurrent accountability-driven era, the consequences of notdoing this appear particularly serious.

Pressures on teacher education and an emphasison accountability. There is a widespread perception thatU.S. school students are not faring as well as their inter-national counterparts, and many have argued that teachersand teacher education programs are largely to blame (e.g.,Hess, 2001; Leigh & Mead, 2005). Related to this is a pressfor accountability—a significant issue currently for teachereducation. Leaders within teacher education warn that thepaucity of empirical research to justify their programs placesthem in real jeopardy (Cochran-Smith, 2005a; Cochran-Smith & Fries, 2005; Grossman, 2008; Liston, Borko, &Whitcomb, 2008). The magnitude of current arguments aboutthe role of colleges of education and their faculty in thepreparation of K–12 teachers is illustrated by the overar-ching themes in the most recent Handbook of Researchon Teacher Education (Cochran-Smith, Feiman-Nemser,

McIntrye, & Demers, 2008). The entire volume focuses onnine foundational issues, such as the purposes of teacher ed-ucation, where teachers should be taught, and how peoplelearn to teach.

Many critics of teacher education have argued that coursesin pedagogy do not influence teachers or their students—indeed, that they are not relevant (for an exception, see Al-liance for Excellent Education, 2009). In contrast, what isrelevant for effective teaching, they argue, is content knowl-edge in subjects they will teach (e.g., Finn & Madigan, 2001;Stotsky, 2006). Fueled by arguments about the ineffective-ness of teacher education programs, lobbyists for changes inpolicy and funding have championed agendas to deregulateand reform teacher preparation (Ballou & Podgursky, 2000;Finn & Madigan, 2001; Hess, 2001; Leigh & Mead, 2005).According to their position, a bachelor’s degree or evidenceof a strong academic record, passing a content competencytest, and a stringent criminal background check are all that isrequired for individuals to begin teaching. Proposed changesto teacher education include increasing the number of alterna-tive certification programs, relaxing criteria for teacher certi-fication, and allowing principals to hire noncertified teachers.This trend in reforms advocated has led to the warning that“university-based teacher educators are dangerously close tolosing their responsibility for overseeing the preparation ofnew teachers” (Grossman, 2008, p. 11).

A recent example of one state’s proposal to increaseteacher quality involved the rule change for teacher licen-sure proposed by the Board of the Indiana Department ofEducation in 2009. The proposed changes involved restrict-ing the time that preservice teachers spend learning peda-gogy and pedagogical content knowledge, with elementaryeducation majors limited to “no more than 30 credit hours inpedagogy” (Indiana Department of Education [DOE], 2009).Furthermore, with a baccalaureate content-area major, teach-ers would need only an education minor, limited to “no morethan 15 credit hours in pedagogy,” and secondary teachers(Grades 5–12) would not need any education courses so longas their preparation is approved by the State’s Advisory Board(Indiana DOE, 2009). After considerable public interest andinput, the final policy did not include maximum limits onpedagogy courses (Indiana DOE, 2010). In a similar vein,however, Arizona State University’s teacher education pro-gram has recently announced cuts to pedagogy requirementsfrom 60 to 30 credit hours, with a concomitant increase incontent area courses (Kossan, 2010). It appears these andsimilar measures may become increasingly prevalent in thenear future.

Unfortunately, teacher educators are not in a strong posi-tion to refute claims of the ineffectiveness of their courses.The paucity of a strong research base showing that teachereducation programs produce positive outcomes for teachersand their students has left those programs in a precariousposition. Educators’ responses, therefore, have been to advo-cate strongly for conducting high-quality, methodologically

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compelling research on the teacher education process, todocument its value and the value of courses that have comeunder fire, such as pedagogy. Diverse sources, including thereport by the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Edu-cation (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005), journal editorials(e.g., Liston et al., 2008), talks (e.g., Cochran-Smith, 2005a;Grossman, 2008), and conference symposia (e.g., Wilson,2008) have called for rigorous studies that provide persua-sive evidence of the role that teacher education plays in teach-ers’ and K–12 students’ learning. What is needed, they ar-gue, are studies “that examine the links between and amongteacher preparation contexts for learning, what teacher can-didates actually learn, how their learning is played out inpractice in K–12 schools and classrooms, and how this influ-ences pupils’ learning” (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005,p. 2). Moreover, without this empirical evidence, Liston andhis colleagues (2008) warned, teacher educators “will movefrom their current marginalized status to one of irrelevance”(p. 114). We argue that the same concerns could be echoedabout educational psychologists.

