BURRHUS FREDERIC SKINNER (1904-1990)

Skinner was leading American psychologist,

Harvard professor and proponent of the
behaviourist theory of learning in which
learning is a process of conditioning in an
environment of stimulus, reward, and
punishment.

ALBERT BANDURA (1925-2021)

Bandura developed social learning theory and
the concept of self-efficacy, which have had
enormous influence across social, cognitive,
developmental, educational and clinical
psychology.
CARL JUNG (1875-1961)
According to Jung, a related role of education is
to free children from unconscious identity with
their family and help them in becoming
independent people who are ready to make
their own decisions based on their own
individuality.

CONFUCIUS K’UNG FU-TZU

Confucius is known as the first teacher in China who
wanted to make education broadly available and
who was instrumental in establishing the art of
teaching as a vocation. He also establish ethical,
moral, and social standards that formed the basis of
a way of life known as Confucianism.
EDWARD THORNDIKE (1874-1949)
Thorndike was among some of the first
psychologists to combine learning theory,
psychometrics, and applied research for school-
related subjects to form psychology of
education. One of his influences on education is
seen by his ideas on mass marketing of tests
and textbooks at that time.

ERIK ERIKSON
Erikson contributed to early years education in
a great way, including being the first
psychoanalyst in Boston. He helped both
teaching professional and parents understand
better how people, especially children, can
form their own identities through the different
life stages and development they go through.
IVAN PAVLOV
Pavlov’s started the building blocks for the
theory of behaviourism in learning. Many
theorist such as Skinner and Watson used
Pavlov’s conditional reflexes to shape their own
theories in behaviourism in education. During
formal education students are conditioned on
how to behave in class.

JEAN PIAGET (1896-1980)

Piaget is best known for his research on
children’s cognitive development. Piaget
studied the intellectual development of his own
three children and created a theory that
described the stages that children pass through
in the development of intelligence and formal
thought processes.
FRIEDRICH FROEDEL (1782-1852)
His most important contribution to educational
theory was his belief in “self-activity” and play
as essential factors in child education. The
teacher’s role was not to drill or indoctrinate
the children but rather to encourage their self-
expression through play, both individually and
in group activities.

JOHANN HEINRICH PESTALOZZI(1746-1827)

Pestalozzi the founder of what became known
as the “Pestalozzi Method” for the education of
young children, Zurich born Pestalozzi believed
that children should learn through activity and
through the handling and use of material
objects rather than simply through words.
JEROME SEYMOUR BRUNER(1915-2016)
Bruner was an American psychologist who made
important contributions to human cognitive
psychology as well as cognitive learning theory in
educational theory. His learning theory focuses on
modes of representation and he introduced the
concepts of discovery learning and a spiral
curriculum.

JOHN DEWEY
Dewey concept of education put a premium on
meaningful activity in learning and participation
in classroom democracy. Unlike earlier models
of teaching, which relied on authoritarianism
and rote learning, progressive education
asserted that students must be invested in
what they were learning.
JOHN LOCKE(1632-1704)
Locke some thoughts concerning education was
mostly from a series of letters to a friend about
the education of his children. Locke believed
that the purpose of education was to bring
children up to be virtuous, using the power of
reason to overcome desire.

WOLFGANG KOHLER(1887-1967)
Insight learning is perhaps the greatest
contribution Wolfgang Kohler made to
psychology. Building off the influence of gestalt
psychology, Kohler discovered that learning can
occur when we again insight into an entire
situation, as opposed to focusing only on an
individual part.
HILDA TABA(1902-1967)
Taba also conducted important teacher
workshops across the nation. She was at the
forefront of educational research, particularly
with her work in the Eight-Year study and the
Taba Curriculum Development Project and in
action research.

LAWRENCE KOHLBERG(1927-1987)
Kohlberg is most well-known among psychologists
for his research in moral psychology, but among
educators he is known for his applied work of moral
education in schools. The three major contributions
Kohlberg made to moral education were the use of
Moral Exemplars, Dilemma Discussions, and Just
Schools.
HOWARD GARDNER
He proposed, in Frames of Mind, that there was not
just a single intelligence that could be measured by
one IQ test but multiple intelligences many ways of
learning and knowing. With his best known work,
Howard Gardner shifted the paradigm and ushered
in an era of personalized learning.

JOHANN HERBART
Herbart maintained that a science of education was
possible and he furthered the idea that education
should be a subject for university study. His ideas
took firm hold in Germany in the 1860’s and spread
also to the United States.
WILLIAM JAMES(1842-1910)
James contributes for helping to found
psychology as a formal discipline, for
establishing the school of functionalism in
psychology, and for greatly advancing the
movement of pragmatism in philosophy.

RALPH TYLER
Tyler found that when teacher expressed their
objectives in terms of changes in student
behaviors it helped them to modify the
curriculum. Working closely with teacher to
formulate behavioural objectives became a
hallmark of Eight-Year Study and a key element
in basic principles of curriculum and instruction.
ALFRED BINET (1857-1911)
Binet was a French psychologist who published
the first modern intelligence test, the Binet-
Simon intelligence scale in 1905. His principal
goal was to identify students who needed
special help in coping with the school
curriculum.

LOUIS RATHS
Raths spent much of his career working closely
with teachers in workshop setting and inviting
teachers to carry out their own researchers. He
also expressed his commitment to developing
and testing theories that teachers would find
useful.
ROBERT GAGNE (1916-2002)
Gagne describe the types of learning outcomes
as “learned dispositions, capabilities, or long
term memory states” qualities that reside
within the learner. He further described two of
these categories, verbal information and
intellectual skills as having distinctly different
memory storage system.

DANIEL GOLEMAN
He developed a framework of five key
components that make up emotional
intelligence plus a range of skills that can be
developed and improved, so it’s possible for
anyone to become more emotionally
intelligent.
THEODORE SIMON (1873-1961)
Simon, colleague of Alfred Binet in Paris, helped
develop and coauthor a test to roughly estimate
intelligence. The principal conclusion from their
work was that the test could measure the
intellectual development of young children
between the age of three and twelve years old.

HOLLIS CASWELL (1901-1988)

Caswell was American educator who became
an authority on curriculum practices planning in
school. He described surveys of curriculum
practices in several school systems and wrote
several books on the subject.
KURT LEWIN (1890-1947)
Unlike Pavlov, Skinner and Gestltian
psychologists, conducted experiments on the
study of behaviour of children. He utilised an
elaborate experimental set-up with a view to
control the child’s total environment during the
course of the investigation for getting detailed
information.

LEV VYGOTSKY
Vygotsky theory has been used to inspire a
focus on interactive and collaborative
organisations of teaching and learning that
encourage students to learn from social
interactions with peers and with peers and with
the teacher.
RICHARD ATKINSON
Atkinson created one of the first computer
controlled system for teaching reading to
elementary grade children. His scientific works
have been translated into nine languages,
including a Russian translation of his collected
papers on human memory and cognition.

CARL ROGERS
Rogers was one of the core theorists of the
humanistic paradigm whose work began in
psychotherapy, with later application to the
educational process. He applied his “client
centered” approach to therapy to interactions
between teachers and students, resulting in a
strongly student centered approach to
education.