Psychological Foundations of

Curriculum
 PSYCHOLOGY

Concerned with the question of how people

learn, and curriculum specialists ask how
psychology can contribute to the design and
delivery of curriculum.

It provides a basis for understanding the

teaching and learning process. Both processes
are essential to curriculum workers because the
curriculum has worth only when students learn and
gain knowledge.
the unifying element of the
learning process; it forms the
basis for the methods, materials,
and activities of learning, and
provides many curriculum
decisions.
 Questions of interest to psychologists and
curriculum specialists

 Why do learners respond as they do to teachers’ efforts?

 How do cultural experiences affect students’ learning?
 How should curriculum be organized to enhance
learning?
 What impact does the school culture have on students’
learning?
 What is the optimal level of student participation in
learning the curriculum’s various contents?
 Importance of this Foundation

1.Teaching the curriculum and learning it are interrelated,

and psychology cements the relationship.

2.This disciplined field of inquiry furnishes theories and

principles of learning that influence teacher-student
behavior within the context of the curriculum.

3. Basis for understanding how the individual learner

interacts with objects and persons.

4. Screen for helping determine what our objectives and how

learning takes place.
 Major Theories
of
Learning

Behaviorist Cognitive Phenomenological

or Information- and
Association Processing Humanistic
 deals with various aspects of stimulus-
response (S-R) and reinforces.

 Learning tends to focus on

conditioning, modifying, or shaping
behavior through reinforcement and
rewards.
 Twentieth Century
 The behaviorists, represent traditional
psychology rooted in philosophical ideas of
 Aristotle

 Descartes

 Locke

 Rousseau

They emphasize conditioning behavior

and altering the environment to elicit
selected responses from the learner.
 Underpinnings in Behaviorist
Theory

 Connectionism
 Thorndike’s Influence: Tyler, Taba, and Bruner
 Classical Conditioning
 Operant Conditioning
 Acquiring New Operants
 founder of behavioral psychology. He
focused on testing the relationship
between a stimulus (something arousing
interest) and a response (reaction) .
 LEARNING as habit formation, as connecting
more and more habits into a complex structure.

 KNOWLEDGE comprised groupings of simple

components of a skill.

 TEACHING as arranging the classroom to

enhance desirable connections and
associations.
 As one acquired more
complicated units of
association, one
attained a more
sophisticated
understanding.
 Law of Readiness suggests that, when nervous
system is ready to conduct, it leads to a
satisfying state of affairs.

 Law of Exercise provides justification for drill,

repetition, and review.

 Law of Effect responses accompanied by

satisfaction strengthen the connection;
responses accompanied by discomfort weaken
the connection.
 1. behavior was influenced by conditions of
learning.
 2. learners’ attitudes and abilities could improve
over time through proper stimuli.
 3. instructional experiences could be designed
and controlled.
 4. it was important to select stimuli and learning
experiences that were integrated, consistent and
mutually reinforcing.
 No one subject was more likely than
another to improve the mind; rather
learning was a matter of relating new
learning to previous learning.

 No hierarchy of subject matter.

had application and thus
could be transferred to other
situations. Rote learning
and memorization were
unnecessary.
was based on
generalizations and the
teaching of important
principles to explain
concrete phenomena.
 involves meaningful organization
of experiences can be transferred
more readily than learning
acquired by rote.
 The more abstract the principles
and generalizations the greater the
possibility of transfer.
 Science and mathematics as the
major disciplines for teaching
structure.
 was based on the science of
behaviorism what was
observable or measurable, not
cognitive processes.

 The key to learning was to

condition the child in the early
years of life.
 The role of the stimuli is less definite, often, the
emitted behavior cannot be connected to a
specific stimulus.
 Operant behavior will discontinue when it is not
followed by reinforcement.
 positive reinforcement simply the presentation
of a reinforcing stimulus.
 negative reinforcement is the removal or
withdrawal of a stimulus.

 Skinner believes in both positive and negative

reinforcement, he rejects punishment because
he feels it inhibits learning.
 Behavior and learning can be shaped
through a series of successive sequence
of responses that increasingly
approximate the desired outcome.
 Through combination of reinforcing and
sequencing desired responses, new
behavior is shaped; this is what some
people today refer to as behavior
modification.
 Observational Learning and Modeling. Albert
Bandura ---cognitive factors are unnecessary
in explaining learning; through modeling,
students can learn to perform at sophisticated
levels.

