SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY AND

TECHNOLOGY

CODE: BEP1104

COURSE TITLE: INTRODUCTION TO

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Instructional Module for Distance Learning

COURSE OUTLINE

BEP1104- Introduction to Educational Psychology

Credit hours 3hrs

Contact hours 35hrs

Topics to be covered per week

Week 1 Meaning and Relevance of Educational Psychology

Week 2 Cognitive Development Theory

Week 3 Learning and theories of learning

Week 4 Sensation and perception

Week 5 Remembering and Forgetting

Week 6 Information processing System

Week 7 Factors that influence Learning

Week 8 Personality

Week 9 Transfer of Learning

Week 10 Individual Differences in Learning

Week 11 Motivation and Emotion

Week 12 Classroom Management

Week 13 Punishment

Week 14 The Exceptional Learner

Week 15 Examination

Week 16 Examination

Purpose:

The purpose of the course is to enrich the training teachers to be conversant with child`s
psychology and how it enhances effective teaching and learning.

Expected outcome:
By the end of the course the learner is expected to:

• Define Psychology, educational psychology, learning and motivation

• Explain the types of learning theories

• Discuss the importance of educational psychology in learning

• Describe the stages of cognitive development theory according to Jean Piaget.

Course content:

Meaning and Relevance of Educational Psychology, influence of research on psychology, types

of research, Cognitive development theory, Learning and theories of learning, Sensation and
perception, Remembering and Forgetting, Information processing System, Factors that influence
Learning, transfer of Learning, Individual Differences in Learning, Motivation and Emotion,
Classroom Management, punishment, The Exceptional Learner.

Recommended reference/books for further reading

Arkansan R, L and Atkinson R.C. (1990): Introduction to Psychology, Toronto, Harcourt brace
Jovanovich college publishers.
Brigham J.C. (1986): Social Psychology of Slow Learner, London, Routledge and Kalgan Paul.

Cartwright,G.P. Cartwright, C. A. and ward M.E.(1981): educational special learner, Belmont,

C.A wads worth.

Cruickshank wm (1958) Education of Exceptional Children and Youth, New Jersey, prentice hall
inc Englewood cliffs

Cruickshank, wm and Johnson G,D.(1961);Education Exceptional Children And Tough

Englewood Cliffs, N.J prentice-hall, inc

Gage and Berliner, DC. (1991) Education Psychology, Toronto, Houghton Mifflin Company.

Gardner, h. (1983): Frame Of Mind the Theory Of Multiple Intelligences. New York, Basic
Books.

Guilford I.P (1988): Some Change In The Structure Of Intellect Model For Educational And
Psychology Measurement,48,1-4

Aberrant k. (1994) Cognitive Psychology, Boston, Allyn And Bacon.

Hallahan, DP and Kauffman, TM .(1997): Exceptional Learner Introduction To Special

Education (8 ad) Boston ally and bacon.
Halloran D.P Huffman JM (1976): Introduction to Learning Disabilities a Psycho Behavioral
Approach, new jersey, prentice-hall

Henry N.B Ed (1950); The Education of Exceptional Children, Illinois, national society for the
study of education.

Kimmel D.C and Weiner I.B (1985): Adolescence, New York, john Wiley and sons inc

Lard I.D and Thomson N.S Psychology, Mifflin Company

Lefrancois G.R (1994): Psychology for Teacher, Belmont, Wads Worth, Publishing Company.

McCall R.B Evan c and kratzar.l(1992): High School Underachievers, Newbury, Poark sage
publishers.

Myers D.G.(1996): Social Psychology(fifth edition), new York, mcgraw-hill companies.

Myers D.G (1996): Psychology New York worth publishers inc.

O‟Leary K.D and O‟Leary S.G (1977); Classroom Management (second edition)New York,
Bergamot Press Inc

Renzulli;js and reins, SM (1991): the school wide enrichment model’s comprehensive plan for the
development of creative productivity in n colonel and G .Davis(EDS), handbook of gifted education
111-141), Boston, allemande bacon.

Severe LJ Brigham JC and schemer br. (1976); a contemporary introduction to social psychology
New York McGraw-hill Book Company.

Terminals m Baldwin, BT and Brownstone. (1925): mental and physical traits of a thousand gifted
children in l m terming (E.D), genetic studies of genius (vol. 1).Stanford, C.Auniversity press.
Table of content:

WEEK ONE........................................................................................................................................................
1.0 Meaning and Relevance of Educational Psychology ............................................................... 11
1.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 11
1.2 Objectives ............................................................................................................................................
1.3 Definition of Educational Psychology ............................................................................................... 11
1.4 The Concerns of Educational Psychology ........................................................................................ 14
1.4 Areas of Educational Psychology .......................................................................................................14
1.5 Relevance of Education Psychology ................................................................................................ 16
 1.5.1 Activity........................................................................................................................................ 17
1.5.2 The Pre-Scientific Methods Teachers use.................................................................................. 17
1.5.3 An Appraisal of the Pre-Scientific Approach ............................................................................ 19
1.6 Benefits of the scientific approach.................................................................................................... 20
1.7 Focus areas of Education Psychology .............................................................................................. 20
1.8 Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 24
1.9 Key Terms .......................................................................................................................................... 24
1.10 Review Questions ............................................................................................................................25
WEEK TWO...................................................................................................................................................
2.0 LEARNING ......................................................................................................................................31
2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 31
2.2 Objectives ........................................................................................................................................... 32
2.3 The Relevance of Learning .............................................................................................................. 32
2.4 Definition of the Term Learning....................................................................................................... 33
2.5 Types of Learning ................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.5.1 Classical Conditioning.................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.5.2 Ivan Pavlov‟s Experiments ............................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.5.3 The Acquisition Stage................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
2.5.4 Principles of Classical Conditioning.............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
WEEK THREE ...............................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.0 REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING ............................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.1 Introduction ...........................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.2 Objectives ..............................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.3 Why students forget the content they learn .......................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.4 The Behavioristic theory ...................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.5 The Disuse Theory ................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.6 Rehearsal ..............................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.7 Reinforcement .......................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.8 Interference Model ................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.9 Proactive Inhibition ...............................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.10 Retroactive inhibition ..........................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
3.11 Application ..........................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
WEEK FOUR Information processing System

4.1 Cognitive Explanation .......................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.

4.2 The Short term Memory/working memory........................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.3 Maintenance rehearsal .......................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.5 Elaborative rehearsal .............................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.6 The long-term memory bank ................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.7 What causes cataloguing errors ............................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.8 Massed practice refers to sitting for long hours of Study ..................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.9 The use of Mnemonic devices .............................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
WEEK FIVE- Intelligence
WEEK SIX ......................................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.
6.0 FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE LEARNING ................................................................................. 56
6.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 56
6.2 The factors that influence learning .................................................................................................... 56
6.2.1 The teacher ................................................................................................................................. 56
6.2.2 The teachers grooming ............................................................................................................... 57
6.2.3 Teachers Competence......................................................................................................................... 57
6.2.4 Classroom Management ............................................................................................................. 57
6.3 The teachers Communication Ability .................................................................................................... 57
6.4 The Learning Environment................................................................................................................ 58
6.4.1 Over crowdedness ...................................................................................................................... 58
6.4.2 Appropriateness .......................................................................................................................... 58
6.4.3 Ventilation .................................................................................................................................. 58
6.5 Quality of buildings ........................................................................................................................... 59
6.6 The learner characteristics ..................................................................................................................... 59

WEEK SEVEN ...............................................................................................Error! Bookmark not defined.

7.0 Transfer of Learning.......................................................................................................................... 65
7.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 65
7.2 Definition of Transfer of Learning ........................................................................................................ 65
7.3 Aspects of Transfer............................................................................................................................ 66
7.4 Discrimination ........................................................................................................................................66
7.5 Generalization ....................................................................................................................................66
7.6 Types of Transfer ...............................................................................................................................67
7.7 Negative transfer ................................................................................................................................67
7.8 Positive Transfer................................................................................................................................. 68
7.8.1 Lateral transfer ............................................................................................................................68
7.8.2 Vertical transfer ................................................................................................................................... 68
7.9 Teaching for transfer ..........................................................................................................................69
7.9.1 The substantive method ...............................................................................................................69
7.9.2 High road transfer ........................................................................................................................69
7.9.3 The procedural method ........................................................................................................................70
7.9.4 A activity .....................................................................................................................................70
7.10 Note .................................................................................................................................................. 70
7.11 Summary .......................................................................................................................................... 71
7.12 Key words ............................................................................................................................................ 71
7.13 Review/ discussion questions ...........................................................................................................72
WEEK EIGHT ............................................................................................................................................. 73
8.0 Individual Differences in Learning .................................................................................................... 72
8.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 72
8.2 Objectives ........................................................................................................................................... 73
8.3 What causes individual differences in learning?................................................................................ 73
8.3.1 The Hereditary Position ...............................................................................................................73
8.3.2 The Environmental Position ....................................................................................................... 74
8.3.3 The Interactinist Position .............................................................................................................74
8.4 What Genes Give................................................................................................................................74
8.5 Different Enviroments. .......................................................................................................................75
8.5.1 The Environment Before Birth ................................................................................................... 75
8.5.2 The Home Environment ......................................................................................................................76
8.5.3 Activity........................................................................................................................................ 77
8.5.4 The social economic status ......................................................................................................... 77
8.5.5. Effects of low SES Achievement............................................................................................... 77
8.6 Activity............................................................................................................................................... 78
 8.7 Summary ............................................................................................................................................ 79
8.8 Key words. ......................................................................................................................................... 79
8.9 Review questions................................................................................................................................80
WEEK NINE ................................................................................................................................................ 81
9.0 Motivation and Emotion...................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
9.1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 80
9.2 Objectives ........................................................................................................................................... 81
9.3 Definition of the term motivation ...................................................................................................... 81
9.4 Motivation in the school setting ........................................................................................................ 81
9.5 Gentic Determination of Personality ................................................................................................. 84
9.6 Environmental determinants of personality ....................................................................................... 85
9.7 The home influences love and acceptance ......................................................................................... 86
9.8 Time Spend at Home ..........................................................................................................................86
9.9 Personal identifications.......................................................................................................................87
9.10 Activity............................................................................................................................................. 87
9.11 Negative home influences ............................................................................................................... 89
9.12 Authoritarian control ........................................................................................................................90
9.13 Marital maladjustment ......................................................................................................................90
9.5.1 Activity........................................................................................................................................ 92
9.5.2 Readiness for school ....................................................................................................................92
9.6.3 The emotional climate of the school........................................................................................... 93
9.5.4 Academic success ........................................................................................................................94
9.5.5 Success in extra curriculum activities ......................................................................................... 94
9.5.6 School type ..................................................................................................................................94
9.5. ............................................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
9.6 personality adjustment and maladjustment ........................................................................................ 95
9.6.1 Characteristic of a well adjusted person ..................................................................................... 95
9.6.2 Maladjustment .............................................................................................................................95
9.6.3 Characteristics of a maladjusted person...................................................................................... 95
9.7 summaries .......................................................................................................................................... 96
9.8 key concepts .......................................................................................................................................96
9.9 Review/discussion questions ..............................................................................................................96
WEEK 10- Personality
10.0 Personality Dispositions .................................................................................................................. 59
10.1 Intellectual Giftedness ..................................................................................................................... 60
10.2 Motivational Levels......................................................................................................................... 60
10.10 Conflicts of interest ....................................................................................................................... 60
10.11 The social Economic Backgrounds................................................................................................ 61
10.12 The subject Matter ......................................................................................................................... 61
10.13 Meaningfulness of Material ........................................................................................................... 61
10.14 Readiness of The Learner .............................................................................................................. 62
10.15 Concept Learning .......................................................................................................................... 63
WEEK 11

11.0 CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT ................................................................................................... 97

11.1 Introductions.................................................................................................................................... 97
11.2 Objective ......................................................................................................................................... 98
11.3 The relevance of classroom management ........................................................................................ 98
11.4 method of identifying problem behaviors in the classroom ............................................................. 98
11.5 Why does pupil misbehaves? ........................................................................................................ 100
11.6 How pupil react to problem ........................................................................................................... 103
11.6 method of behavior change ................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
WEEK 12

12.1. Punishment ............................................................................................................................... 104

12.2 Purpose of punishment ............................................................................................................. 105
12.3 Fact about punishment.............................................................................................................. 106
12.4 The punishment of aggressive behaviors .................................................................................. 106
12.5 Negative effects of punishment ................................................................................................ 107
12.6 Conditions under which punishment should be given ............................................................... 107
12.7 Behavior modification techniques ................................................................................................. 108
12.7.1 Classical conditioning............................................................................................................. 108
12.7.2 Reinforcement ........................................................................................................................ 108
12.7.3 Behavior contracting............................................................................................................... 109
12.8 preventive disciplines .................................................................................................................... 109
 12.9 summaries...................................................................................................................................... 110
WEEK 13
13.0 THE EXCEPTIONAL LEARNER ................................................................................................ 112
13.1 Introductions .................................................................................................................................. 112
13.2 Objectives .......................................................................................................................................113
13.3 Definitions of the term exceptional children ................................................................................. 113
13.4 Categories of exceptional children ................................................................................................ 113
13.5 Classifications of exceptional children‟s ....................................................................................... 113
13.5.1 The gifted and talent ................................................................................................................... 113
13.6 How a teacher indentifies the gifted children ................................................................................ 114
13.7 Problems associated with giftedness.............................................................................................. 114
13.8 How to manage the gifted children ................................................................................................ 114
13.8.2 The Mentally Handicapped Children...................................................................................... 115
13.8.3 Causes Of Mental Retardation ................................................................................................ 115
13.8.4 Categories of mentally retarded children ................................................................................ 115
WEEK 14

14.1 The learning disabled children....................................................................................................... 116

14.2 Physical Differences ..................................................................................................................... 117
14.2.1 Cerebral palsy ..........................................................................................................................117
14.2.2. Physical Challenges ................................................................................................................118
14.3 Sensory Exceptionalities ............................................................................................................... 118
14.4 Hearing Impairment (the deaf)........................................................................................................ 118
14.5 Classification of hearing impairments............................................................................................ 118
14.6 Cause of hearing impairment ......................................................................................................... 118
14.7 The visually impaired ...................................................................................................................... 120
14.8 Teacher training .............................................................................................................................. 123
14.9 Placement and referral ...................................................................................................................... 123
14.10 Coordination of services ................................................................................................................. 123
14.11 Vocational training .......................................................................................................................... 123
14.12 Public education and awareness ...................................................................................................... 124
References and further reading .................................................................................................................. 125
WEEK 1

1.0 Meaning and Relevance of Educational Psychology

1.1 Introduction
Dear Learner, this is an introduction lesson of the module Educational Psychology. I am going to
explore the concepts relevant to the understanding of the teaching and learning processes. This
lesson has several sections:
• Definition of Educational Psychology
• The concerns of Educational Psychology
• Areas of Educational Psychology
• Benefits of the scientific approach.
• Focus areas of Educational Psychology

1.2 Objectives

By the end of the lesson, the student should be able to:

• Define Educational Psychology.
• Outline the areas of Educational Psychology.
• Discuss the relevance of educational Psychology.
• Benefits of the scientific approach.
• Focus areas of educational Psychology.

1.3 Definition of Educational Psychology.

What is Educational Psychology?

We cannot define Educational Psychology without knowing what psychology is.
Psychology is defined as the scientific discipline that studies animal and human behavior and
mental process. As a science psychology is used in the understanding o behaviour, prediction of
behavior and control of behaviour. Behavior can be defined as anything we do, such as thinking,
talking, sneezing, sleeping, loving, and so on.
How to Learn Psychology

We all use the principles of psychology everyday and probably don’t even realize it. When we spank our
child for doing something wrong, we are utilizing the learning principle of punishment. When we get
nervous right before we have to give that big speech, we are activating our autonomic nervous system.
When we talk to ourselves in our heads, telling ourselves to "calm down," "work harder," or "give up," we
are utilizing cognitive approaches to change our behaviors and emotions.

This text is designed to give you a general idea of what psychology is, how information is developed,
what we have learned about ourselves, and how psychology is applied to help improve people’s lives.
The chapters are organized so that you can get a better idea of how psychology works; from basic
theories and principles, through research, understanding and explaining results, to the actual application
of psychological techniques.

This text is not designed to make you a psychologist. It is written in a general format so that you can gain
a better idea of all of the major concepts in psychology. If you were to major in psychology as an
undergraduate, each chapter would be a separate course. And, to get your doctorate, which is required to
be called a psychologist in most states, you would take an additional five to seven years further studying
the concepts in this text.

You will learn a lot, however, and hopefully you will increase not only your knowledge base, but also your
interest in the principles of psychology. This website provides a great deal of information about the
applications of psychology in a self-help format, as do many other very helpful and professional sites.
Read on…learn…and improve your understanding of your greatest asset…the human mind.

