| This dissertation research study was designed to investigate the teaching of educational psychology in teacher education programs of study. Student, instructor, and institution/course characteristic categories were targeted. The research questions were crafted to determine if there were significant differences, interactions, and/or interrelationships for any of the outcome measures on the basis of the variables included in these categories. The outcome measures included student performance on a measure of student educational psychology knowledge, course grades, performance on a sequencing instruction exercise, and students' self-reported tendency to use diverse assessments.; Four institutions, 20 instructors, and 721 students participated in this study. A pre-post cross-sectional correlational design was used. In addition, a content analysis of course materials and a series of interviews of students and instructors were used. Significant differences were found in three of the four outcomes for some of the characteristics. There were no significant interaction effects found. When the characteristics were loaded into the regression models, some characteristics were found to be significant predictors. For educational psychology knowledge, course type and instructor's degree were found to be significant predictors. For the tendency to use diverse assessment, the instructor's degree was a significant predictor. For student grades, the instructor's K–12 experience and teaching method remained as significant predictors. It should be noted that some results should be interpreted with caution due to small cell sizes for some of the characteristics and outcome measures.; Overall, the results of this study provide support for the expansion of the role of educational psychology within teacher education programs of study. It would appear that educational psychology is best taught by an instructor with some advanced training in the discipline. Moreover, students should be taking educational psychology relatively late in their programs of study. Finally, the educational psychology requirement in a teacher education program of study seems to yield better outcomes if taught as a two-semester sequence. Nevertheless, more research is needed to document the effects of this expanded role in terms of student outcomes. An experimental design and a more diverse sample, needs to be included before this mode of delivery becomes the “best practice” standard. |