 HierarchicalLearning. Robert Gagné ---

comprises a sequence of instructional
materials and methods from simple to
complex.
 Behaviorism and Curriculum
 Curriculum specialists can adopt procedures to
increase and that each student will find
learning and enjoyable.

 When new topics or activities are introduced,

connections should be built on student’s
positive experiences.

 Things about which each student is likely to

have negative feelings should be identified and
modified, to produce positive results.
 Behaviorists believe that the curriculum
should be organized so that students can
master the subject matter.

 Combining behaviorism with learning includes

careful analysis and sequencing of learners’
needs and behavior.
A. interested in generating
theories that give insight into
the nature of learning,
specifically how individuals
generate structures of
knowledge and how they
create or learn reasoning and
problem-solving strategies.
 B. interested not only in the
amount of knowledge people
possess but also in its type
and its influence on further
cognitive actions.
 C. interested in the mind’s
architecture.
 Underpinnings in Cognitive Theory
 The Montessori Method
 Jean Piaget Theories
 Piaget’s Influence: Tyler, Taba, Bruner and
Kohlberg
 Focus on Thinking and Learning
 Emotional Intelligence
 Problem Solving and Creative Thinking
 1870-1952

۩ emphasized looking and listening, which

she viewed as sensory input channels of
learning and as the first phase of
intellectual development.
 believed that the more things a child listens
to and looks at, the better for mental
development.
 emphasized a rich variety of visual and
auditory inputs.
 recognized that certain cognitive and social
abilities develop before others: children sit
before they walk, grab objects before they
manipulate them, and babble before they talk.
 enrich children’s school environment

 provide children with success in

performing tasks to bolster their self-
confidence

 provide structural play to teach basic

skills
 1896-1980
 described cognitive
development in terms of
stages from birth to maturity.

1. Sensorimotor stage (birth to age two)

2. Preoperational stage (ages two to seven)
3. Concrete operations stage (ages seven to
eleven)
4. Formal operations stage (ages eleven and up)
 Piaget’s cognitive stages presuppose a
maturation: mental operations are sequential.

 The stages are hierarchical, the mental

operations increasingly sophisticated and
integrated.

 Learning depends on the individual’s intellectual

potential and environmental experiences.
 His cognitive theories focus on environmental
experiences.

 The educator’s role involves, “the shaping of

actual experience by environing conditions”
and knowing “ what surroundings are
conducive to having experiences that lead to
growth.”
Piaget’s Influence

Three methods of organizing learning

experiences:
1. Continuity– skills and concepts should
be repeated within the curriculum
2. Sequence– the curriculum should
progressively develop understanding
3. Integration– the curriculum’s element
should be unified; subjects should not
be isolated or taught as a single
course.
 concerned in organizing curricula
and teaching new experiences so
they are compatible with existing
experiences, moving from
concrete experiences to concepts
and principles, and classifying
and understanding new
relationships.
 what a person has already
learned becomes an instrument of
understanding and dealing
effectively with the situations that
follow.
 previous learning is the basis of
subsequent learning, learning
should be continuous, and subject
matter is built on a foundation
(from grade to grade).
 the development of
children’s moral standards
and concluded that our
thinking about moral issues
reflects not only our society
but also our stages of growth
and age.
Thinking and Learning

 focus on thought processes, what

is happening inside a person’s
head.
 the brain is complex, as is the
process of thinking.
 Multiple Intelligences
 Howard Gardner – we must nurture all types of
intelligence and all types of excellence that
contribute to the worth of the individual and
society.
 we must consider the versatility of children and
youth, their multiple abilities and ways of
thinking and learning.
 Eight types of intelligence: 1. verbal/linguistic
2. logical/ mathematical, 3. visual/ spatial 4.
bodily/ kinesthetic, 5. musical/ rhythmic, 6.
interpersonal, 7. intrapersonal, and 8.
naturalistic
 Emotional Intelligence

“ignoring human’s emotional side is

shortsighted.”
It is important to remember that students’
feelings color their view of a topic, including
their willingness to consider evidence.
Emotions strongly influence how we treat
information and even construct meaning.
 Problem Solving and Creative
Thinking
 Students must be given supportive conditions
in which they can develop creativity, but they
must be held responsible for confirming or
disproving the value or correctness of their
assumptions.
 Problem- solving procedures do not lead to
creative discovery but establish discoveries’
validity.
 COGNITION AND CURRICULUM
 Most curriculum specialists, learning
theorists, and teachers, are cognitive oriented
because
 1. the cognitive approach constitutes a logical
method of organizing and interpreting learning.
 2. the approach is rooted in the tradition of
subject matter.
 3. educators have trained in cognitive
approaches and understand them.
 Learning in school involves cognitive
processes, and because schools emphasize
learning’s cognitive domain, it follows that most
educators equate learning with cognitive
developmental theory.