What is Psychology

Psychology is the study of cognitions, emotions, and behavior. Psychologists are involved in a variety of
tasks. Many spend their careers designing and performing research to better understand how people
behave in specific situations, how and why we think the way we do, and how emotions develop and what
impact they have on our interactions with others. These are the research psychologists who often work in
research organizations or universities. Industrial-organizational psychologists work with businesses and
organizations to help them become more productive, effective, and efficient, and to assist them in working
with their employees and their customers. Practitioners, typically counseling and clinical psychologists,
work with individuals, couples, families, and small groups to help them feel less depressed, less anxious,
become more productive or motivated, and overcome issues which prevent them from living up to their
potential.

The study of psychology has five basic goals:

1. Describe – The first goal is to observe behavior and describe, often in minute detail, what was
observed as objectively as possible

2. Explain – While descriptions come from observable data, psychologists must go beyond what is
obvious and explain their observations. In other words, why did the subject do what he or she did?
3. Predict – Once we know what happens, and why it happens, we can begin to speculate what will
happen in the future. There’s an old saying, which very often holds true: "the best predictor of future
behavior is past behavior."

4. Control – Once we know what happens, why it happens and what is likely to happen in the future, we
can excerpt control over it. In other words, if we know you choose abusive partners because your father
was abusive, we can assume you will choose another abusive partner, and can therefore intervene to
change this negative behavior.

5. Improve – Not only do psychologists attempt to control behavior, they want to do so in a positive
manner, they want to improve a person’s life, not make it worse. This is not always the case, but it should
always be the intention.

As a science of behaviour psychology has many branches and approaches. The following are
some of the branches of psychology.
• Industrial Psychology
• Experimental Psychology
• Developmental psychology
• Counseling psychology
• Social psychology
• Educational psychology

Looking at these branches of psychology we can deduce that Educational psychology is one of the
branches of psychology. It is one of the newer branches of psychology which is slightly over a
century old today, (Woolfolk, 1998).

Educational Psychology is defined as an applied branch of Psychology it is concerned with the

application of the principles and techniques of psychology to the solution of the problems
confronting the teacher in the classroom, (Gage/Berliner, 1992).

As an applied branch of psychology Educational Psychology focuses on the psychological study

of everyday problems of Education from which the teacher derives principles, models, theories,
teaching procedures and practical methods of instruction and evaluation. This involves the
selection from the total field of psychology of those facts, principles and techniques, which relate
to the teaching-learning process as they operate in and out of the classroom.

Although Educational Psychology borrows heavily form Psychology it has evolved as a distinct
science with its own method and theories.
1.4 The Concerns of Educational Psychology

Educational Psychology is concerned with the learning situation. The learning situation involves
group dynamics as they operate to affect learning.
• Educational Psychology is concerned with the learning. This refers to the means by
which learning can be made more effective.
• Educational Psychology is concerned with the teacher‟s role as the facilitator of learning.

Activity

• Write down for things you remember about your best teacher in high school.
• Try to remember how he/she was different from the other teachers.
• What can you remember about your worst teacher?
• Why do you think he/she was the worst teacher on the school staff?
1.4 Areas of Educational Psychology

We have already learned that Educational Psychology is an applied science. As an applied science
it borrows from many areas within the wider field of psychology. The following are some of the
areas Educational Psychology borrows from:

1. Cognitive Psychology
Cognitive psychology is a branch of psychology that deals with the mental processes that are
involved in understanding behaviour. These are thinking, remembering, forgetting, problem
solving and perception. From this area of psychology the teacher applies the principles of
enhancing memory of learned material. He also learned what to do in the learning situation in order
to minimize forgetting of the learned material.

2. Development Psychology
Developmental psychology is the science that studies the changes that take place in the lifetime of
a person. The changes take place in the body from the time of conception through uterine life,
infancy, early childhood, middle and late childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle
adulthood, later adulthood, aging and dying.

Developmental changes also take place in the intellectual dimensions. These changes refer to the
development of though and the ability to acquire knowledge and use it though out the chronological
and mental ages of children. In this dimension the child develops intellectually for example
Purgation stages of cognitive development. According to Piaget, child development is based on
the reflexes that re present at birth. These reflexes lead to the sensory motor that is
present form birth to two years of age. Intelligence from sensory motor stage of cognitive
development the child develops pre-operational reasoning, concrete operations and formal
operational stage. These stages are well covered in the Human Development course. Our duty here
is to point out that the teacher applies the knowledge in order to develop curriculum that is in the
line with the intellectual stage of development of the child. It also helps the teacher to gauge the
level of difficulty of content so that he can organize teaching and learning activities that present
the right level of difficulty to learners.

From the Purgation theory the teacher also derives the teaching procedures that are appropriate to
the level of cognitive development of the learner. For example if learners are concrete thinkers,
then the teacher uses concrete things in teaching them but if the learners are formal thinkers then
the teacher can use abstract concepts. The application of information gained from cognitive
psychology makes teaching and learning very effective.

From Developmental psychology the teacher understands the learners emotional, social and moral
development. With this understanding he is able to develop learning activities that help the learner
to develop positively in these areas. This ensures that the learner is well rounded, in development
intellectually, physically, socially, morally, emotionally and even spiritually.

3. Social Psychology
The teacher also borrows form the areas o social psychology. Social psychology refers to the study
of social interactions and their influence on individual and group behaviour.

From social psychology the teacher understands how attitudes are acquired and changed. For
example how learners acquire positive or negative attitudes towards a teacher, a subject, school or
even the schools administration and how the acquired attitude affects learning and adjustment to
school. Form social psychology the teacher gains insights as to how biases and prejudices are
acquired and how they can affect learning. The teacher also acquires information regarding how
friendship develops and how friendships are maintained. This has a bearing on the learners‟ social
adjustment and acceptance by the peers and its effects on learning.

4. Psychometric Psychology
Psychometric Psychology deals with the measurement theory, which equips the teachers with the
skills, needed in the measurement and evaluation of relevant variables. These are variables like
achievement and personality traits in educational settings. Equipped with the measuring skills the
teacher is able to evaluate learning and to make the necessary adjustments so that effective learning
takes place.

5. Personality Psychology
Personality theories are concerned with individual differences. They explain why each learner is
unique in terms of his needs and his personality traits. Information gained from personality
psychology equips the teacher with the tools he needs in terms of understanding each learner in
particular and learners in general. This understanding helps the teacher organize learning
experiences that cater for each learner. This is important since the teacher deals with learns with
differences in intellectual ability, emotional experience and expression, moral thinking and
behavior, sociability and other traits that learners bring to class.

6. Mental hygiene
Mental hygiene refers to those factors that promote the child‟s adjustment. These factors may exist
in the home, in the school among peer and in the community and may operate to promote or hinder
learning and adjustment. The teacher who is aware of these factors will be prepared to handle any
problem that arises from any of the possible angles and help the learner to cope adequately in all
situations.

1.5 Relevance of Education Psychology

The issue of relevance of Educational Psychology to the teacher is of great importance. The
relevance emanates from the fat that teacher sin the schools do not teach Educational Psychology.
They teach other disciplines. For example, English language, mathematic, Kiswahili, Biology,
Geography, Physics, Chemistry, etc. These are languages, humanities, sciences and practical
subjects. These are disciplines that require scholarship. This means that a teacher may be very
good in scholarship achieving high grades in the area of academic pursuit. Another teacher could
be an average achiever in scholarship while another one merely passed his examinations.

Given this scenario, it is inevitable for one to the wonder whether the person with excellent
performance in scholarship will of necessity become a good teacher while the poor scholar
consequently becomes a poor teacher.

The other issue of concern is whether teachers are born or made. Focusing on these concerns one
remembers the joke about teachers and jobs, which goes like this; “Those who can find jobs do
them, those who do not find jobs teach, while those who cannot teach, teach teachers”. It is
imperative to ponder on these issues in order to install educational Psychology in its rightful place.
Therefore it is important to point out that being a brilliant scholar does not necessarily make one a
good teacher, neither does being a poor scholar make one a poor teacher.

The difference between a good teacher and a poor one is made by the knowledge and importance
application of Educational Psychology. Educational Psychology equips the teacher with the
scientific approach to learning and teaching. It equips the teacher with scientific and practical
insights into the various aspects of the learning-teaching process the scientific approach enables
the teacher to know what can be done in the learning-teaching process. He gets to know what will
work and what will not work why some approaches work while others fail totally. The teacher
gets to know and to as well as apply what consists realistic goals for learning and teaching. With
this knowledge the teacher learns to avoid the use of pre-scientific methods in the learning teaching
process. We shall briefly look at pre-scientific approaches to learning and teaching.

1.5.1 Activity

1. Can you remember the methods your teacher used in order to get you to learn the
multiplication tables or even historical dates and scientific formulae?
2. Can you remember the teachers who made the subject difficult so that few people did
well in it? What was the subject and what did the teacher do to ensure that few students
passed well in it?

1.5.2 The Pre-Scientific Methods Teachers use.

Pre-scientific methods are those that are not founded in any scientific research or theory. These are
methods that have not been tested for their applicability or validity. When the teacher uses them,
they possess the likelihood of inhibiting or preventing learning. We shall mention a few of them
here:

1) Certain Habits
There are certain habits, which are pre-scientific, and if used by the teacher could be detrimental
to learning. These are habits like being unprepared. A teacher may imagine that there is no need
to prepare for a lesson because he has taught the lesson for many years and therefore has control
over the content. This teacher may not take time to prepare the lesson plan or lesson notes and
therefore goes to the class with the textbook alone. This teacher cannot run an effective lesson
because of being unprepared. Although it is true that he has taught the content for many years it is
important to take time and interact with the content by making a lesson plan and lesson notes.

2) Pre-established Beliefs
Teachers or school heads may hold certain pre-established beliefs, which can inhibit learning.
There is the belief that anybody can teach anything. The school heads who hold this belief will
allocate teachers subjects that they are not comfortable teaching. For example a teacher could be
very good in teaching physics and since physics is a science he could be allocated to teach all the
sciences. This will result in the teacher producing poor results in those subjects where he lacks
competence. There is also the issue of relying on untrained teachers because they will not ask to
be paid a lot of money. These teachers may have the potential of being good teachers but there
untrained state translates into poor performance. Also they do not posses the appropriate methods
of dealing with many aspects of the student‟s life in the school.

3) The Use of Common Sense

This is yet another pre-scientific belief. Teachers who lack the training in educational psychology
may rely on the use of common sense. For example they may hold the belief that any student can
learn anything. They are not aware that for a student to be able to learn there are many variables
that interact in highly complex ways to promote or hinder him form learning. These variables are
the learner‟s intellectual giftedness, which may be genetically determined, the learner‟s
motivations, interests, needs and values. The teacher has to understand the learner very well in
order to be able to determine what he can learn and the conditions under which leaning will occur.

4) Personal Impressions
There are personal impressions which are pre-scientific and which will inhibit learning. This
teacher may have biased perceptions of particular learners or a class in general. He may believe
that a certain learner or a class is bad or poor. This belief may be a result of staff-room tales. A
teacher with these impressions is likely to cultivate very negative attitudes towards the learners.
The negative attitudes affect his interactions with the learners both inside and outside the
classroom. This will promote the development of hostility between the teacher and the learners
and as a result learning and adjustment is affected negatively.

5) Popular Beliefs
Every school has its own popular beliefs. One such belief is that learners cannot be disciplined
unless they are punished. A teacher with such a belief relies on punitive measures in his
interactions with learners. Reliance on punishment has very many negative effects on learners.
It is responsible for the development of hostilities and negative emotions between the teacher and
the learners and its effects on learning are negative. They hinder learning and also promote the
development maladjustment to school.

6) Folklore
Folklore refers to the staffroom tales. When the teachers are in the staff room they tell each other
stories about students. These stories may be told by a teacher or teachers who have problems with
a certain class or certain pupils. The stories may be full of biases, prejudices and negative attitudes
toward the student. These stories may be bout the teacher‟s beliefs toward the
students. He may believe that the students are disobedient, lazy, poor academically, rude, or even
outright bad. The teacher with these beliefs wishes to bias the other teachers so that they too can
hold the attitudes he holds. If the other teachers to assume the same biases they approaches students
negatively and as a result learning and teaching are grossly affected. These teachers approach
students in a hostile manner, which in turn affects both achievement and adjustment to school.

7) Subject-Centered Approach
The teacher who used subject-centered approach forgets that the content is meant to be imbibed by
the learner. They focus on the coverage of content. This teacher is also teacher centered while the
learner takes the passive role in the learning-teaching process. What happens in this situation is
that the learner is also lost most of the time and he lacks competence and motivation to learn the
content. This results in the learner‟s disorientation and failure to achieve in tests and examinations
based on the content.

8) Drilling
Drilling is a method of teaching that relies on rote memory. Rote memory refers to committing to
memory meaningless content. Students who are subjected to drilling concentrate din the passing
the examination only. They do not learn the meaning or usefulness of the content leaned. They
find it difficult to use or apply the knowledge in life situations. The traditional methods of teaching
mathematics and science relied a lot on drilling accompanied by heavy punishment for those who
failed to master the content. Inherent with the drilling methods was the concept that the subject
was taught because it was difficult. As a result the content was so mystified that only a few bright
students were able to cope with it. As a result the teacher concentrated in his attention on the few
students who could cope with it while he said that the other students were in class to warm it up
for the capable ones.

Question

Do you remember a subject that you found extremely difficult to learn? How was the teacher
going about it? Why did you find it difficult?

1.5.3 An Appraisal of the Pre-Scientific Approach

A lot can be said about the negative effects of using the pre-scientific approach to teaching.
However we need to note that these methods may not be entirely wrong. Their only problem lies
in the fact that they could be detrimental to learning; they could prevent learning because they are
incomplete. Their incompleteness lies in the sense that they do not take into account psychological
factors that play a highly significant role in stimulating, directing and disinhibiting the learning
process. It is also true that the teacher who uses the pre-scientific approaches to teaching lacks the
awareness of the complexity and dynamism of the learning process.

1.6 Benefits of the scientific approach

At this juncture we need to find out what the teacher gains from using the scientific approach in
his interactions with learners. This is a teacher who demonstrates competence in the following
skills:
• He posses the traditional skills of explaining, demonstrating, informing and evaluating
• He can organize learning activities.
• He can diagnose learning difficulties of pupils.
• Can motivate children learn so that they direct their energies and towards the learning
tasks.
• He is able to select materials appropriate to the level of learners” attainment.
• He can identify the learning difficulties of children and refer them for treatment by other
specialists.
• The teacher has a better theoretical and functional understanding of the educational process.
• He has a broader deeper and more effective understanding of the learning teaching process
based on scientific research. This approach is realistic and it leads to effective teaching.
• Educational psychology fills the gaps in the teachers understanding of education processes.
Corrects misconceptions so that the teacher sees education and its processes in a different
light. He sees possibilities, relations and problems.
• The teacher can identify problems in a given classroom situation and can find more
solutions to these problems.

1.7 Focus areas of Education Psychology

What the focus areas of Educational Psychology?
The focus area can also be referred to as the elements of teaching-learning situation. They are:
• The subject matter
• The learner
• The learning process
• The learning environment
• The social climate
 1. The Subject matter
The subject matter refers to the content. For the content to be learned with ease, it needs to be
selected, organized and presented in a manner that makes it learnable. The teacher should also
deliver the content in fluent and clear communication. In order to succeed in this task the teacher
should take into account the level of difficulty of content for the class level in order to ensure that
the learners assimilate the content.

2. The Learner
The leaner is a very important element in the teaching learning process. Without him, nobody is
learning and of course if nobody is learning there is no teaching. For this reason the teacher should
understand learner characteristics. The learners in any classroom situation bring differences in
personality, learning styles, experiences, level of motivation, abilities, emotional dispositions,
cognitive styles and perceptions. They bring differences in social economic backgrounds, cultural
orientation, religious and family backgrounds as well. For these reasons the teacher needs to use
appropriate psychological theories and principles in order to understand each learner and his
personality dynamics. He needs to understand learners in general and social dynamics that promote
learning for each of the learners.

3. The Learning Process

This is the process by which people acquire changes in behaviour, improve performance,
reorganize their thinking, discover new concepts and information. The learning process involves
everything that people do when they learn. From educational psychology the teacher gets to learn
how pupil think and perceive, remember and forget. The teacher gets to know the conditions that
these behaviours probable and also the conditions that inhibit them. With this knowledge the
teacher can ensure that learning has all the changes of occurring.

4. The Learning Environment

The learning environment refers to the surroundings in which the learner finds himself in and in
which the learning process takes place. The learning environment can also be defined as any factor
that affects the learner or the learning process. This refers to the facilities that tare provided for
learning. The facilities may be adequate or inadequate for the use they are put in. They may be
safe or unsafe, comfortable or uncomfortable.

5. The Social Climate

When we consider the learning environment we need to focus on the social climate as well. This
is a very important factor as it helps to facilitate learning or to hinder it. The social climate refers
to the human interactions that take place in any classroom situation between the teacher and the
learners. The social climate can be cordial or hostile. The hostilities may exist between the teacher
and the pupils. Hostilities can also take the nature of intra and inter class fights. A hostile
relationship between the school and its immediate neighborhood can exist in situations
where the school is characterized by hostile social environment learning and teaching is affected
negatively.