Accountability of educational psychology courses.The critiques that have been made about teacher educationresearch in general appear to apply equally to research abouteducational psychology courses. For example, after their re-cent review, the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Ed-ucation (Cochran-Smith & Zeichner, 2005) concluded thatthere is a dearth of research-based evidence about the overalleffectiveness of foundations coursework (including educa-tional psychology). Furthermore, the little empirical supportfor “foundations based on arts and science work (especiallyin psychology) appears to depend less on an evidentiary basethan does support for courses seen as the province of ‘ed-ucationists”’ (Floden & Meniketti, 2005, p. 282). That is,educational psychology courses have less research supportfor their inclusion in teacher education programs than docourses such as curriculum methods.

ADDRESSING THESE CHALLENGES FACINGEDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

As we have noted already, there is a history of thoughtfuldiscussion and suggestions for enhancing and solidifying therole of educational psychology in teacher education (e.g.,Anderson et al., 1995; Peterson et al., 1990). These sugges-tions continue to be relevant and important; here we offersome additional thoughts.

Teaching Educational Psychology

The teaching credentials or experience of educational psy-chology instructors in preservice teaching programs is animportant issue within teacher education programs. In manyinstitutions, especially large research-oriented universities,

educational psychology courses for preservice teachers aretaught predominantly by graduate students, adjunct instruc-tors, or junior faculty. Experienced educational psycholo-gists, with more extensive knowledge, are least likely toteach those courses; their expertise is reserved for gradu-ate students. Although understandable, this practice commu-nicates to teacher educators that educational psychologistsdo not view their commitment to teacher education particu-larly highly. Furthermore, preservice teachers’ understandingof principles from educational psychology may be compro-mised compared to what they might learn from highly experi-enced educational psychologists with well-developed contentknowledge. The suggestion that preservice teachers shouldbe taught by senior faculty is premised, however, on those fac-ulty being familiar with K–12 classrooms, so that they canapply their extensive knowledge of educational psychologycontent to real classroom events. In many cases, it may be thatgraduate students have more, or more recent, experience withclassroom teaching. From our observations, there seems tobe increased expectation for educational psychologists whoare hired to teach in those programs to have K–12 teachingexperience, apparently because such experience serves as anindicator of credibility in the eyes of teacher educators. Thus,in many situations, where potential instructors have one butnot both types of expertise, there may be a dilemma regard-ing who is best qualified to teach preservice teachers. With-out empirical research examining the relative importance ofdeep content knowledge compared to practice experience,it is difficult to make recommendations for the staffing ofteacher education programs or to advise graduate studentson the merits of gaining teaching experience.

Develop guidelines for minimal standards for instruc-tors of educational psychology. We believe that educa-tional psychologists’ expertise with content and classroomsaffects both their students’ learning and their teacher edu-cation colleagues’ perceptions of them. If this is correct, itmay be beneficial for educational psychology’s professionalorganization—Division 15 of APA—to discuss, create, andpublish guidelines for minimal standards for instructors ofeducational psychology. At present, however, it is difficultto make specific suggestions for these minimal standards, oreven defend the argument they should be created, becauseof the paucity of supporting evidence. It would be useful toknow, for example, (a) the extent of value added for instruc-tors having a Ph.D. in educational psychology specifically,compared to a more limited number of graduate courses; (b)whether students learn as well from newly graduated com-pared to more senior educational psychologists; (c) whetherinstructors being actively involved in conducting research isassociated with teaching effectiveness and student learning,and if so, (d) whether and how the kind of research instruc-tors are engaged in plays a role in terms of learning; (e)whether students benefit from having an instructor with K–12 classroom experience, and if so, (f) whether instructors

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having observed or worked extensively in K–12 classroomscan substitute for actual teaching experience. In addition,because not all departments have instructors with extensivecontent knowledge and K–12 classroom experience, it wouldbe useful to know whether it is preferable for instructors tohave strong content expertise but little to no classroom ex-perience, or extensive classroom experience but only basiccontent knowledge. These are all empirically researchablequestions that, to our knowledge, have not yet been investi-gated. We believe they should be, with the results being usedto inform guidelines about minimal standards for instructorsof educational psychology.

