Psychology as a Foundation
Psychology as a Foundation
What psychology brings
- The study of how people learn.
- How psychological knowledge can shape the design and delivery of curriculum.
- How to make it more likely that learners will actually learn.
Why it is the proof of a curriculum
- A curriculum’s worth is proved only when learners learn and can use the knowledge.
- Theories of psychology explain how human thought and behaviour emerge.
The four learning theories
- Humanism.
- Behaviorism.
- Cognitivism.
- Constructivism.
A curriculum can be philosophically sound and historically aware and still fail, if it ignores how learning actually works in a human mind. Psychology is the foundation that closes that gap. It studies how people learn, and it hands the curriculum developer something they cannot get from philosophy alone: knowledge of the mind they are designing for.
What psychology asks
Psychology is concerned with one central question: how do people learn? Curriculum workers take that question and push it toward their own work. They ask how psychology can contribute to the design and delivery of a curriculum, and how psychological knowledge can be built in to increase the chance that learners will actually learn.
This makes psychology a key for understanding both teaching and learning. Both processes matter to a curriculum developer, because a curriculum proves its worth only when learners learn it, understand it, and gain the knowledge and the power to use it. A plan that no one learns from has not earned the name. Theories of psychology help here by explaining how human thought and behaviour emerge in the first place.
The four learning theories
Psychology does not speak with one voice. It offers several theories of learning, and each one suggests a different way to build a curriculum. Four matter most for curriculum work.
| Theory | Learning is… | The teacher’s role |
|---|---|---|
| Humanism | A personal act of fulfilling one’s potential | A facilitator |
| Behaviorism | A change in behaviour through conditioning | A trainer who reinforces |
| Cognitivism | An internal mental process of handling information | A builder of intelligence |
| Constructivism | Building one’s own understanding from experience | A guide who prompts and connects |
The four are not simply right or wrong. Each captures something real about learning, and a thoughtful developer borrows from more than one. The next four articles take them one at a time.
How do people learn?
Curriculum workers extend it: how can psychological knowledge shape the design and delivery of curriculum so learners are more likely to actually learn?
Humanism, behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism
Each gives a different account of how learning happens, and each suggests a different way to design and deliver a curriculum. A developer often draws on more than one.
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