From the study of Educational Psychology the teacher gets to know the relationship between the
physical and social environment and their promotion or inhibition of learning.

Activity

1. Do you know the relationship between poor ventilation, noise, poor arrangement of
seats and effective learning?

2. Are you aware of the role-played attitudes, morale, emotional climate and community
values in the learning?

1.8 Influence of Research on Psychology

Psychology is not an absolute science and is often referred to as a 'Social Science' or a 'Soft Science.'
This is because it deals with human thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and as we are all aware, humans
are not always predictable and reliable. Instead, we interact with our environment in ways that alter how
we behave, how we think, and how we feel. Change one thing and the domino effect can change
everything else.

Nevertheless, research plays an extremely important role in psychology. Research helps us understand
what makes people think, feel, and act in certain ways; allows us to categorize psychological disorders in
order to understand the symptoms and impact on the individual and society; helps us to understand how
intimate relationships, development, schools, family, peers, and religion affect us as individuals and as a
society; and helps us to develop effective treatments to improve the quality of life of individuals and
groups.

In this sense, psychological research is typically used for the following:

1. Study development and external factors and the role they play on individuals' mental health
2. Study people with specific psychological disorders, symptoms, or characteristics
3. Develop tests to measure specific psychological phenomenon
4. Develop treatment approaches to improve individuals' mental health
In the following sections, you will learn about how research is conducted and the different types of
research methods used to gather information.
Types of Research

What we’ve focused on is called Experimental Methods, the true experiment. It involves randomized
assignment of subjects, standardized instructions, and at least one IV and one DV. There are several
other types of research that are not as rigorous, but that you need to be aware of.

Perhaps the simplest form of research is Naturalistic Observation.

Observing behavior in their natural environment Often involves counting behaviors, such as number of
aggressive acts, number of smiles, etc.

Advantages: Behavior is naturally occurring and is not manipulated by a researcher and it can provide
more qualitative data as opposed to merely quantitative information.

Limitations: Even the presence of someone observing can cause those being observed to alter their
behavior. Researcher’s beliefs can also alter their observations. And, it is very difficult to coordinate
multiple observers since observed behaviors must be operationally defined (e.g. what constitutes an
aggressive act)

Case Study

Following a single case, typically over an extended period of time

Can involve naturalistic observations, and include psychological testing, interviews, interviews with others,
and the application of a treatment or observation

Advantages: Can gather extensive information, both qualitative and quantitative and it can be helpful in
better understanding rare cases or very specific interventions

Limitations: Only one case is involved, severely limiting the generalization to the rest of the population.
Can be very time consuming and can involve other problems specific to the techniques used, including
researcher bias.

Survey

Everyone has probably heard of this and many of you have been involved in research involving surveys.
They are often used in the news, especially to gather viewer opinions such as during a race for president

Advantages: Can gather large amounts of information in a relatively short time, especially now with many
surveys being conducted on the internet.

Limitations: Survey data is based solely on subjects’ responses which can be inaccurate due to outright
lying, misunderstanding of the question, placebo effect, and even the manner in which the question is
asked
Correlational Studies

Correlation means relationship, so the purpose of a correlational study is to determine if a relationship

exists, what direction the relationship is, and how strong it is.

Advantages: Can assess the strength of a relationship. Is popular with lay population because it is
relatively easy to explain and understand.

Limitations: Can not make any assumptions of cause and effect (explain how third a variable can be
involved, or how the variables can influence each other).

Psychological Testing

Utilizing testing to gather information about a group or an individual

Advantages: Most tests are normed and standardized, which means they have very reliable and valid
results. Popular with businesses looking for data on employees and with difficult or specific therapy cases

Limitations: Tests which are not rigorously normed and standardized can easily result in inaccurate
results.

1.9 Summary
This lesson has introduced the learner to educational psychology by doing the following:
• Defining the concept of Educational Psychology.
• Discussing the concerns of educational Psychology.
• Identify areas of educational Psychology.
• Explaining the relevance of Educational Psychology.
• Explaining the benefits of educational Psychology.
• Discussing focus areas of educational Psychology.

1.10 Key Terms

Educational Psychology: - An applied branch of psychology, which deals with the application of
facts, principles and techniques of psychology to the solution of the problems confronting the
teacher.

Pre-scientific methods: - approaches that are not based on scientific theory or research; Methods
that have not been tested for their applicability nor validity.

Subject centered approaches: - these are approaches which make the subject or the content the
focal point of the lesson ignoring the person for whom content is intended for; the learner.
Subject matter: - the content to be learned. This could be facts, rules, principles or techniques in
any subject, topic or sub-topic.

The learning environment: - the surroundings in which he learner finds himself in and in which
the learning process takes place.

The social climate: - refers to the social environment, which is, composed of the people around
the learner.

1.10 Review Questions

1) What do we mean when we say that Educational Psychology is an applied branch of

psychology?
2) “the teacher is merely a facilitator of leaning”. Explain the significance of this statement.
3) “A person may be good in scholarship but may not necessarily be a good teacher”.
Explain
4) Show the importance of the following focus areas of Educational Psychology:
• The Learner
• The learning environment
• The learning process.

WEEK 2
2.0 Cognitive Development in Children

2.1 Jean Piaget`s Theory

Probably the most cited theory in the cognitive development in children is Jean Piaget (1896-1980).
As with all stage theories, Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development maintains that children go
through specific stages as their intellect and ability to see relationships matures. These stages are
completed in a fixed order with all children, even those in other countries. The age range, however
can vary from child to child.

Sensorimotor Stage. This stage occurs between the ages of birth and two years of age, as infants
begin to understand the information entering their sense and their ability to interact with the world.
During this stage, the child learns to manipulate objects although they fail to understand the
permanency of these objects if they are not within their current sensory perception. In other words,
once an object is removed from the child’s view, he or she is unable to understand that the object
still exists.

The major achievement during this stage is that of Object Permanency, or the ability to understand
that these objects do in fact continue to exist. This includes his ability to understand that when mom
 leaves the room, she will eventually return, resulting in an increased sense of safety and security.
Object Permanency occurs during the end of this stage and represents the child’s ability to maintain
a mental image of the object (or person) without the actual perception.

Preoperational Stage. The second stage begins after Object Permanency is achieved and occurs
between the ages of two to seven years of age. During this stage, the development of language
occurs at a rapid pace. Children learn how to interact with their environment in a more complex
manner through the use of words and images. This stage is marked by Egocentrism, or the child’s
belief that everyone sees the world the same way that she does. The fail to understand the
differences in perception and believe that inanimate objects have the same perceptions they do,
such as seeing things, feeling, hearing and their sense of touch.

A second important factor in this stage is that of Conservation, which is the ability to understand that
quantity does not change if the shape changes. In other words, if a short and wide glass of water is
poured into a tall and thin glass. Children in this stage will perceive the taller glass as having more
water due only because of it’s height. This is due to the children’s inability to understand reversibility
and to focus on only one aspect of a stimulus (called centration), such as height, as opposed to
understanding other aspects, such as glass width.

Concrete Operations Stage. Occurring between ages 7 and about 12, the third stage of cognitive
development is marked by a gradual decrease in centristic thought and the increased ability to focus
on more than one aspect of a stimulus. They can understand the concept of grouping, knowing that
a small dog and a large dog are still both dogs, or that pennies, quarters, and dollar bills are part of
the bigger concept of money.

They can only apply this new understanding to concrete objects ( those they have actually
experienced). In other words, imagined objects or those they have not seen, heard, or touched,
continue to remain somewhat mystical to these children, and abstract thinking has yet to develop.

Formal Operations Stage. In the final stage of cognitive development (from age 12 and beyond),
children begin to develop a more abstract view of the world. They are able to apply reversibility and
conservation to both real and imagined situations. They also develop an increased understanding of
the world and the idea of cause and effect. By the teenage years, they are able to develop their own
theories about the world. This stage is achieved by most children, although failure to do so has
been associated with lower intelligence.

2.2.Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

Like Piaget, Erik Erikson (1902-1994) maintained that children develop in a predetermined order. Instead
of focusing on cognitive development, however, he was interested in how children socialize and how this
affects their sense of self. Erikson’s Theory of Psychosocial Development has eight distinct stage, each
with two possible outcomes. According to the theory, successful completion of each stage results in a
healthy personality and successful interactions with others. Failure to successfully complete a stage can
result in a reduced ability to complete further stages and therefore a more unhealthy personality and
sense of self. These stages, however, can be resolved successfully at a later time.
Trust Versus Mistrust. From ages birth to one year, children begin to learn the ability to trust others
based upon the consistency of their caregiver(s). If trust develops successfully, the child gains confidence
and security in the world around him and is able to feel secure even when threatened. Unsuccessful
completion of this stage can result in an inability to trust, and therefore an sense of fear about the
inconsistent world. It may result in anxiety, heightened insecurities, and an over feeling of mistrust in the
world around them.

Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. Between the ages of one and three, children begin to assert their
independence, by walking away from their mother, picking which toy to play with, and making choices
about what they like to wear, to eat, etc. If children in this stage are encouraged and supported in their
increased independence, they become more confident and secure in their own ability to survive in the
world. If children are criticized, overly controlled, or not given the opportunity to assert themselves, they
begin to feel inadequate in their ability to survive, and may then become overly dependent upon others,
lack self-esteem, and feel a sense of shame or doubt in their own abilities.

Initiative vs. Guilt. Around age three and continuing to age six, children assert themselves more
frequently. They begin to plan activities, make up games, and initiate activities with others. If given this
opportunity, children develop a sense of initiative, and feel secure in their ability to lead others and make
decisions. Conversely, if this tendency is squelched, either through criticism or control, children develop a
sense of guilt. They may feel like a nuisance to others and will therefore remain followers, lacking in self-
initiative.

Industry vs. Inferiority. From age six years to puberty, children begin to develop a sense of pride in their
accomplishments. They initiate projects, see them through to completion, and feel good about what they
have achieved. During this time, teachers play an increased role in the child’s development. If children
are encouraged and reinforced for their initiative, they begin to feel industrious and feel confident in their
ability to achieve goals. If this initiative is not encouraged, if it is restricted by parents or teacher, then the
child begins to feel inferior, doubting his own abilities and therefore may not reach his potential.

Identity vs. Role Confusion. During adolescence, the transition from childhood to adulthood is most
important. Children are becoming more independent, and begin to look at the future in terms of career,
relationships, families, housing, etc. During this period, they explore possibilities and begin to form their
own identity based upon the outcome of their explorations. This sense of who they are can be hindered,
which results in a sense of confusion ("I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up") about themselves
and their role in the world.

Intimacy vs. Isolation. Occurring in Young adulthood, we begin to share ourselves more intimately with
others. We explore relationships leading toward longer term commitments with someone other than a
family member. Successful completion can lead to comfortable relationships and a sense of commitment,
safety, and care within a relationship. Avoiding intimacy, fearing commitment and relationships can lead
to isolation, loneliness, and sometimes depression.

Generativity vs. Stagnation. During middle adulthood, we establish our careers, settle down within a
relationship, begin our own families and develop a sense of being a part of the bigger picture. We give
back to society through raising our children, being productive at work, and becoming involved in
community activities and organizations. By failing to achieve these objectives, we become stagnant and
feel unproductive.
Ego Integrity vs. Despair. As we grow older and become senior citizens, we tend to slow down our
productivity, and explore life as a retired person. It is during this time that we contemplate our
accomplishments and are able to develop integrity if we see ourselves as leading a successful life. If we
see our lives as unproductive, feel guilt about our pasts, or feel that we did not accomplish our life goals,
we become dissatisfied with life and develop despair, often leading to depression and hopelessness

2.3 Freud's Structural and Topographical Models of Personality

Sigmund Freud's Theory is quite complex and although his writings on psychosexual development
set the groundwork for how our personalities developed, it was only one of five parts to his overall
theory of personality. He also believed that different driving forces develop during these stages
which play an important role in how we interact with the world.

Structural Model (id, ego, superego)

According to Freud, we are born with our Id. The id is an important part of our personality because
as newborns, it allows us to get our basic needs met. Freud believed that the id is based on our
pleasure principle. In other words, the id wants whatever feels good at the time, with no
consideration for the reality of the situation. When a child is hungry, the id wants food, and
therefore the child cries. When the child needs to be changed, the id cries. When the child is
uncomfortable, in pain, too hot, too cold, or just wants attention, the id speaks up until his or her
needs are met.

The id doesn't care about reality, about the needs of anyone else, only its own satisfaction. If you
think about it, babies are not real considerate of their parents' wishes. They have no care for time,
whether their parents are sleeping, relaxing, eating dinner, or bathing. When the id wants
something, nothing else is important.

Within the next three years, as the child interacts more and more with the world, the second part of
the personality begins to develop. Freud called this part the Ego. Ther ego is based on the reality
principle. The ego understands that other people have needs and desires and that sometimes
being impulsive or selfish can hurt us in the long run. Its the ego's job to meet the needs of the id,
while taking into consideration the reality of the situation.

By the age of five, or the end of the phallic stage of development, the Superego develops. The
Superego is the moral part of us and develops due to the moral and ethical restraints placed on us
by our caregivers. Many equate the superego with the conscience as it dictates our belief of right
and wrong.

In a healthy person, according to Freud, the ego is the strongest so that it can satisfy the needs of
the id, not upset the superego, and still take into consideration the reality of every situation. Not an
easy job by any means, but if the id gets too strong, impulses and self gratification take over the
 person's life. If the superego becomes to strong, the person would be driven by rigid morals, would
be judgmental and unbending in his or her interactions with the world. You'll learn how the ego
maintains control as you continue to read.

Topographical Model

Freud believed that the majority of what we experience in our lives, the underlying emotions, beliefs,
feelings, and impulses are not available to us at a conscious level. He believed that most of what
drives us is buried in our unconscious. If you remember the Oedipus and Electra Complex, they
were both pushed down into the unconscious, out of our awareness due to the extreme anxiety they
caused. While buried there, however, they continue to impact us dramatically according to Freud.

The role of the unconscious is only

one part of the model. Freud also
believed that everything we are aware
of is stored in our conscious. Our
conscious makes up a very small part
of who we are. In other words, at any
given time, we are only aware of a
very small part of what makes up our
personality; most of what we are is
buried and inaccessible.

The final part is the preconscious or

subconscious. This is the part of us
that we can access if prompted, but is
not in our active conscious. Its right
below the surface, but still buried
somewhat unless we search for it.
Information such as our telephone
number, some childhood memories, or the name of your best childhood friend is stored in the
preconscious.

Because the unconscious is so large, and because we are only aware of the very small conscious
at any given time, this theory has been likened to an iceberg, where the vast majority is buried
beneath the water's surface. The water, by the way, would represent everything that we are not
aware of, have not experienced, and that has not been integrated into our personalities, referred to
as the nonconscious.

Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) is probably the most well known theorist when it comes to the development
of personality. Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development are, like other stage theories, completed in
a predetermined sequence and can result in either successful completion or a healthy personality or can
result in failure, leading to an unhealthy personality. This theory is probably the most well known as well
as the most controversial, as Freud believed that we develop through stages based upon a particular
erogenous zone. During each stage, an unsuccessful completion means that a child becomes fixated on
that particular erogenous zone and either over– or under-indulges once he or she becomes an adult.

Oral Stage (Birth to 18 months). During the oral stage, the child if focused on oral pleasures (sucking).
Too much or too little gratification can result in an Oral Fixation or Oral Personality which is evidenced by
a preoccupation with oral activities. This type of personality may have a stronger tendency to smoke,
drink alcohol, over eat, or bite his or her nails. Personality wise, these individuals may become overly
dependent upon others, gullible, and perpetual followers. On the other hand, they may also fight these
urges and develop pessimism and aggression toward others.

Anal Stage (18 months to three years). The child’s focus of pleasure in this stage is on eliminating and
retaining feces. Through society’s pressure, mainly via parents, the child has to learn to control anal
stimulation. In terms of personality, after effects of an anal fixation during this stage can result in an
obsession with cleanliness, perfection, and control (anal retentive). On the opposite end of the spectrum,
they may become messy and disorganized (anal expulsive).

Phallic Stage (ages three to six). The pleasure zone switches to the genitals. Freud believed that during
this stage boy develop unconscious sexual desires for their mother. Because of this, he becomes rivals
with his father and sees him as competition for the mother’s affection. During this time, boys also develop
a fear that their father will punish them for these feelings, such as by castrating them. This group of
feelings is known as Oedipus Complex ( after the Greek Mythology figure who accidentally killed his
father and married his mother).

Later it was added that girls go through a similar situation, developing unconscious sexual attraction to
their father. Although Freud Strongly disagreed with this, it has been termed the Electra Complex by more
recent psychoanalysts.

According to Freud, out of fear of castration and due to the strong competition of his father, boys
eventually decide to identify with him rather than fight him. By identifying with his father, the boy develops
masculine characteristics and identifies himself as a male, and represses his sexual feelings toward his
mother. A fixation at this stage could result in sexual deviancies (both overindulging and avoidance) and
weak or confused sexual identity according to psychoanalysts.

Latency Stage (age six to puberty). It’s during this stage that sexual urges remain repressed and children
interact and play mostly with same sex peers.