Communicating With Teacher Educators andPractitioners

Educational psychologists spend a lot of time communicat-ing professionally with other educational psychologists, bothin their published work and at conferences. We believe it mayalso be valuable to convey the contributions of educationalpsychology to teacher educators. This could occur throughpresentations at national teacher education conferences, suchas those sponsored by associations like the Association ofTeacher Educators; Phi Delta Kappa; and the Association ofSupervision, Curriculum, and Development. Presentationsthat speak to the relevance and centrality of educational psy-chology for learning and instruction may promote teachereducators’ increased understanding and appreciation of ed-ucational psychology and stimulate opportunities for futurecollaborations with them. Publishing in the journals readmost often by teacher educators (e.g., Journal of Teacher Ed-ucation; Teaching and Teacher Education) is another way foreducational psychologists to connect with those colleaguesand demonstrate that they can make relevant and importantcontributions to teacher education programs. It could also goa long way toward addressing the problem of colleagues’ mis-conceptions about educational psychology, discussed earlier.

Communicating directly with practitioners is also impor-tant for educational psychologists. This may be accomplishedthrough presentations at conferences that teachers, adminis-trators, and parents attend, or publishing research summariesin practitioner or policy journals. In his recent Division 15Presidential address, Eric Anderman (2009) challenged theaudience to do just that. Publishing in practitioner journalsis a powerful way for educational psychologists to conveywidely that they do understand and value teachers’ work,they share educators’ concerns, their discipline is relevant,and they do have important and germane contributions tooffer educators. There are a number of relevant journals readby educators, such as Theory into Practice, Phi Delta Kap-pan, Educational Leadership, Young Children, The ReadingTeacher, School Science and Mathematics, and The MiddleSchool Journal. Furthermore, Division 15 has begun plan-ning a new journal primarily targeting practitioners, whichwill provide a forum to highlight connections of educational

psychology, specifically, to practice. To maximize the jour-nal’s influence, Division 15 may wish to consider ways toencourage and afford widespread access by schools and othereducational agencies, such as subsidizing the costs, or pro-moting the journal’s launch with free issues or presentationsat conferences.

A corollary of educational psychologists’ commitment tocontributing knowledge that is directly useful and relevant toreal classrooms and students may be that they will routinelyconsider the ecological validity of their research at the sametime as they do internal validity—when designing the study.This will most likely be prompted by changes in editorial poli-cies, we suspect, such as those that led to the routine inclusionof effect sizes in quantitative research. As we noted previ-ously, we suggest that editors begin to honor both external andinternal validity by viewing both as nonnegotiable aspects ofhigh-quality research in educational psychology. Consideringtheories, constructs, and models empirically in authentic andcomplex educational environments is more than a commit-ment to practice; as Pintrich (2001) noted, it will “contributeto the development of a scientific educational psychology”(p. 223).

One of the issues undoubtedly dissuading educationalpsychologists from submitting their work to teacher edu-cation or practitioner journals is that, although these outletshave substantial readerships, they are not traditionally viewedas primary outlets for educational psychologists. If facultyreviewers value traditional publishing outlets substantiallymore than they do teacher education or practitioner journals,getting published in the latter journals may work againstcareer advancement. Furthermore, if institutions or facultyreviewers place high regard on journals’ impact factors, in-dividuals’ publications in practitioner journals—where theinformation is used in the field rather than cited in researchjournals by other academics—would need to be “in addi-tion” to scholarly journal publication so as to not impedecareer advancement. The implication, therefore, is that forthese activities to be more than sporadic they would needto be routinely valued by educational psychologists’ peersand recognized as legitimate productivity in faculty reviewprocedures.

Conducting Research About EducationalPsychology Courses

Educational psychologists’ current inability to justify empir-ically their presence in teacher education is alarming. Theymust be able to demonstrate convincingly that their coursesmake a difference—that graduates will be better teachersif they have taken courses in educational psychology thanif they did not. Furthermore, there needs to be evidencethat preservice teachers learn and understand educationalpsychology content better when educational psychologiststeach those courses, rather than the content being bundledor integrated into other subjects. At a time when teacher

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education programs in their entirety are vulnerable, it is espe-cially crucial that educational psychologists produce researchthat demonstrates the value of their courses. The politicallybased pressures that colleges of education experience fromoutside, coupled with the typical distance between educa-tional psychology faculty and other teacher educators, makethose courses particularly vulnerable.

There are many questions that researchers may wish toinvestigate. For example, it would be useful to know howwell principles from educational psychology courses are un-derstood, retained, and applied throughout teacher educationand into the early years of teaching. Studies may involvecomparisons of the knowledge and practices of preserviceand novice teachers who were taught educational psychol-ogy content (a) by an educational psychologist with thosewhose instructor came from another discipline, (b) as part ofa spiral curriculum where the content is revisited throughoutthe program rather than taught in an isolated course, (c) earlyrather than late in their teacher education program, or (d)compared to those who did not have specialized instructionin educational psychology content. Comparisons could bemade between students and graduates of traditional teachereducation programs and those from nontraditional or con-densed programs. This research could be conducted collab-oratively, with other teacher educators, as part of providingevidence of the effectiveness of the program in general (seeZeichner, 2005, for details of a research agenda proposed forteacher education).