The teacher who has a structured style

of teaching would prefer the problem-solving
method, based on reflective thinking and
scientific thinking.
 Curriculum specialists must understand that
school should be a place where students are
not afraid to ask questions, be wrong, take
cognitive risks, and play with ideas.

 Schools should be places where students can

fulfill their potential, and not always be right in
order to be rewarded by the teacher.
 emphasizes the total person.
 Individual self-awareness of an “I”.
 The study of immediate experiences as one’s
reality is called phenomenology and is
influenced by, an existentialist philosophy.
 Phenomenologist point out that the way we
look at ourselves is basic for understanding
our behavior.
 Our self-concept determines what we do,
even to what extent we learn.
Underpinnings in Phenomenology and
Humanistic Theories
 German word means shape, form,
and configuration.

 what people perceive determines

the meaning they give to the field;
likewise their solutions to other
problems depend on their
recognition of the relationship
between individual stimuli and the
whole.
 On this basis, learning is complex and abstract.
When confronted with learning situation, the
learner analyzes the problem, discriminates
between essential and nonessential data, and
perceives relationships.
 In terms of teaching, learning is conceived as a
process of selection by the student.
 Curriculum specialists must understand that
learners will perceive something in relation to
the whole; what they perceive and how they
perceive it is related to their previous
experiences.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Self-actualization
(potential fulfillment)

Esteem needs
(respect, power)
Love and belonging needs
(social relationships)

Safety needs
(emotional and physical)

Survival needs
(hunger, thirst, sleep, sex)
 The teacher’s and curriculum maker’s role in
this scheme is to view the student as a whole
person. The student is to be positive,
purposeful, active, and involved in life
experiences.
 The goal of education is to produce a healthy,
happy learner who accomplish, grow, and
self-actualize.
 Learners should strive for, and teachers
should stress, student self-actualization and
sense of fulfillment.
Rogers: Nondirective and Therapeutic
Learning
 Reality is based on what the individual learner
perceives.
 This concept of reality should make the
teacher aware of that children will differ in their
level and kind of response to a particular
experience.
 He views therapy as a learning method to be
used by the curriculum worker and teacher.
 He believes that positive human relationships
enable people to grow; therefore, interpersonal
relationships among learners are as important
as cognitive scores.
 The teacher’s role in nondirective teaching is
that of a facilitator who has close professional
relationships with students and guides their
growth and development.
 The teacher helps students explore new ideas
about their lives, their school work, their
relationships, and their interaction with society.
 The curriculum is concerned with process, not
products; personal needs, not subject matter.
 There must be freedom to learn, not
restrictions or preplanned activities.
 The raw data of personal experiences are vital
to understanding the learner.
 It suggest maximum self-fulfillment, self-
actualization, and self-realization.
 Seek to understand what goes on inside us–
our desires, feelings, and ways of perceiving
and understanding.
 Self-esteem and self-concept must be
recognized as essential factors in learning.
 Learners must feel confident about performing
the skill or task required.
 Student-teacher relationship be based on
trust and honesty so that student knows when
the teacher’s ideas of a subject are wise and
deserve respect.
 Value the uniqueness of human personality.
 Conclusion
Learning can be examined in terms of three major
theories: behaviorism, cognitive development, and
phenomenology. We believe that change is occurring
within the three major camps in psychology.
Behaviorism is being transformed into several
teaching-learning models such as individualized
learning, direct instruction, and mastery learning.
Cognitive development as an explanation of cognitive
growth and development.
Phenomenology or humanistic can be considered the
most recent learning theory. Its emphasis is on
attitudes and feelings, self-actualization, motivation, and
freedom to learn.
 All three theories have something to
contribute to explain various aspects of
behavior and learning in classrooms and
schools.
 Readers should come to their own
conclusions about what aspects of each
theory they can use for their own teaching
and curriculum development.