Genital Stage (puberty on). The final stage of psychosexual development begins at the start of puberty
when sexual urges are once again awakened. Through the lessons learned during the previous stages,
adolescents direct their sexual urges onto opposite sex peers, with the primary focus of pleasure is the
genitals.
2.4 Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development

Although it has been questioned as to whether it applied equally to different genders and different
cultures, Kohlberg’s (1973) stages of moral development is the most widely cited. It breaks our
development of morality into three levels, each of which is divided further into two stages:

Pre-conventional Level (up to age nine):

~Self Focused Morality~

1. Morality is defined as obeying rules and avoiding negative consequences. Children in this stage see
rules set, typically by parents, as defining moral law.

2. That which satisfies the child’s needs is seen as good and moral.

Conventional Level (age nine to adolescence):

~Other Focused Morality~

3. Children begin to understand what is expected of them by their parents, teacher, etc. Morality is seen
as achieving these expectations.

4. Fulfilling obligations as well as following expectations are seen as moral law for children in this stage.

Post-conventional Level (adulthood):

~Higher Focused Morality~

5. As adults, we begin to understand that people have different opinions about morality and that rules and
laws vary from group to group and culture to culture. Morality is seen as upholding the values of your
group or culture.

6. Understanding your own personal beliefs allow adults to judge themselves and others based upon
higher levels of morality. In this stage what is right and wrong is based upon the circumstances
surrounding an action. Basics of morality are the foundation with independent thought playing an
important role.

WEEK 3

3.0 LEARNING

3.1 Introduction
In lesson one; we have noted that Educational Psychology is a science that deals with learning
and teaching. In this lesson (I have discussed) the following:
• The relevance of learning
 • Definition of learning
• Behaviorism and concepts that are applicable to the classroom situation.
• Modeling and how to apply some of the concepts in the classroom situation
• Insightful learning and its application
• The information processing model and its application

Objectives

By the end of this lesson the teacher should be able to:

• Discuss the relevance of learning.

• Define learning
• Discuss various types of learning.
• Bring out the application of the concepts learned from the types of learning in a classroom
situation.

3.1.2 The Relevance of Learning

This is a question of why we should be concerned about learning. When we hear about leaning
most of us think about studying and school. We think about subjects for example mathematics,
languages, geography, history, biology and so one. But we need to know that learning is not limited
to school subjects, (Woolfolk, 1998).

We need to understand that all leaning is intended to enable the person to adopt completely in
life situations:
• To think and solve problems
• Fit well in the community.
• Perceive the world in a realistic manner.
This actually means that learning is not limited to the formal school settings. There are many
informal settings where learning takes place. For example:
• At home
• In the street corners
• In the fields
• In religious institutions
• Through the mass media

From these places children learn many unintentional things.

Even when children are in school they learn many unintentional things for example:
• They acquire certain attitudes positive or negative
• They learn something about their capabilities.
• Their limitations
• Their school
• Their teachers
• The subjects

3.2 What is the teacher’s role in the learning process?

The teacher is very important in both the formal and non-formal settings within the school. So
although the teacher‟s primary role is to deliver content knowledge he can influence the student‟s
life in many other ways for example:
• He can provide experiences that contribute to the acquisition of behavior patterns that are
desirable and necessary for competent living.
• He should be the facilitator of learning. As a facilitator he should provide an enabling
environment for learning.

3.3 Definition of the Term Learning

What is learning?
The behaviorists define learning as an enduring change in behavior potentiality, which occurs as
a result of reinforced practice.

Cognitive psychologists define learning as the mental activity by means of which knowledge,
skills, habits, attitudes and ideas are acquired, retained and utilized, resulting in the progressive
adaptation and modification of behavior and conduct.

Learning can be defined as the process leading to relatively permanent behavioral change or potential
behavioral change. In other words, as we learn, we alter the way we perceive our environment, the way
we interpret the incoming stimuli, and therefore the way we interact, or behave. John B. W atson (1878-
1958) was the first to study how the process of learning affects our behavior, and he formed the school of
thought known as Behaviorism. The central idea behind behaviorism is that only observable behaviors
are worthy of research since other abstraction such as a person’s mood or thoughts are too subjective.
This belief was dominant in psychological research in the United Stated for a good 50 years.

Perhaps the most well known Behaviorist is B. F. Skinner (1904-1990). Skinner followed much of
Watson’s research and findings, but believed that internal states could influence behavior just as external
stimuli. He is considered to be a Radical Behaviorist because of this belief, although nowadays it is
believed that both internal and external stimuli influence our behavior.
Behavioral Psychology is basically interested in how our behavior results from the stimuli both in the
environment and within ourselves. They study, often in minute detail, the behaviors we exhibit while
controlling for as many other variables as possible. Often a grueling process, but results have helped us
learn a great deal about our behaviors, the effect our environment has on us, how we learn new
behaviors, and what motivates us to change or remain the same.

3.4 Types of Learning

The types of learning are derived from the theories of learning. In this lesson we shall focus on
the following types of learning.
• Classical conditioning
• Operant/instrumental conditioning

Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning. One important type of learning, Classical Conditioning, was actually discovered
accidentally by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936). Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who discovered this
phenomenon while doing research on digestion. His research was aimed at better understanding the
digestive patterns in dogs.

During his experiments, he would put meat powder in the mouths of dogs who had tubes inserted into
various organs to measure bodily responses. What he discovered was that the dogs began to salivate
before the meat powder was presented to them. Then, the dogs began to salivate as soon as the person
feeding them would enter the room. He soon began to gain interest in this phenomenon and abandoned
his digestion research in favor of his now famous Classical Conditioning study.

Basically, the findings support the idea that we develop responses to certain stimuli that are not naturally
occurring. When we touch a hot stove, our reflex pulls our hand back. It does this instinctually, no learning
involved. It is merely a survival instinct. But why now do some people, after getting burned, pull their
hands back even when the stove is not turned on? Pavlov discovered that we make associations which
cause us to generalize our response to one stimuli onto a neutral stimuli it is paired with. In other words,
hot burner = ouch, stove = burner, therefore, stove = ouch.

Pavlov began pairing a bell sound with the meat powder and found that even when the meat powder was
not presented, the dog would eventually begin to salivate after hearing the bell. Since the meat powder
naturally results in salivation, these two variables are called the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and the
unconditioned response (UCR), respectively. The bell and salivation are not naturally occurring; the dog
was conditioned to respond to the bell. Therefore, the bell is considered the conditioned stimulus (CS),
and the salivation to the bell, the conditioned response (CR).

Many of our behaviors today are shaped by the pairing of stimuli. Have you ever noticed that certain
stimuli, such as the smell of a cologne or perfume, a certain song, a specific day of the year, results in
fairly intense emotions? It's not that the smell or the song are the cause of the emotion, but rather what
that smell or song has been paired with...perhaps an ex-boyfriend or ex-girlfriend, the death of a loved
one, or maybe the day you met you current husband or wife. We make these associations all the time and
often don’t realize the power that these connections or pairings have on us. But, in fact, we have been
classically conditioned.
Terminology used in classical conditioning
• The food
The food given to the dog before the conditioning process is referred to as the natural
stimulus, because under natural conditions the dog will elicit salivation on being presented
with it.
• The natural response
Salivation is a natural response because naturally, salivation is elicited by the presentation
of food.
• The neutral stimulus
Before the conditioning process, the bell or tone is called the neutral stimulus because it
has no relationship whatsoever with salivation. Dogs will not normally salivate as a result
of hearing a bell.
• Conditioning stimulus
The bell during and after conditioning is called the conditioned stimulus because it acquires
the power to elicit salivation by its association with the food.
• Conditioned response
Salivation, because the dog has leant to associate the tone or bell with food is called
conditioned response. It is the learned response.

Principles of Classical Conditioning

1. The Principle of Reinforcement

When the dog is put in the experimental situation and the tone is sounded and then food is given
this constitutes reinforcement. The food is pleasant event presented to the dog and it constitutes a
positive reinforcement.

2. The principle of extinction

Extinction refers to the dying of the learned response, which occurs when reinforcement is
withdrawn. This occurs when a dog has been conditioned to associate the tone or bell with
presentation of food and after some time the food is not delivered. When the experimenter rings
the bell or sounds the tone, without given the dog food the learned behavior disappears.

Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning (sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning) is a method of

learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant
conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior.
Operant conditioning was coined by behaviorist B.F. Skinner, which is why you may
occasionally hear it referred to as Skinnerian conditioning. As a behaviorist, Skinner believed
that internal thoughts and motivations could not be used to explain behavior. Instead, he
suggested, we should look only at the external, observable causes of human behavior.

Skinner used the term operant to refer to any "active behavior that operates upon the
environment to generate consequences" (1953). In other words, Skinner's theory explained how
we acquire the range of learned behaviors we exhibit each and every day.

Examples of Operant Conditioning

We can find examples of operant conditioning at work all around us. Consider the case of
children completing homework to earn a reward from a parent or teacher, or employees finishing
projects to receive praise or promotions.

In these examples, the promise or possibility of rewards causes an increase in behavior, but
operant conditioning can also be used to decrease a behavior. The removal of an undesirable
outcome or the use of punishment can be used to decrease or prevent undesirable behaviors. For
example, a child may be told they will lose recess privileges if they talk out of turn in class. This
potential for punishment may lead to a decrease in disruptive behaviors.

Components of Operant Conditioning

Some key concepts in operant conditioning:

Reinforcement is any event that strengthens or increases the behavior it follows. There are two
kinds of reinforcers:

1. Positive reinforcers are favorable events or outcomes that are presented after the
behavior. In situations that reflect positive reinforcement, a response or behavior is
strengthened by the addition of something, such as praise or a direct reward.
2. Negative reinforcers involve the removal of an unfavorable events or outcomes after the
display of a behavior. In these situations, a response is strengthened by the removal of
something considered unpleasant.

In both of these cases of reinforcement, the behavior increases.

Punishment, on the other hand, is the presentation of an adverse event or outcome that causes a
decrease in the behavior it follows. There are two kinds of punishment:

1. Positive punishment, sometimes referred to as punishment by application, involves the

presentation of an unfavorable event or outcome in order to weaken the response it follows.
 2. Negative punishment, also known as punishment by removal, occurs when an favorable
event or outcome is removed after a behavior occurs.

In both of these cases of punishment, the behavior decreases.

Reinforcement

The term reinforce means to strengthen, and is used in psychology to refer to anything stimulus
which strengthens or increases the probability of a specific response. For example, if you want your
dog to sit on command, you may give him a treat every time he sits for you. The dog will eventually
come to understand that sitting when told to will result in a treat. This treat is reinforcing because he
likes it and will result in him sitting when instructed to do so.

This is a simple description of a reinforcer (Skinner, 1938), the treat, which increases the response,
sitting. We all apply reinforcers everyday, most of the time without even realizing we are doing it.
You may tell your child "good job" after he or she cleans their room; perhaps you tell your partner
how good he or she look when they dress up; or maybe you got a raise at work after doing a great
job on a project. All of these things increase the probability that the same response will be repeated.

There are four types of reinforcement: positive, negative, punishment, and extinction. We’ll discuss
each of these and give examples.

Positive Reinforcement. The examples above describe what is referred to as positive

reinforcement. Think of it as adding something in order to increase a response. For example, adding
a treat will increase the response of sitting; adding praise will increase the chances of your child
cleaning his or her room. The most common types of positive reinforcement or praise and rewards,
and most of us have experienced this as both the giver and receiver.

Negative Reinforcement. Think of negative reinforcement as taking something negative away in

order to increase a response. Imagine a teenager who is nagged by his mother to take out the
garbage week after week. After complaining to his friends about the nagging, he finally one day
performs the task and to his amazement, the nagging stops. The elimination of this negative
stimulus is reinforcing and will likely increase the chances that he will take out the garbage next
week.

Punishment. Punishment refers to adding something aversive in order to decrease a behavior. The
most common example of this is disciplining (e.g. spanking) a child for misbehaving. The reason we
do this is because the child begins to associate being punished with the negative behavior. The
punishment is not liked and therefore to avoid it, he or she will stop behaving in that manner.

Extinction. When you remove something in order to decrease a behavior, this is called extinction.
You are taking something away so that a response is decreased.

Research has found positive reinforcement is the most powerful of any of these. Adding a positive
to increase a response not only works better, but allows both parties to focus on the positive
aspects of the situation. Punishment, when applied immediately following the negative behavior can
be effective, but results in extinction when it is not applied consistently. Punishment can also invoke
other negative responses such as anger and resentment.

Reinforcement Schedules

Know that we understand the four types of reinforcement, we need to understand how and when
these are applied (Ferster & Skinner, 1957). For example, do we apply the positive reinforcement
every time a child does something positive? Do we punish a child every time he does something
negative? To answer these questions, you need to understand the schedules of reinforcement.

Applying one of the four types of reinforcement every time the behavior occurs (getting a raise after
every successful project or getting spanked after every negative behavior) is called a Continuous
Schedule. Its continuous because the application occurs after every project, behavior, etc. This is
the best approach when using punishment. Inconsistencies in the punishment of children often
results in confusion and resentment. A problem with this schedule is that we are not always present
when a behavior occurs or may not be able to apply the punishment.

There are two types of continuous schedules:

Fixed Ratio. A fixed ratio schedule refers to applying the reinforcement after a specific number of
behaviors. Spanking a child if you have to ask him three times to clean his room is an example. The
problem is that the child (or anyone for that matter) will begin to realize that he can get away with
two requests before he has to act. Therefore, the behavior does not tend to change until right before
the preset number.

Fixed Interval. Applying the reinforcer after a specific amount of time is referred to as a fixed
interval schedule. An example might be getting a raise every year and not in between. A major
problem with this schedule is that people tend to improve their performance right before the time
period expires so as to "look good" when the review comes around.

When reinforcement is applied on an irregular basis, they are called variable schedules.

Variable Ratio. This refers to applying a reinforcer after a variable number of responses. Variable
ratio schedules have been found to work best under many circumstances and knowing an example
will explain why. Imagine walking into a casino and heading for the slot machines. After the third
coin you put in, you get two back. Two more and you get three back. Another five coins and you
receive two more back. How difficult is it to stop playing?

Variable Interval. Reinforcing someone after a variable amount of time is the final schedule. If you
have a boss who checks your work periodically, you understand the power of this schedule.
Because you don’t know when the next ‘check-up’ might come, you have to be working hard at all
times in order to be ready.
In this sense, the variable schedules are more powerful and result in more consistent behaviors.
This may not be as true for punishment since consistency in the application is so important, but for
 all other types of reinforcement they tend to result in stronger responses.

WEEK 4

4.0 Introduction to Sensation and Perception

Although intimately related, sensation and perception play two complimentary but different roles in
how we interpret our world. Sensation refers to the process of sensing our environment through
touch, taste, sight, sound, and smell. This information is sent to our brains in raw form where
perception comes into play. Perception is the way we interpret these sensations and therefore
make sense of everything around us.

This chapter will describe various theories related to these two concepts and explain the important
role they play in the field of psychology. Through this chapter, you will gain a better idea of how our
senses work and how this information is organized and interpreted.

4.1 Sensation

Sensation is the process by which our senses gather information and send it to the brain. A large
amount of information is being sensed at any one time such as room temperature, brightness of the
lights, someone talking, a distant train, or the smell of perfume. With all this information coming into
our senses, the majority of our world never gets recognized. We don't notice radio waves, x-rays, or
the microscopic parasites crawling on our skin. We don't sense all the odors around us or taste
every individual spice in our gourmet dinner. We only sense those things we are able too since we
don't have the sense of smell like a bloodhound or the sense of sight like a hawk; our thresholds are
different from these animals and often even from each other.

Absolute Threshold

The absolute threshold is the point where something becomes noticeable to our senses. It is the
softest sound we can hear or the slightest touch we can feel. Anything less than this goes
unnoticed. The absolute threshold is therefore the point at which a stimuli goes from undetectable
to detectable to our senses.

Difference Threshold

Once a stimulus becomes detectable to us, how do we recognize if this stimulus changes. When
we notice the sound of the radio in the other room, how do we notice when it becomes louder. It's
conceivable that someone could be turning it up so slightly that the difference is undetectable. The
difference threshold is the amount of change needed for us to recognize that a change has
occurred. This change is referred to as the Just Noticeable Difference.

This difference is not absolute, however. Imagine holding a five pound weight and one pound was
 added. Most of us would notice this difference. But what if we were holding a fifty pound weight?
Would we notice if another pound were added? The reason many of us would not is because the
change required to detect a difference has to represent a percentage. In the first scenario, one
pound would increase the weight by 20%, in the second, that same weight would add only an
additional 2%. This theory, named after its original observer, is referred to as Weber's Law.

Signal Detection Theory

Have you ever been in a crowded room with lots of people talking? Situations like that can make it
difficult to focus on any particular stimulus, like the conversation we are having with a friend. We
are often faced with the daunting task of focusing our attention on certain things while at the same
time attempting to ignore the flood of information entering our senses. When we do this, we are
making a determination as to what is important to sense and what is background noise. This
concept is referred to as signal detection because we attempt detect what we want to focus on and
ignore or minimize everything else.