In terms of outcome measures, it would be easiest to usedata that are already being collected, such as preservice teach-ers’ PRAXIS II exam scores, or their students’ standardizedtest scores. However, measures such as those are very dis-tal and may not be good indictors of what teachers havelearned and understood from their preservice experiences.As Cochran-Smith (2005b) noted,

To get from teacher education to impact on pupils’ learningrequires a chain of evidence with several critical links: empir-ical evidence demonstrating the link between teacher prepa-ration programs and teacher candidates’ learning, empiricalevidence demonstrating the link between teacher candidates’learning and their practices in actual classrooms, and em-pirical evidence demonstrating the link between graduates’practices and what and how much their pupils learn. Indi-vidually, each of these links is complex and challenging toestimate. When they are combined, the challenges are multi-plied. (p. 303)

An example of researchers having used more proximal indi-cators of teaching quality comes from Good, McCaslin, andtheir colleagues’ (2006) study of 1st-year teachers’ teachingpractices. As part of examining teacher quality in relationto the type of teacher education program attended, these re-searchers conducted classroom observations of beginningteachers’ lessons. Their data collection was extensive—

between 68 and 139 teachers were observed in each of threeyears, across seven school districts; however, the opportunityto gain meaningful information from the findings was alsoconsiderable.

Researchers must take into account the variability in howeducational psychology courses are taught, including struc-tural (e.g., class size) and instructional (e.g., nature of as-signments, sequencing of topics) features. For example, theconclusion that pre-K teachers’ degrees and certification didnot impact preschoolers’ learning (Early et al., 2006) hasbeen attributed to the researchers not accounting for variabil-ity among programs (Bogard, Traylor, & Takanishi, 2008).In that example, the researchers considered teachers’ high-est degree, college major, and whether and in what levelsthey were certified by the state educational agency, but notproximal features of the teachers’ pre-K teacher education.

Invest in research. The type of research that gets con-ducted is influenced in no small way by funding opportu-nities. In our opinion, the strong and growing pressure forfaculty, especially those at Research Intensive universities, togarner external funding operates generally as a disincentivefor educational psychologists to conduct the needed researchon their contribution to teacher education. Such researchwould need to be rigorous, longitudinal, and large scale—inother words, expensive. It is unlikely that most federal orstate agencies will fund research on the efficacy or value ofeducational psychology courses for preservice and noviceteachers, and it also seems unrealistic to continue hopingit will be conducted without funding. Given the scope andcomplexity of the research needed, it may be prudent for ed-ucational psychology’s own organization, APA’s Division 15,to invest in this research.

Use research to improve preservice educational psy-chology courses. As a final thought—how confident areeducational psychologists that teacher graduates really arebetter teachers than they would have been as a result of hav-ing taken and passed their courses? It is our premise that thisis so, however, as we noted already, this assumption mustbe empirically investigated rather than taken on faith. Fur-thermore, educational psychology is taught in many differentways, and its efficacy is likely to differ depending on a rangeof factors. For example, the quality of preservice teachers’learning and its later application may differ for students wholearn in classes of 25 to 30 compared to those in lecturehalls of 100 to 150. Currently, there is little evidence aboutthe contexts that are most, or least, facilitative of learningand its application. Educational psychologists could use re-search findings to improve the way they teach their courses.When speaking about the research she and her colleaguesconducted on their university’s teacher education program,Susan Nolen (2008) reported a colleague saying, “Everytime Sue or Lani present[s] results from their work, youcan hear the sound of syllabi shredding.” Strong empirical

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evidence of the most effective approaches to teaching edu-cational psychology content could also be used by programsand departments to strengthen their claims for resources andpersonnel with their home institutions.

In summary, we believe that educational psychology as afield has an important contribution to make to the preparationof future teachers and a responsibility to continue to push forgreater involvement in teacher education programs. Makingthe case for such continued participation, however, may de-pend on the field’s ability to provide empirical evidence ofits relevance and effectiveness. Based on his reflection thateducational psychology theory and research has contributedlittle to teachers’ practice or to policy decisions, McInerney(2006) speculated that we may “do an inadequate job of ed-ucating teachers” (p. 24). Although we trust that is not thecase, it would be good to know for sure.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We thank Anita Woolfolk Hoy for her feedback.

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