The Application of Psychological Theory in Educational Settings: An Overview

There has been a notable tendency among educational researchcrs to avoid the use of theoretical systems in their research (Coladarci, 1958; Warburton, 1962; Smedslund, 1964). While in other disciplines an atheoretical approach has been explicitly defended, in educational research the decision seems often to be implicit. Certainly, there have been numerous attempts to explicate the relevance of psychological theory to educational problems (e.g., Henry, 1942; Hilgard, 1963), but the educational researcher continues to march to a different drummer. It is difficult to determine whether there is a strategy underlying the rejection of theory, for example that of Skinner (1959), whether there is simply too little attention given to the philosophical basis for the acceptance or rejection of theoretical approaches, or whether contemporary psychological theories are judged inapplicable to educational problems.