Sensory Adaptation

The last concept refers to stimuli which has become redundant or remains unchanged for an
extended period of time. Ever wonder why we notice certain smells or sounds right away and then
after a while they fade into the background? Once we adapt to the perfume or the ticking of the
clock, we stop recognizing it. This process of becoming less sensitive to unchanging stimulus is
referred to as sensory adaptation, after all, if it doesn't change, why do we need to constantly sense
it?

4.2 Perception

As mentioned in the introduction, perception refers to interpretation of what we take in through our
senses. The way we perceive our environment is what makes us different from other animals and
different from each other. In this section, we will discuss the various theories on how our sensation are
organized and interpreted, and therefore, how we make sense of what we see, hear, taste, touch, and
smell.

Gestalt Principles of Grouping

The German word "Gestalt" roughly translates to "whole" or "form," and the Gestalt psychologist's
sincerely believed that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In order to interpret what we receive
through our senses, they theorized that we attempt to organize this information into certain groups. This
allows us to interpret the information completely without unneeded repetition. For example, when you
see one dot, you perceive it as such, but when you see five dots together, you group them together by
saying a "row of dots." Without this tendency to group our perceptions, that same row would be seen as
"dot, dot, dot, dot, dot," taking both longer to process and reducing our perceptive ability. The Gestalt
principles of grouping include four types: similarity, proximity, continuity, and closure.
Similarity refers to our tendency to group things together based upon how similar to each other they are.
In the first figure above, we tend to see two rows of red dots and two rows of black dots. The dots are
grouped according to similar color. In the next figure, we tend to perceive three columns of two lines
each rather than six different lines. The lines are grouped together because of how close they are to
each other, or their proximity to one another. Continuity refers to our tendency to see patterns and
therefore perceive things as belonging together if they form some type of continuous pattern. In the third
figure, although merely a series of dots, it begins to look like an "X" as we perceive the upper left side as
continuing all the way to the lower right and the lower left all the way to the upper right. Finally, in the
fourth figure, we demonstrate closure, or our tendency to complete familiar objects that have gaps in
them. Even at first glance, we perceive a circle and a square.

Maintaining Perceptual Constancy

Imagine if every time an object changed we had to completely reprocess it. The next time you walk
toward a building, you would have to re-evaluate the size of the building with each step, because we all
know as we get closer, everything gets bigger. The building which once stood only several inches is now
somehow more than 50 feet tall.

Luckily, this doesn't happen. Due to our ability to maintain constancy in our perceptions, we see that
building as the same height no matter what distance it is. Perceptual constancy refers to our ability to
see things differently without having to reinterpret the object's properties. There are typically three
constancies discussed, including size, shape, brightness.

Size constancy refers to our ability to see objects as maintaining the same size even when our distance
from them makes things appear larger or smaller. This holds true for all of our senses. As we walk away
from our radio, the song appears to get softer. We understand, and perceive it as being just as loud as
before. The difference being our distance from what we are sensing.

Everybody has seen a plate shaped in the form of a circle. When we see that same plate from an angle,
however, it looks more like an ellipse. Shape constancy allows us to perceive that plate as still being a
circle even though the angle from which we view it appears to distort the shape.

Brightness constancy refers to our ability to recognize that color remains the same regardless of how it
looks under different levels of light. That deep blue shirt you wore to the beach suddenly looks black
when you walk indoors. Without color constancy, we would be constantly re-interpreting color and would
be amazed at the miraculous conversion our clothes undertake.

Perceiving Distance
 We determine distance using two different cues: monocular and binocular. Monocular cues are those
cues which can be seen using only one eye. They include size; texture, overlap, shading, height, and
clarity.

Size refers to the fact that larger images are perceived as closer to us, especially if the two images are of
the same object. The texture of objects tend to become smoother as the object gets farther away,
suggesting that more detailed textured objects are closer. Due to overlap, those objects covering part of
another object is perceived as closer. The shading or shadows of objects can give a clue to their
distance, allowing closer objects to cast longer shadows which will overlap objects which are farther
away. Objects which are closer to the bottom of our visual field are seen as closer to us due to our
perception of the horizon, where higher (height) means farther away. Similar to texture, objects tend to
get blurry as they get farther away, therefore, clearer or more crisp images tend to be perceived as closer
(clarity).

Binocular cues refer to those depth cues in which both eyes are needed to perceive. There are two
important binocular cues; convergence and retinal disparity. Convergence refers to the fact that the
closer an object, the more inward our eyes need to turn in order to focus. The farther our eyes converge,
the closer an object appears to be. Since our eyes see two images which are then sent to our brains for
interpretation, the distance between these two images, or their retinal disparity, provides another cue
regarding the distance of the object.

4.3 Memory
This chapter focuses on various states of mind, how our memory works, why we forget things, the
debate over intelligence and intelligence testing, and the power of the mind to control states of
relaxation and hypnosis. Obviously there are a lot of things, both internal and external, that can
affect our current state. Emotions, noise, stress, and of course the use of alcohol and drugs all
come to mind. All of these things should be taken into consideration when learning about states of
mind and how to control them.

Human memory, like memory in a computer, allows us to store information for later use. In order to do this,
however, both the computer and we need to master three processes involved in memory. The first is called
encoding; the process we use to transform information so that it can be stores. For a computer this means
transferring data into 1’s and 0’s. For us, it means transforming the data into a meaningful form such as an
association with an existing memory, an image, or a sound.

Next is the actual storage, which simply means holding onto the information. For this to take place, the
computer must physically write the 1’ and 0’s onto the hard drive. It is very similar for us because it means that
a physiological change must occur for the memory to be stored. The final process is called retrieval, which is
bringing the memory out of storage and reversing the process of encoding. In other words, return the
information to a form similar to what we stored.

The major difference between humans and computers in terms of memory has to do with how the information
is stored. For the most part, computers have only two types; permanent storage and permanent deletion.
Humans, on the other hand are more complex in that we have three distinct memory storage capabilities (not
including permanent deletion). The first is Sensory memory, referring to the information we receive through
the senses. This memory is very brief lasting only as much as a few seconds.

Short Term Memory (STM) takes over when the information in our sensory memory is transferred to our
consciousness or our awareness (Engle, Cantor, & Carullo, 1993; Laming, 1992). This is the information that
is currently active such as reading this page, talking to a friend, or writing a paper. Short term memory can
definitely last longer than sensory memory (up to 30 seconds or so), but it still has a very limited capacity.
According to research, we can remember approximately 5 to 9 (7 +/- 2) bits of information in our short term
memory at any given time (Miller, 1956)

If STM lasts only up to 30 seconds, how do we ever get any work done? Wouldn't we start to lose focus or
concentrate about twice every minute? This argument prompted researchers to look at a second phase of
STM that is now referred to as Working Memory. Working Memory is the process that takes place when we
continually focus on material for longer than STM alone will allow (Baddeley, 1992).

What happens when our short term memory is full and another bit of information enters? Displacement means
that the new information will push out part of the old information. Suddenly someone says the area code for
that phone number and almost instantly you forget the last two digits of the number. We can further sharpen
our short-term memory skills, however, by mastering chunking and using rehearsal (which allows us to
visualize, hear, say, or even see the information repeatedly and through different senses).

Finally, there is long term memory (LTM), which is most similar to the permanent storage of a computer.
Unlike the other two types, LTM is relatively permanent and practically unlimited in terms of its storage
capacity. It’s been argued that we have enough space in our LTM to memorize every phone number in the U.S.
and still function normally in terms of remembering what we do now. Obviously, we don’t use even a fraction of
this storage space.

There are several subcategories of LTM. First, memories for facts, life events, and information about our
environment are stored in declarative memory. This includes semantic memory, factual knowledge like the
meaning of words, concepts, and our ability to do math (Lesch & Pollatsek, 1993, Rohrer et al., 1995) and
episodic memory, memories for events and situations (Goldringer, 1996; Kliegel & Lindberger, 1993). The
second subcategory is often not thought of as memory because it refers to internal, rather than external
information. When you brush your teeth, write your name, or scratch your eye, you do this with ease because
you previously stored these movements and can recall them with ease. This is referred to as nondeclarative
(or implicit) memory. These are memories we have stored due to extensive practice, conditioning, or habits.

Why We Remember What We Remember

Short Term Memory. There are typically six reasons why information is stored in our short term memory.

1. primacy effect - information that occurs first is typically remembered better than information occurring
later. When given a list of words or numbers, the first word or number is usually remembered due to
rehearsing this more than other information.
2. recency effect - often the last bit of information is remembered better because not as much time has
past; time which results in forgetting.
 3. distinctiveness - if something stands out from information around it, it is often remembered better.
Any distinctive information is easier to remember than that which is similar, usual, or mundane.
4. frequency effect - rehearsal, as stated in the first example, results in better memory. Remember
trying to memorize a formula for your math class. The more you went over it, the better you knew it.
5. associations - when we associate or attach information to other information it becomes easier to
remember. Many of us use this strategy in our professions and everyday life in the form of acronyms.
6. reconstruction - sometimes we actually fill in the blanks in our memory. In other words, when trying
to get a complete picture in our minds, we will make up the missing parts, often without any realization
that this is occurring.

Long Term Memory. Information that passes from our short term to our long term memory is typically that
which has some significance attached to it. Imagine how difficult it would be to forget the day you graduated,
or your first kiss. Now think about how easy it is to forget information that has no significance; the color of the
car you parked next to at the store or what shirt you wore last Thursday. When we process information, we
attach significance to it and information deemed important is transferred to our long term memory.

There are other reasons information is transferred. As we all know, sometimes our brains seem full of
insignificant facts. Repetition plays a role in this, as we tend to remember things more the more they are
rehearsed. Other times, information is transferred because it is somehow attached to something significant.
You may remember that it was a warm day when you bought your first car. The temperature really plays no
important role, but is attached to the memory of buying your first car.

Forgetting

You can’t talk about remembering without mentioning its counterpart. It seems that as much as we do
remember, we forget even more. Forgetting isn’t really all that bad, and is in actuality, a pretty natural
phenomenon. Imagine if you remembered every minute detail of every minute or every hour, of every day
during your entire life, no matter how good, bad, or insignificant. Now imagine trying to sift through it all for the
important stuff like where you left your keys.

There are many reasons we forget things and often these reasons overlap. Like in the example above, some
information never makes it to LTM. Other times, the information gets there, but is lost before it can attach itself
to our LTM. Other reasons include decay, which means that information that is not used for an extended period
of time decays or fades away over time. It is possible that we are physiologically preprogrammed to eventually
erase data that no longer appears pertinent to us.

Failing to remember something doesn’t mean the information is gone forever though. Sometimes the
information is there but for various reasons we can’t access it. This could be caused by distractions going on
around us or possibly due to an error of association (e.g., believing something about the data which is not
correct causing you to attempt to retrieve information that is not there). There is also the phenomenon of
repression, which means that we purposefully (albeit subconsciously) push a memory out of reach because we
do not want to remember the associated feelings. This is often sited in cases where adults ‘forget’ incidences
of sexual abuse when they were children. And finally, amnesia, which can be psychological or physiological in
origin.
Why students forget the content they learn
Educational experience show the some things are remembered well, others are „there‟ but sometimes
difficult to find. While still others things are completely forgotten.
A good teacher should know why this happens so that he can try and create conditions that promote
memory all the time. Different theories give different explanations as to what causes forgetting. I have
discussed the behavioristic theory and the cognitive theory.

3.4 The Behavioristic theory

The behaviorists developed the following explanations:
The disuse model and the interference model.

3.5 The Disuse Theory

This theory submits that people forget the S-R connections or associations made previously because
they grow rusty or fade away through lack of use. This concept can be explained through the Pavlovian
or Skinnerian experiments.

In Pavlov,s classical conditioning it refers to the withdrawal of reinforcement. If the food, which served
as the reinforcer to keep the association between the bell and the food alive, was removed, extinction
occurred. If the dog was subjected to this state for long i.e. the bell ringing without the accompaniment
of the food then the stimulus-response connections were lost.

In skinners operant conditioning if the rat continued to press the bar without the accompaniment of food
as a reinforcer this bar pressing behaviour disappeared because the connections or associations between
it and food was lost. This information can be applied in the classroom situation for the purpose of helping
the teacher to understand the dynamics involved in forgetting and remembering. Just like Pavlov‟s dogs
and skinners rats would forget the S-R associations they had learned, pupils too forget what they learn
under similar principles. To promote remembering the teacher needs to ensure that learned material is
rehearsed under conditions or reinforcement.

3.6 Rehearsal

Learners who do not rehearse content often lose the S-R connection they had learned.
Rehearsing refers to the constant repetition and review of the content. For rehearsal to benefit learners,
the teacher should give them time and place to do their rehearsal (study time).The teacher should also
ensure that the learners rehearse content, which is meaningful to them, because there is tendency to
forget content if it is meaningless. There is the need to show learners how the content they are learning
is related to what was learned earlier. These activities help to stamp in the S-R connections already
learned keeping them alive and hence minimizing forgetting.

3.7 Reinforcement
Remembering is best promoted if learning is reinforced. Withdrawal of reinforcement causes extinction,
which is the disappearance of the learned response. If a learner displays the desirable
behaviour without being reinforced, forgetting occurs. The teacher should never lose sight of the fact
that reinforcement strengthens behaviour and makes it more probable. Making it mare probable means
that behaviour is given the chance to occur again.

3.8 Interference Model

This is another behaviorist explanation of forgetting. According to this model learners forget content
that they learn because other learning‟s interfere For example learners will forget old content because
new content interferes with its memory. When old content interferes with the memory of new content,
we call this proactive inhibition. If new content with the memory of new content, we call this proactive
inhibition. If new content interferes with the memory of old content we refer to this as retroactive
inhibition.

3.9 Proactive Inhibition

Proactive inhibition is the forgetting that occurs when old information makes it difficult to remember
new information. For example a teacher gives learners a list of words and asks them to study it. Call it
list A. The teacher does not test for the memory of this list at this time. He gives the learners another
list of words (List B) not the first (List A).
What normally happens is that as the learners try to recall words on the second lis.t they experience
some mix up. They remember some words and they forget others. At the same time some of the words
from „list A‟ are recalled. The words from „list A‟ are said to interfere with the recall of list B. this
interfere is called proactive inhibition.

3.10 Retroactive inhibition

Retroactive inhibition occurs when new learning‟s make it difficult to remember old learning‟s. For
example, this occurs if a teacher gives learners lists of words to learn.

First list A and then tests them on the recall of list A. as the learners try list B will be recalled because
the memory of B interferes with the memory of A. this interference is retroactive because later memory
acts backwards to interfere with earlier memory.

Cognitive Explanation

According to the cognitive theory. The key to memory is the way in which the material is coded and
organized as it is stored in the long-term memory bank. Something important happens at every stage of
information processing to either promote memory or forgetting.
At the short-term sensory storage the key to memory at this level is attention. For information to be
retained in memory it should be focused on and rehearsed briefly so as to be registered for further
processing. Any information that is not attended to is lost or forgotten.

3.11 Application
The teacher should take note that both retroactive and proactive interference are greater when the items
in memory are similar.
 • Make new learning‟s clear by bringing out the similarities and differences between the old and
new information.
• A learning task must be practiced until it is mastered and even over learned. The principle is
that partially learned tasks interfere more with other partially learned tasks.
• Over learning means going beyond the mastery of a task and ensuring that the content is at the
“finger tips” this means that content can be recalled with ease.

WEEK 4

4.0 Remembering and Forgetting

4.1 Introduction
The classroom experiences show that learners forget the information they acquire or learn.
The teacher is a witness that the majority of learners in most of the tests taken hardly ever get full marks.
The explanation for this phenomenon is that between the time material is learned or even revised and
the time the test is taken some information is lost through forgetting.
In this lesson I have discussed why forgetting occurs as well as how memory can be improved. I have
drawn heavily from the behaviorism and information processing theory.

Objectives

By the end of the lesson the student will be able to:

• Explain why forgetting occurs using the disuse theory.

• Describe two types of interferences that cause forgetting.
• Explain the importance of attention
• Discuss the roles played by the rehearsal in promoting memory.
• Discuss various methods learners could use to improve memory.

4.2 Why students forget the content they learn

Educational experience show the some things are remembered well, others are „there‟ but sometimes
difficult to find. While still others things are completely forgotten.
A good teacher should know why this happens so that he can try and create conditions that promote
memory all the time. Different theories give different explanations as to what causes forgetting. I have
discussed the behavioristic theory and the cognitive theory.
4.3. The Behavioristic theory
The behaviorists developed the following explanations:
The disuse model and the interference model.

4.4 The Disuse Theory

This theory submits that people forget the S-R connections or associations made previously because
they grow rusty or fade away through lack of use. This concept can be explained through the Pavlovian
or Skinnerian experiments.

In Pavlov,s classical conditioning it refers to the withdrawal of reinforcement. If the food, which served
as the reinforcer to keep the association between the bell and the food alive, was removed, extinction
occurred. If the dog was subjected to this state for long i.e. the bell ringing without the accompaniment
of the food then the stimulus-response connections were lost.

In skinners operant conditioning if the rat continued to press the bar without the accompaniment of food
as a reinforcer this bar pressing behaviour disappeared because the connections or associations between
it and food was lost. This information can be applied in the classroom situation for the purpose of helping
the teacher to understand the dynamics involved in forgetting and remembering. Just like Pavlov‟s dogs
and skinners rats would forget the S-R associations they had learned, pupils too forget what they learn
under similar principles. To promote remembering the teacher needs to ensure that learned material is
rehearsed under conditions or reinforcement.

4.5 Rehearsal

Learners who do not rehearse content often lose the S-R connection they had learned.
Rehearsing refers to the constant repetition and review of the content. For rehearsal to benefit learners,
the teacher should give them time and place to do their rehearsal (study time).The teacher should also
ensure that the learners rehearse content, which is meaningful to them, because there is tendency to
forget content if it is meaningless. There is the need to show learners how the content they are learning
is related to what was learned earlier. These activities help to stamp in the S-R connections already
learned keeping them alive and hence minimizing forgetting.

4.6 Reinforcement
Remembering is best promoted if learning is reinforced. Withdrawal of reinforcement causes extinction,
which is the disappearance of the learned response. If a learner displays the desirable behaviour without
being reinforced, forgetting occurs. The teacher should never lose sight of the fact that reinforcement
strengthens behaviour and makes it more probable. Making it mare probable means that behaviour is
given the chance to occur again.

4.7 Interference Model

This is another behaviorist explanation of forgetting. According to this model learners forget content
that they learn because other learning‟s interfere For example learners will forget old content because
new content interferes with its memory. When old content interferes with the memory of new content,
we call this proactive inhibition. If new content with the memory of new content, we call this proactive
inhibition. If new content interferes with the memory of old content we refer to this as retroactive
inhibition.

4.8 Proactive Inhibition

Proactive inhibition is the forgetting that occurs when old information makes it difficult to remember
new information. For example a teacher gives learners a list of words and asks them to study it. Call it
list A. The teacher does not test for the memory of this list at this time. He gives the learners another
list of words (List B) not the first (List A).
What normally happens is that as the learners try to recall words on the second lis.t they experience
some mix up. They remember some words and they forget others. At the same time some of the words
from „list A‟ are recalled. The words from „list A‟ are said to interfere with the recall of list B. this
interfere is called proactive inhibition.

4.9 Retroactive inhibition

Retroactive inhibition occurs when new learning‟s make it difficult to remember old learning‟s. For
example, this occurs if a teacher gives learners lists of words to learn.

First list A and then tests them on the recall of list A. as the learners try list B will be recalled because
the memory of B interferes with the memory of A. this interference is retroactive because later memory
acts backwards to interfere with earlier memory.

4.10 Application
The teacher should take note that both retroactive and proactive interference are greater when the
items in memory are similar.
• Make new learning‟s clear by bringing out the similarities and differences between the old and
new information.
• A learning task must be practiced until it is mastered and even over learned. The principle is
that partially learned tasks interfere more with other partially learned tasks.
• Over learning means going beyond the mastery of a task and ensuring that the content is at the
“finger tips” this means that content can be recalled with ease.

4.11 Cognitive Explanation

According to the cognitive theory. The key to memory is the way in which the material is coded and
organized as it is stored in the long-term memory bank. Something important happens at every stage of
information processing to either promote memory or forgetting.
At the short-term sensory storage the key to memory at this level is attention. For information to be
retained in memory it should be focused on and rehearsed briefly so as to be registered for further
processing. Any information that is not attended to is lost or forgotten.

4.12 The Short term Memory/working memory.

The most important process at this level is rehearsal. Rehearsal takes two forms depending on the
reasons why we want to retain the information in memory.

4.13 Maintenance rehearsal

Sometimes we want to keep information in memory briefly and then discard it. For example we meet
old friend in town and he gives us his cell phone number is entered in the relevant place we stop
rehearsing it. Another example to illustrate this type of rehearsal is a shopping list. We may want to go
to the market to buy some items e.g. ripe bananas, cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes, beans, green maize
and carrots. Before we make our shopping list we rehearse these items until we write all of them on
paper. Again once they are on paper we stop rehearsing them. These two examples illustrate
maintenance rehearsal. This is rehearsal of information, which is not intended to move to the long- term
memory bank. It involves repetition of information over and over again. When the information is no
longer needed it forgotten.

4.14 Elaborative rehearsal

Elaborative rehearsal is used for all the information that we wish to transfer to the long-term memory
bank. This rehearsal involves repetition of information and linking it with information already existing
in the long-term memory. These two processes ensure that the information is catalogued and filed in the
long-term memory.

4.15 The long-term memory bank

The following memories exist at this bank.

• Declarative memory. This is the memory for things that can be expressed in words.
• Semantic memory. This is the memory for general facts.
• Episode memory. This is the memory for personal experiences.
• Procedural memory for actions and skills.

At this memory bank information is organized in categories. Items that are similar are stored close
together in a method that is close labeled. For each item in memory there is an imaginary index card
which is appropriately catalogued. Forgetting occurs if there are cataloging errors i.e. a card can be
catalogued in the wrong place or a card can get lost.

4.16 What causes cataloguing errors

Cataloguing errors can occur if a learner takes in too much information within a short time. For example
if you attend a function and are introduced to about ten people within a short time you will find it
difficult to match the right names and faces due to cognitive bottlenecks. But if you are introduced to
one person every day for ten days you will not have a problem remembering each one of them because
you have processed all the information properly.
If two things are similar one may be remembered in the place of other.

Application

In order to ensure that content learned is remembered it is important to give it time to be processed at
all memory levels until it enters the long term memory bank because everything that gets there is
permanent.

Improving Memory
In this section I have discussed a few methods that learners can use in order to improve their memory.

Increasing Attention
As we have noted above attention refers to focusing on information and registering it, isolating it from
all possible distracters. This is an important prerequisite for all memory with this in mind, it is important
to think how one can increase attention.
• Selecting a study environment, which does not contain too many distractions, can increase
attention. Distractions will refer to unnecessary noise, heat, cold activities and things that
appeal to sight or hearing.
• They refer to any environmental event, which interferes with taking in of information. If
learners are studying in a classroom or in a laboratory there should be minimal distractions.
Rehearsal
Rehearsal refers to the repetition of what has been learned in the school setting. It may refer to what is
commonly referred to as study. As learners conduct their study it is important to ensure that they engage
in repetition of correct responses with the awareness what the responses relate to. They should not
engage in repetition of meaningless material. For the study to be successful, the teachers should ensure
that:

• The schools organize study timetables.

• Give the learners the time and classrooms convenient for the purpose.
• They should train learners how to conduct individual study, for example, how to pick out
important facts, review them immediately and again later
• Learners should be trained how to engage in distributed practice or massed practice depending
on reasons for study.

Distributed practice involves taking short periods of study at a time and taking a break after each period.
This method is very beneficial when the learners want to process information and store it in memory
permanently. The short periods of study could be taking two hours of study at a time and the breaking
to do a totally unrelated activity before resuming the study again. The unrelated activity could be taking
a shower, a walk, a snack or even a nap. This activity should be one that helps one to relax as well as
reward oneself.

4.17 Massed practice refers to sitting for long hours of Study.

• The learner can be introduced to the model of study developed by Robinson (1970) called
 SQ3R. This refers to the following:
• Survey the material through once.
• Raise questions about it
• Read it looking for answers
• Recite it and by doing so committing it to memory
• Review it
• By the time the learner is through with the last step the material is well committed to memory.

4.18 The use of Mnemonic devices

Mnemonic Devices are techniques that have been developed to improve memory particularly memory
for bits of unrelated information.

One mnemonic devise is the peg word method. To use this method you must first learn a series of words
to go with numbers, for example, one is bun, two is shoe, three is tree and four is door. The words and
numbers rhyme. When you want to learn a list of unrelated words you think of some image that
combines the peg word and the word you are trying to remember. Let us imagine that you wish to
remember a grocery list, if the first item on the list is soap you imagine a bun covered with soap bubbles.
If the second item is apples you picture a shoe stuffed with apples. If the third item is eggs, you imagine
a tree with eggs for fruits. If the fourth item is cabbage you imagine a door with a large cabbage as lock
knob.

The Loci method

Another technique is the Loci method, Pronounced Losi. This was a method used by ancient Romans
as old as 86 and 82 BC. First you think of a location. Then for each item you want to remember you
think of a representative image something that symbolizes that item to you then you imagine each image
in place in the location e.g.

Bedroom Floor… ................................................................... soap bubbles

Your bed…............................................................................. two large apples
Your dressing table ................................................................ filled with eggs
Your coffee table .................................................................... two huge carrots
The clothes Wardrobe ............................................................ cabbage hanging there

These techniques use imagery, which is a representation in thought of visual scenes forming a vivid,
unusual image of each object, which is unforgettable.

Summary
In this lesson Remembering and forgetting have been discussed under the following theories:-
❖ The behavioristic theory
❖ The Disuse model of forgetting
❖ The interference model
• Proactive
• Retroactive
❖ The information processing theory, which focuses on the importance of
• Attention
 • Rehearsal:- maintenance reversal, elaborative rehearsal
• Cataloguing
❖ Also examined are methods for improving memory
❖ Selecting a study environment that enhances attention.
• Distributed practice
• Massed practice
❖ The SQ3R method
• Use of mnemonic devices
• Peg Word
• Loci

Keywords

Disuse Theory – forgetting information due to lack of use

Elaborative Rehearsal - repetition of information for the purpose cataloguing it in the long term
memory.

Forgetting – the loss of information from memory through failure to retrieve it from memory.

Interference – forgetting information caused by inhibition either proactive or retroactive.

Loci Method – committing familiar places in memory in order to aid memory of unrelated
information.

Maintenance rehearsal – repetition of information again and again for the purpose of retaining it in
memory for immediate use.

Mnemonic Peg words – Words that are memorized to help a person remember a list of unrelated
words.

Remembering – the ability to recall information by means of retrieval.

Review/Discussion questions

What will you advise learners to do in order to minimize forgetting caused by:
a) Disuse
b) Interference

Discuss the role played by the following processes in aiding memory:

a) Attention
b) Maintenance rehearsal
c) Elaborative rehearsal
Explain how you could help learners to engage in practice of learned material.

WEEK 5
5.0 Intelligence

The assessment of human abilities dates back nearly 4000 years when China used written tests to rate
applicants for civil service. Two-thousand years later, during the Hans Dynasty, civil service type exams were
used in the areas of law, military, agriculture, and geography. In the early 1800s British diplomats observed
the Chinese assessments and modified them for use in Britain and eventually the United States for use in civil
service placement.

Sir Francis Galton is a key figure in modern intelligence testing. As the first cousin of Charles Darwin, he
attempted to apply Darwin's evolutionary theory to the study of human abilities. He postulate that intelligence
was quantifiable and normally distributed. In other words, he believed that we could assign a score to
intelligence where the majority of people fall in the average range and the percentage of the population
decreases the farther from the middle their score gets.

The first workable intelligence test was developed by French psychologist Alfred Binet. He and his partner,
Theodore Simon, were commissioned by the French government to improve the teaching methods for
developmentally disabled children. They believed that intelligence was the key to effective teaching, and
developed a strategy whereby a mental age (MA) was determined and divided by the child's chronological
age (CA). This formula, stated as "MA/CA X 100."

Another theorist, Raymond Cattell, described intelligence as having two distinct factors. The first he called
Crystallized Intelligence, representing acquired knowledge, and second, Fluid Intelligence, or our ability to
use this knowledge.

Sternberg (1988) argued that there are a number of ways to demonstrate intelligence or adaptive functioning.
He proposed a model of intelligence referred to as the triarchic theory. According to this model there are
three types of intelligence: (1) analytical, or the ability to solve a problem by looking at its components; (2)
creative, the ability o use new or ingenious ways to solve problems; and (3) practical, referring to street
smarts or common sense. While most IQ tests measure only analytical intelligence, they fail to include
practical intelligence which is the most understandable to most of us (Sternberg et al., 1995)

Intelligence is not something we can see or hear, or taste. We can see the results of
intelligence...sometimes. Many argue that quantifying intelligence correctly is impossible and all that modern
IQ tests do is test our knowledge and abilities. While it is true that a person can learn to improve his or her
score, this can only occur if correct responses are taught to the person, which is highly unethical. We have
also found that our individual IQ score remains quite consistent as we get older. Some argue, however, that
modern IQ tests are prejudiced against certain ethnicities and cultures and tend to result in higher scores for
others. Where this leaves us, however, is uncertain. As of today, these IQ tests are the best we have in our
attempt to quantify the construct known as intelligence.

5.1 Relaxation and Hypnosis

Many internal and external factors affect how we think, feel, and behave. Although alcohol and drugs have
been studied in great detail and have been shown to have both positive and negative effects on our state of
mind, they will not be discussed in this section. For more information about these, follow the link above.

In this section, we are going to focus primarily on the internal factors that influence our state of mind,
particularly relaxation and hypnosis. These two terms are not foreign to most of us, but they can be highly
misunderstood. Let's explore the concept of relaxation first.

Relaxation

When studied in psychology, relaxation refers to a focusing on the mind and a relaxing of the body's
muscles. Research has shown that being too tense and/or living with too much stress has a significant
negative impact on our lives. It can lead to physical illnesses such as high blood pressure, ulcers, fatigue,
and headaches and many psychological issues, including inappropriate or misdirected emotions, confusion,
difficulty concentrating, and burn-out. People utilize relaxation, in combination with stress management, to
improve their quality of life, reduce the physical components of stress, and improve their psychological
functioning.

There are different forms of relaxation, including breathing exercises, deep muscle relaxation, progressive
muscle relaxation, imagery, meditation, and yoga. Although each of these has different components, the
main goal in each is to relax the body's muscles and focus the mind. Since the body and the mind cannot be
separated, most agree that both of these components must be present for any relaxation technique to work.

5.2 Hypnosis

Hypnosis is very similar to relaxation in that the same two components of physical and mental must be
addressed together. Most professionals agree that hypnosis is a very deep state of relaxation where your
mind is more focused and the connection between your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are more clear.
Hypnosis is not magical; it can not cause you to do anything against your judgment or ethical beliefs; it can
not make you 'cluck like a chicken.' What it can do it help you to focus on specific areas of your life with more
clarity and teach you how to do this in a positive manner.

A hypnotherapist is typically a licensed professional who uses hypnosis as part of a treatment regimen for
certain psychological disorders. It is rarely used as the primary treatment, but instead is most beneficial when
used with relaxation and talk-therapy for a more rounded therapeutic approach. A hypnotist is a non-clinical
term usually referring to an unlicensed individual who perform various forms of hypnosis for entertainment
purposes. The two are quite different, the former is therapeutic and the latter is not designed to be so.

Most people are able to be hypnotized, although many factors play a role in your individual susceptibility.
These factors include your belief in hypnosis, your trust for the therapist, your sense of safety, ability to
concentrate and focus your mind, and the absence of external factors such as noise, uncomfortable
temperature, and physical comfort. The key to successful hypnosis is your ability to focus on your body and
mind and to trust and believe in your therapist. Without these hypnosis will not work, at least not to the fullest
therapeutic value.
WEEK 6

6.0 Factors That Influence Learning

6.1 Introduction
The learning – teaching process is a highly complex one. The complexity arises due to the fact that
many variables interact with each other to enhance or hinder learning. This lesson examines these
factors as they operate inside and outside the classrooms and their effect on learning.

Objectives

By the end of this lesson the learner will be able to

Discuss how each of the following factors operates to either promote or hinder learning
• The teacher
• The learning environment
• The learner
• The subject matter

6.2 The factors that influence learning

When we think about learning, the concern is about delivery of content assumably from the teacher
to the learner. The teacher is seen as the source of knowledge and his role is to deliver the content
for learners to imbibe. This lesson intends to bring out the fact that delivery of content by the
teacher or even the imbibing of the same by the learner is not a simple matter. It is complicated and
involves dynamic interactions of multi-faceted variables. This lesson discusses the following
variables and the operation of each one of them in influencing or hindering learning.

• The teacher
• The learning environment
• The learner
• The subject matter

The teacher

When we look at teacher‟s role in influencing learning, there is need to take into account several
factors. Crucially we should recognize the role of the teacher as a facilitator of learning. As a
facilitator of learning the teacher has the enormous responsibility of ensuring that everything he
does goes a long way in facilitating or hindering learning. Even before we consider the delivery
of content it is imperative to look at other issues pertinent to the teachers role. Some of the issues
may look minor or irrelevant but their impact is not to be ignored. For example

The teachers grooming

This refers to the teacher‟s management of self in terms of dressing and general appearance. The
teacher should be consciously aware of his role as a model. While the teacher may not afford
designer clothes, he is required to take good care of what he wears. It should be clear to the students
that the teachers takes time every morning to make himself presentable in every possible way. Any
teacher whose personal presentation is shoddy does himself and the student a disservice. The
teacher should dress in a manner that is compliant with expectations of required decency. Both
male and females can be indecent or indecent is relative and therefore leave it to individual teachers
to use their good discretion in order to observe acceptable modes of dress. In any case the manner
of dress and grooming tell about a person. When people first see you as a teacher, they judge you
by you appearance before they know where you can teach or not.

Teachers Competence

The teacher‟s competence is considered in several issues. First among them, is his ability to handle
the subject matter and secondly his classroom management skills. Thirdly but not the least in
importance is his communication ability. The teacher‟s competence in these areas is paramount
because it can determine the amount of learning that takes place.
We need to be emphatic that the teacher should be well informed regarding the subject matter,
conversant and comfortable with its scholarship and methods of delivery.

Classroom Management

Classroom management is a lecture discussed in this module and therefore it cannot be covered in
any depth here. However it should suffice to say that a good teacher is a good classroom manager.
He knows what to don when confronted with the specific challenges that present themselves in any
classroom manager is a good organizer. He is organized in his daily operations and in the
classroom.

Good organization helps to save time and other resources.

6.3 The teachers Communication Ability

Good communication is an art. It does not necessarily require the teacher to use huge bombastic
words so that pupils know that he went to school. It does not require him to be walking dictionary
either. It calls upon the teacher to gauge the weight of his words depending on the recipients‟ level.
He should be fluent clear and simple. Of course we do realize that each subject has its own
technical jargon. The teacher should ensure that these technical words are well
understood by the learners. A good teacher is a good businessman. He has something to sell and
the buyers are the learners.

A good teacher is a good businessman. He has something to sell and the buyers are the learners.
For this reason he should maintain a pleasant atmosphere and not show hostility.
Some teachers behave as if the classroom is a war zone and sometimes they have a good reason to
do so. If the teacher knows that he is unprepared for the lesson or lacks the necessary mastery of
content he may result to the use of defense mechanisms like fault finding, being excessively
punitive among other negative practices. One important aspect of teacher behaviour is his attitude
towards the profession, the school, the pupils, or even himself. If the teacher‟s general attitude is
positive he will most likely maintain conditions favorable for learning.

6.4 The Learning Environment

The learning environment refers to the facilities available for use by the learners. These are: the
classrooms, the field, the laboratories, the dining room and dormitories. The issues of concern here
are appropriateness or inappropriateness, over crowdedness, ventilation and the psychosocial
environment.

Over crowdedness

Speaking to teachers reveals that many classrooms in Kenyan schools are overcrowded.
In some classrooms the teacher does not have space to stand or even move around. This means ha
cannot monitor learner‟s behaviour effectively. A classroom that is overcrowded is uncomfortable
for both the teacher and the learners. Over crowdedness is a factor causing maladjusted behaviour.
If the teacher is unable to access every pupil in the classroom there those pupils who will engage
in divergent acts like writing letters, reading novels, dozing or even daydreaming while the lesson
is in progress.

Appropriateness

There are learning environments, which are inappropriate for use, for example:
• Lesson that are scheduled in the dining hall next to the school kitchen. In this environment
learners are exposed to the various stages of food preparation as well as the foods get ready.
Hungry learners will not be motivated to be very attentive during the last two lessons just
before lunchtime break.
• Also there are schools whose locations are inappropriate, her I have in mind those schools
in the middle of towns sandwiched between bars, hotels and noisy operations that go on in
the heart of town. These school locations are a big hindrance to learning.

Ventilation
Ventilation refers to the amount of air circulating in the classroom. Fresh air is important because
it burns food into energy. If there is enough air circulating in the classroom the pupils are likely to
be dull, lethargic and inattentive. Poor ventilation can be caused by overcrowded- ness and
inappropriateness of a learning environment. For learning to be influenced positive by then the
issue of proper ventilation should be addressed in every school facility.

6.5 Quality of buildings

The overall quality of the school buildings is an important factor in either promoting or hindering
conditions for learning. Buildings provide security and warmth. Properly constructed buildings
keep the natural elements away i.e. the rain, the wind, the sun, the cold.
• If the school buildings are not firm the wind blows away the roofs and sometimes children
are harmed or even killed.
• During rainy seasons children feel unsafe particularly in lightening prone areas. If no
highlighting arrestors are installed then children live in fear because they know they are
likely to be harmed or even killed by highlighting. Even issues such as ensuring that the
classroom has a ceiling can affect learning.
• Without a ceiling the classroom can become unsafe particularly when it is raining. Pupils
can have most of the rainy afternoon wasted because the teacher‟s voice gets drowned in
the din of the raindrops on the iron roofs.
• Sometimes pupils learn in buildings that have been condemned and therefore unusable.
They may be afraid that walls or roofs will cave in and injure them.

6.6 The learner characteristics

The learner is the person for whom the learning process is intended. The teacher should always
bear in mind the fact that learners bring to class a wind range of differences in any one classroom
situation. These differences are bound to influence learning. In this lesson the following learner
characteristics are addressed:

• Personality dispositions
• Intellectual giftedness
• Motivational levels
• Conflicts of interest
• Social-economic backgrounds.

6.7 Personality Dispositions

Some of the personality dispositions of learners that the teacher needs to understand are the
following: emotionality, sociability, and ability to cope with stress and even learners management
of problem situations.
There are learners who have serious problems managing anger, frustration and other emotions they
experience and as a result learning is affected negatively. Also there are those pupils who
have problems making and keeping friends due to deficiency and social skills. They may be
constant conflict with peers and classmates a situation which will affect learning of them and their
peers. Coping with stress and even managing problems situations cause difficulties for some
pupils. Basically, the teacher should be aware that if there are problems emanating from any of
this issue, learning will not be promoted.

6.8 Intellectual Giftedness

Learners bring to class differences in intellectual giftedness. There is the high, the average and low
intellectual giftedness. Sometimes teacher may run a lesson that favours the highly gifted learners.
It is the intention of this lesson to remind the teacher that every leaner has the right to benefit from
classrooms interaction. Every learner should be given a chance to benefit from the lesson .the view
that the classroom is owned by a few learners while the majority of learners is there to warm the
classroom for the gifted ones should be discarded. The teacher should cater for individual
differences to ensure that every learner is attended to. The teacher should also make sure that each
learner is helped to realize their potential so that an “A” student gets the “A” the “B” student gets
the “B” and so on. Any “A” student who gets a “B” is under achieving and any “B” student who
gets a “C” is under achieving and this situation should not be accepted nor allowed. If a learner is
under achieving proper investigation as to why this is happening should be carried out.

6.9 Motivational Levels

Motivation refers to the amount of energy and the time the learner puts in an activity. A learner
may be highly motivated and therefore spends a lot of time and energy pursuing a subject. Another
learner may have only average motivation while yet another learner may lack motivation
completely. The teacher should discover ways and means of maintaining the high levels of
motivation in highly motivated learners. He should also find out why learners may lack motivation
to pursue a subject. Motivation and achievement are related in that the highly motivated learner is
expected to show high performance. The teacher should discover both the teacher and learner
factors that cause low motivation. Lesson seven which is on motivation will help the teacher to
develop skills to use to motivate the learners. All the pertinent issues on motivation are handled in
detail in that lesson.

6.10 Conflicts of interest

Sometimes learners fail to attend to the learning task even when the teacher is doing his best to
promote conditions for learning. This can happen if the pupil has other interests that conflict with
the learning tasks. Sometimes the pupil has a problem that is social in nature, may be he has been
has received news from home that somebody is unwell or there is disharmony. During the lesson
those home issues distract this particular learner. May be the pupil has quarreled with a friend or
has been wronged by another and tends to focus his interest in this direction other than to the
ongoing lesson. There are many things that could distract a learner at any one time and the teacher
should handle each issue with a lot of sensitivity.
6.11 The social Economic Backgrounds

The pupil‟s social economic background is a factor that will influence learning one way or the
other. Some learners come from backgrounds where few resources that are needed for learning.
They may not have books or writing materials or even adequate facilities to do their homework or
further study. When these pupils come to school with unfinished work, untidy work or even late,
the teacher should handle each situation with sensitivity because at times the teacher‟s approach to
a problem may actually aggravate it instead of easing it.

6.12 The subject Matter

Many years ago Ausubel, (1978), Burner, (1960) stated that schools exist to foster intellectual
growth by transmitting knowledge and basic skills. They further acknowledge that learning should
facilitate intellectual growth. For this reason it is important to discover those factors that coupled
with those discussed above will facilitate learning in the classroom situation. Of course, when the
teacher goes to any classroom with the purpose of holding a teaching-learning session he takes with
him some content. The content can refer to as subject matter, which in turn can be transmitted to
mean certain facts, principles, skills or procedures. These could be from any subject, topic or sub-
topic. If all other factors are considered, that is, the learning environment, the teacher
characteristics, the .learner characteristics and so on then the teacher turns his focus on what should
be done to make the content learnable. The teacher must ensure that the content must be presented
in such a way that the learners can imbibe ort assimilate it into their cognitive structure. The most
important factor to consider here is ensuring that the learner finds the content meaningful.
Meaningfulness of content is a critical issue in the sense that it leads to understanding. Indeed
meaningfulness and understanding are the essence of classroom learning.

6.13 Meaningfulness of Material

The important of meaningfulness of content lies in the fact that, what is meaningful is easy to
process mentally. It rends itself easy for storage in memory. It is easier to retrieve.
It makes the learner comfortable and ready for further learning. This reduces frustration for both
the learner and the teacher. This fact has been demonstrated amply in experiments where learners
are exposed to meaningless content by rote. When memory of content is tested one thing comes
out crystal clear. That is, learners will remember meaningful content better. They will have
problems remembering meaningless content.

I am sure that you have discovered that it is difficult to process and remember content A while
content B poses no problem at all whatsoever. The same thing happens to the pupils. If they find
the content meaningless, they are unable to process it and to remember it. For this reason the teacher
should make every possible effort to ensure that the learner finds content meaningful. In order to
achieve this goal the teacher could try the following suggestions.
Expose the learner to potentially meaningful material. This refers to ensuring that the content has
the potentiality of being meaningful to the learner. This can be tricky at times. Sometimes the
teacher himself may experience difficulty processing content and finding it meaningful. If the
teacher does not find the content meaningful, then it becomes difficult to help the learner to find
it meaningful. This is allegorical to the blind man who cannot lead another. Of course a teacher
will never admit that he finds content difficult.

At best he will deal with it superficially, or skip it all together. Some teachers will ask learners to
make notes from textbooks. I tend to assure the teacher that he can avoid embarrassing situations
while dealing with content. He should admit it to himself that work needs to be done to make
content meaningful to himself. He should follow the suggestions given below.

Read several sources of particular information. Different sources highlight different angels of a
situation. After reading those sources the teacher will be more enlightened.

The teacher could also consult colleagues, who will share their own experiences, their approach
even sources they have found helpful. By the foregoing the teacher is required to be resourceful
and not rely on a single textbook or some notes made many years ago.

The teacher should keep a breast with current developments in the content area. He should have
more in his bag of tricks so that at no time should he find himself inadequate.
The teacher who finds content meaningful goes a step further to ensure that the learner is helped to
find meaningfulness as well. In this context the teacher should select the content, organize it in a
potentially meaningful way. To do this the teacher ensures that the content is consistent with the
learner‟s developmental level. This means that before content is presented to the learner, the
teacher has already gauged the readiness level of the learner. This refers to cognitive or mental
ability of the learner to imbibe the content. Here, the learner‟s motivation also counts. By learner
motivation we refer to the learners desire to want to know.

6.14 Readiness of The Learner

It is important to look at the role of the teacher closely in this context. The first thing he should do
is to assess the readiness of the learner by identifying the knowledge the learner already possesses,
the learners abilities, motivates and experiences and make those starting point. Secondly, present
the material in a style that captures the students‟ motivation. In doing this, the teacher ensures that
the content is well linked with the learner‟s experiences and where examples are given they should
be derived from the learner‟s world. Problems are experienced in some cases when teachers make
the subject matter abstract. Abstract content has no bearing in the lives and experiences of the
learners. It is irrelevant and therefore learning it becomes difficult. Bringing out the usefulness of
content is an important concept. This is the idea of making the content relevant to the needs of the
learner making him perceive it as useful to him.

Activity

Think about a particular topic in any of your teaching subjects identifying ways and
means of bringing out its usefulness or relevance in the lives of learners. What is it about the content
that should make learners want to learn it?

• Every year a question is always set from the topic in the KCSE examination
• The content is useful every day to day life of the learner and with examples
• The content helps in understanding other concepts in the same subject or in other subjects
• A.C.A.T. will be set from the topic.
• The concept is interesting in its own right.
• Discovery learning

Still on the issue of encouraging meaning and understanding the teacher should encourage
discovery learning. This can be done by giving learners assignments that require them to do their
individual or group projects in the library or in the field. In this area the teacher should refer learners
to specific sources of information with enough guidance that spells out the concepts, meanings,
and relationships to be discovered. Once learners have done their projects, they can present their
findings in class for the purposes of enriching each pupils or groups finding by integrating all the
findings. This way each on the principle that knowledge that is self-discovered is more significant
to the learner and is remembered better.

6.15 Concept Learning

Concept learning too enhances both meaningfulness of content and understanding for the benefit
of enhancement of learning.
The learner should not be exposed to facts that are isolated. Instead he should be helped to perceive
relationships and classifications. In other words, he should be exposed to the big picture and not
small unrelated pictures. If the learner can understand a concept then he can also transfer the
knowledge to future situations.

6.16 Summary

In this lecture we have looked at factors that influence learning. We have identified the role
played by the following specific factors.
• Learning mainly deals with delivery of content
• There are teacher characteristics, which could operate to enhance or hinder learning.
• There are characteristics of the learning environment, which will learn.
• Learner characteristics with a focus on differences that exist among learners.
• The characteristics of the subject matter dwelling on meaning an understanding.

Key Words

Imbibe – to assimilate knowledge

Intellectual giftedness – refers to the variations in intelligence that occurs in any one classroom
situation. Some learners have high IQ score others are average and others low.

Learning environment– any environmental factor that affects learning. It can refer to the
physical environment or the social environment.

Motivational levels – the amount of energy a learner directs towards he learning task.

Rote – memorization of meaningless content that the learner does not really understand.

Subject Matter - content or the, facts, principles that the teacher intends to deliver.

Teacher characteristics – any teacher factor that influences learning. The characteristics have to
do with teacher personality, mastery of content, classroom management, attitudes etc.

Review/Discuss Questions

1. Discuss how the following factors are likely to have a positive effect on
learning:
• Grooming
• Mastery of content
• Positive attitudes towards learners

2. Explain what schools should do to ensure following environmental conditions facilitate

learning:

• The classrooms
• The location of the school

3. Outline what you should do in order to ensure that learners find content meaningful.
4. In your own opinion, which factors predominate to determine what learners will learn easily
and what they will find difficult to learn?
WEEK 7

7.0 Transfer of Learning

7.1 Introduction

Knowledge that is learned in school is intended to prepare the student for life outside school.
Content learned in one context can be applied in another context within the same subject or in
another subject. For example, learning how to sew a shirt on a sewing machine during home
economics lessons should help a student to sew a skirt at how.

Also learning English grammar should help a student write correct English. Therefore transfer of
learning is key concept. It refers to the ability to apply knowledge from situation to situation
learning will have little purpose. In this lesson I have discussed transfer of learning focusing on the
definition of the term, aspects of transfer, teaching for transfer.

Objectives

By the end of this lesson the learner will be able to:

• Define the concept transfer of knowledge
• Explain the importance of transfer of learning
• Describe aspects of transfer of learning
• Outline three types of transfer
• Describe two methods of teaching for transfer

7.2 Definition of Transfer of Learning

We shall first look at situations that help us transfer of learning takes place we could say that
transfer of learning occurs when previously learned content influences current learning positively
or negatively. For example, when students learn a mathematical principle, which can be used to
solve a physics problem, this is positive transfer.
From the foregoing we can define transfer of learning as the process that enables us to make
previously learned responses in new situations. Transfer results in the ability to perform sensibly
and adequately in a new task as a result of having performed other tasks previously.
Put simply, transfer of learning is to apply mathematical formulae to compute mathematical
problems or, the ability to use knowledge in mathematics to understand balancing equations in
chemistry or physics.
7.3 Aspects of Transfer

There are two basic aspects of transfer. These are

• Discrimination
• Generalization
7.4 Discrimination

When the learner is exposed to knowledge or skills that are similar he should understand all the
specific features so that he applies in each situation only those aspects that are applicable and leaves
out those features that are not applicable. Ivan Pavlov illustrated the idea of discrimination when
conditioning dogs to respond to bell tones. In discrimination training he would give the dog food
and therefore it‟s salivated when the particular tone was presented. Likewise when it comes to
transfer of learning the pupil should be able to pick out specific features from the general features
and use them. A good illustration here is the use of the following documents: the dictionary, the
catalogue and the directory. These documents have general and specific features; the general
features are found in the arrangement of content. All documents have their contents arranged
alphabetically and therefore require the same skill in their usage. However the aspect of
discrimination comes in when we consider the type of information found in each document.

When we want to look up meanings of words we pick out the dictionary. When we wish to get
some address or telephone number we pick out the dictionary and when we wish to locate some
basic information can be applied. There are general guidelines that are used to produce bread or
cakes but when the baker wants to bake bread with raisins or fruitcake or even teacake he applies
very specific features by using discrimination.

Discrimination is an aspect used every day in computer programming. There are general features
and specific feature in computer operations for example; all computer programs have an interaction
interface. These are specific features like calculations, typing documents carrying out simultaneous
and so on. It is the user who determines the specific feature to use depending on the task to be
performed.

Discrimination as e have noted requires the ability to pick out the difference, i.e. what we apply in
a specific situation and what not to. This involves the understanding of specific features.

7.5 Generalization

This means understanding the general features, the similarities or sameness of information or skills.
For example: the dictionary, directory and catalogue are similar in the information but the similarity
ends there. In baking there are similar procedures of making ingredients and using baking pans and
ovens for the product.

In computer operations the skills used to open the computer and to access information is the same.
In generalization therefore, the learner understands the general features.
Pavlov conditioned dogs to acquire generalization training. He would call different tones and give
the dog food every time a tone was sounded. This dog knew that as long as there was a tone no
matter which one food was on the way. This dog knew that as long as there was a tone no matter
which one food was on the way. Similarly, learners can acquire generalization in transfer of
learning.

This means understanding the general features, the similarities or sameness of information or skills.
For example the dictionary, directory and catalogue are similar in the way information is arranged
alphabetically. These documents use the same skills to search for information but the similarity
ends there. In baking there are similar procedures of making ingredients and using baking pans and
oven for the final products. In computer operations the skills used to open the computer and to
access information is the same. In generalization therefore the learner understands the general
features.

7.6 Types of Transfer

There are three types of transfer:

• Zero transfer
• Negative transfer
• Positive transfer

Zero transfer
This refers to acquiring knowledge, skills or principles that are not transferable from one situation
to another. Therefore, learning one subject has no effect on the other one positively or negatively.
Examples of zero transfer can be illustrated by the learning of mathematics and Kiswahili. Unless
Kiswahili is used as a language of instruction in mathematics there is no other relationship between
the two. Mathematical principles will not help a learner understand Kiswahili principles or vise
versa.

Other examples can be illustrated between geography and music or fine art and biology.
These two pairs of subjects share no meeting ground. Each is independent from the other in terms
of facts, skills, principles and technical jargon. The learning of one is independent from the learning
of the other and does not inhibit nor enhance the other.

Negative transfer

Negative transfer occurs when content in a subject or in two different subjects has a negative
influence one another. This happens when what is learned is one situation hinders or inhibits what
is learned in another situation. For example, if a learner is introduced to two new languages, which
are similar at the same, time experiences difficulties mastering both languages simultaneously due
to inhibition or interference.

English interferes with German and vise versa. Negative transfer operates much the same way as
proactive and retroactive inhibition does. Before mastering of each is achieved there is a lot of back
and forth movement and even mix-up of English and German words.
Consequently this brings about a slowed process or retardation in the learning process.
However with enough practice and mastery of both negative transfers is minimized and even
eliminated all together.

Positive Transfer

Positive transfer occurs, when knowledge acquired is one situation helps the learner to acquire
knowledge, skills or principles in another situation much faster. For example learning of
mathematical principles enables the learner to acquire principles in physics. There are many
illustrations of positive transfer in the school setting, which can be mentioned here: for example,
learning grammar in any language and writing compositions in the language.

The learning of Biology and Agriculture

Learning of Physics and Mathematics
Learning of Chemistry, Biology and Agriculture, Mathematics, Geography, Business Education,
Chemistry and Physics. Positive transfer indicates a positive relationship between particular topic
areas given subjects or even two or more content areas in different subjects.

Positive transfer can operate at two levels. These are:

• Lateral transfer (horizontal)
• Vertical transfer

Lateral transfer

Lateral transfer occurs when a learner is exposed to content that is applicable to another subject or
situation at the same level. For example, a child who is trying to learn basics in arithmetic discovers
that (4*9=36, 9*4=36), (3+5=8, 5+3=8) is transferring knowledge laterally or horizontally.
Secondly when a learner acquires the basic skills of baking a cake in school he applies the
knowledge to bake at home horizontally. He will use the same ingredients, the same measures and
the same baking methods as learned at school.
Thirdly mathematical skills and principles taught in form one helps the learner to acquire principles
and skills to master form – one physics. So this kind of transfer is applicable at the same level and
basically foundational.

Vertical transfer

Vertical transfer occurs when knowledge is applied to the other learning‟s at a higher level either
in the same subject or in another subject. For example form one mathematical series is foundation
of form two, form three and form four mathematics. This happens at all application of subject areas
in an ascending order. For vertical transfer to occur the subject should be well mastered at the
foundational levels so that learning is given a chance to generalize and become useful further along
the learning process. For example when a pupil masters simple grammatical
rules he is enabled to speak correct English, write competently and to study other subjects in
English as well.

Also when a pupil masters simple arithmetic and numeracy he is able to acquire complex
concepts in mathematics and physics.

7.7 Teaching for transfer

There are several basic ways of teaching for transfer

• Substantive (specific).
• Procedural (general) transfer.
• High road transfer.

The substantive method

The substantive method refers to specific transfer of rules, facts or skills. It is direct transfer of
knowledge from one situation to another. For example applying rules of punctuation to write a job
application letter or using the knowledge of the alphabet to find a word in the dictionary. To
facilitate this type of transfer the teacher exposes the learner to the substance of the material to be
applied. This is very common phenomenon in computer programming. If certain computer program
is required in a persons occupation, the person is taught that particular computer program during
training. Also in dress making the person is exposed to actual dress making skills needed on the
job . A surgeon is trained in a hospital setting and performs surgery under supervision.

There are many examples that can be cited. The most important concept here is the exposure of
the substance of material to be applied and lots and lots of practice.

High road transfer.

This is training learners consciously apply abstract knowledge learned in one situation to
different situations. There are two methods of doing this;”
• Forward reaching method
• Backward reaching method.

1. Foward reaching method

This method is when a learner intends to use principle or strategy in future. He plans transfer in
advance. For example a surgeon taking theory and practical during subsequent semesters may do
some forward planning . during the theory semester he may search for and collect all the relevant
skills and procedures from the surgeons‟ literature with the intention of applying them during
practical or “hands-on” sessions. Also a teacher preparing for teaching practice may search for
principles about teaching and learning (pedagogical skills) he may search in the focus
areas like how to motivate learners, the art of classroom management and so on with the intention
of applying the same during actual teaching. This kind of transfer is forward reaching in the sense
that the person looks forward to applying it in future situations.

2. Backward reaching transfer

This method is used when the learner is faced with a problem situation that requires some prior
knowledge. The person has to look back on what he has been learned in previous situation to help
to solve the new problem. This method requires the person to search for other related situation
that might provide clues to the situation of the current problem.
The most important thing in this kind of transfer is mindful abstraction or deliberate identification
of a principle or main idea. Strategy or procedure that can apply to many situations. This guides
future learning and problem solving.

7.8 The procedural method

This method is useful when applying knowledge about hoe principles and rules apply across a
wide variety of situations . it includes the learning of broadly applicable concepts, principles and
procedures for example when pupils learn the meaning of words such as untie, unfair, is useful to
learning that prefix un means not or contrary to.

7.9 A activity
1. Apply the rule about the prefix un to find the meaning of the following words:
Unaccompanied, unarmed, unlocked, unfastened, uncooked, unbalanced and unsteady.

2. Add the prefix un before the following words and explain their meaning : fortunate,
do, pack, ravel, accomplished, deterred, detected, focused.

To train learners to use this method the teacher should present them with a wide array of examples
in which they can see how new principals and techniques are used. The examples should be drawn
from real world settings.

7.10 Note

In order to ensure that transfer is given all the probability to occur. The teacher should ensure the
following:
1. That training situation are made as similar to the real world situations as possible. if the
real world is not accessible to the student it should be described to them.
2. Provide many practicals on the original task before the transfer task is attempted.
3. Stress transfer both inside and outside the classroom. This means that when teaching.
Transfer should always be in focus.
4. The teacher should use specific, concrete examples from television, newspapers, schools
activities, current events and life in general.
5. The teacher should advise projects and competitive games that foster, transfer.
 6. Finally the teacher should always test for transfer.

7.11 Summary

This lecture has focused on the learning. Transfer of learning is the application of use of the
acquired knowledge in different situations.
Transfer of learning has two aspects
• Generalization and discrimination.
• Type of transfer identified is.
- Zero which occurs, when
- Negative- which has a negative effect
- Positive
. Lateral horizontal
. Vertical at higher levels
• Methods of teaching for transfer
- Substantive method
- High road method
. Forward reaching
. Backward reaching
- Procedural method.

7.12 Key words

Discrimination: - Ability to apply specific elements of a situation leaving out what is not
applicable.

Generalization: - ability to apply general or similar features of situation

Highroad transfer :- Training learners to consciously apply knowledge either forward or

backward.

Horizontal transfer:- Occurs when knowledge is applicable at the same level.

Negative transfer :- occurs where two content areas affect the learning of each through a process
similar to inhibition. When the learning of particular content has a negative effect on the learning
of another content area.

Procedural transfer: - applying broadly applicable at the same level.

Substantive transfer: - Application of knowledge directly.

Transfer of learning – The usage of application of acquired knowledge skills or procedures in

new situations.

Vertical transfer: - occurs when content is applicable higher along the learning process.
Zero-transfer: - occurs when two content areas are unrelated and therefore have no effect on each
other.

7.13 Review/ discussion questions

1. Imagine two novel situations that you would require your students to show:
a) Discrimination
b) Generalization

2. Bring out the difference between zero and negative transfer clearly

3. With examples show illustrations of:

(A) Lateral transfer.
(B) Vertical transfer.

WEEK 8

8.0 Individual Differences in Learning

8.1 Introduction

This lesson shifts its focus on a question that every teacher must ask all the time. That is what
causes individuals differences in intellectual ability and achievement. Teacher experience show
that learners in the class, with the same books and the same teachers show variations in
achievement. This lesson may not be exhaustive in the examination of causes of individual
differences but it is hoped that it will leave the teacher more informed and still searching for more
answers and solutions.
Objectives

By the end of this lesson the leaner should be able to explain the roles played by
the following factors in contributing to individual differences
• Hereditary
• Environmental

The learner will be able to discuss how the following factors cause individual differences.
• The home environment
• The Social Economic Status
• The school environment

8.3 What causes individual differences in learning?

When we deal with a topic like individual differences in intellectual ability and achievement. W e
must bear certain things in mind first, there is need to realize that individual differences and
intellectual ability is difficult to define and measure due to the complexity and dynamism of the
valuables that interact to produce this difference for the purpose of this lesson, we shall define
intellectual ability as the capacity to acquire and use knowledge to adapt to the environment. We
must also ask the question of where intelligence comes from and answer it. According to
Lafrancois, (1994) intelligence does not just happen it has a cause. For this reason we must have
revived the old age controversy regarding the determination of all human traits intelligence being
one of them. This is nature- nurture debate, which has been used to explain variations that exist
among people. Observation members of the same family reveals marked contrasts in appearance,
interests and abilities. In study of what causes these difference psychologists have developed three
positions. These are, hereditary, the environmental and interactional position or approaches.

The Hereditary Position

Adherents of this position believe strictly in the role played by genes in the determination of human
traits. This position holds the view that it is nature and not nurture that determines the intellectual
giftedness of individual children. According to this view, intellectual ability is genetically
determined. Studies done by various psychologists have tended to confirm high correlations in IQ
among identical twins reared apart. This view holds the belief that during fertilization when
maternal and paternal genes interact, IQ is fixed. Therefore some children inherit high IQs while
still others receive low gifts in this trait. This position does not acknowledge the role different
environments may play in modifying intellectual ability. This position holds the view that
intelligence is fixed and the child is helpless pawn of the dictates of nature.
The Environmental Position

The second position takes the environmental approach. Adherents of this position believe that
experiences provided by different environmental conditions and demands shape intelligence.
Among these psychologists is the J.B. Watson, who prided himself that if he were given a dozen
children and his own environments to raise them in, he would produce any kind of a person. He
would shape one into a beggar, another into a thief, the third into a banker and so on. This position
attributes variations and intellectual ability to environmental causes. Children‟s intellectual
giftedness is ultimately determined by nurture not nature. This view focuses on the importance of
improving environmental conditions, enriching them in order to influence intelligence positively.
Those children who are raised in enriched environment have their IQ stimulated and enhanced.

The Interactinist Position

Today heredity versus environment is no longer an important question. The more important
question is has to do with how individual and environments interact during development with the
process that accounts for intellectual change of special interest, its how defects can be remedied
and gift fostered, (lefrancois,1994) Adherents of this position recognize that genes or nature
contribute certain potentiality towards intellectual endowment but the actual determinant to what
a child intellectual ability will be lies in the interaction between what is genetically given and the
environment . This position identifies the interaction between nurture and nature as the sole
determinant of the intellectual ability in a child. This is popular held position today and we need to
examine what genes contribute towards the shaping of intellectual ability.

8.4 What Genes Give

The question of concern here is weather genes fix intellectual ability. Genes do not fix intelligence
as such; they the blue print of intellectual abilities. By this we mean that genes establish a wide
range of possibilities or potentialities. These potentialities are bound to unfold in relation to the
range of possible experiences that the environment can provide.
Put in another way, genes provide the raw materials for intellectual abilities and set the limits. This
means that even the environmental influences modify the inherited potentials within certain limits.
For example a child may inherit a potential towards average IQ, which has its own ranges. All
teacher and the best environments can do for such a child is to help him realize his maximum
potential. These potentials are analogous to a rubber band, which can remain unstretched or
stretched to various lengths. The rubber band can be stretched all the way and can be stretched until
it breaks. This analogue is very important for learners. It suggests that the learning environments
should be arranged in a manner that will allow the rubber to stretch to full potential but not to stun
or break. When dealing with children we must know their gifts and limitation in order to nurture
the gifts and help improve on limitations. We should not allow a child with high
intellectual gift to underachieve and we should not expect a child with an average gift to show
outstanding performance. Every child should be allowed to perform within the limits of their rubber
band stretchability.

8.5 Different Environments.

The environmental influences include everything from the health of a child‟s mother during
pregnancy to the amount of poisonous substances in the environment to the quality of teaching the
child receives, (woolfolk, 1988).

We shall examine the influences of the following environments briefly:

• The environment before birth.

• The home environment.
• The school environment.

The Environment Before Birth (Pre-natal)

The first environment the human organism encounters is the uterus or the womb. This environment
has the potentiality of promoting the child‟s development as per the genetics plan or changing the
course of the development completely. in this environment the genetic blue print is given chance
to begin unfolding through the process of growth , malnutrition and development of all
characteristics programmed by the genes. These characteristics are physical, physiological mental
and physiological, if the uterus is baby “friendly” or compliant it produces nutrition, warmth and
security which allow the genetic pollution to unfold as per plan. The child is given a chance to
develop a healthy body and mental capacity. Those children meant to be highly gifted, average or
low intellectually realize their natural gifts. On the other hand the uterus should have adverse
effects on the developing child if the expectant mother is exposed to the following teratogens:

• Under nourishment and malnourishment.

• Certain diseases during the first three months of pregnancy (e.g Rubella and
sexually transmitted diseases)
• Ingestion of psychoactive drugs or is dependent on them ( e.g alchohol, nicotine or
heroine)
• Certain medication (e.g antibiotics , anti-convultants and anti-malaria drugs ).
• High dosage of ex-radiation, prolonged stress or the Rhesus factor. This conditions
change their course of development in extreme cases causing either the death of the
unborn bay or stillbirth. If the baby survives the adversity that these conditions cause
he may be physically or mentally defective or both. These means that the baby who
would otherwise have been born with a healthy and well functioning body is born
with physical and physiological defects. A baby who would have been born with
normal intelligence is born with mental deficits due to the brain damage these
conditions may cause.
So the womb as the first environment the human baby encounters is very critical. It sets the
foundations to the intellectual development. All other environmental effects come later and they
may come when damage has already occurred.

The Home Environment.

Ideally every child is born in a home. The environment means many things. A home has physical
and social dimensions. These refer to the building and the facilities as well as the people. The home
provides for all developmental needs of the children; - the physiological and physiological. The
manner in which this needs are provided for determining how the child will develop physically and
mentally. This lesson does not allow us to delve into all the logistics and operations of the home.
So we shall point out a few things that help to determine how the home factors influence intellectual
development. First it is critically important to point out that homes are diverse environments. No
other name is like the other and therefore their influence on children‟s development is bound to
vary. However, there are certain basic features that we can examine in relation to their effect on
intellectual development. We can broadly place homes into two categories: the simulative and non-
simulative homes.

The simulative homes

These are homes that are enriched in terms of facilities that promote intellectual growth; these are
things like paper, number, charts, pictures, colors and play materials. Besides these facilities the
child needs space in which to manipulate and interact with the provided facilities. These facilities
play a simulative role in the development of intelligence. They also aid in language development.
An enriched home provides the child with varying experiences, for example trips to various places.
In the modern world enriched homes expose children to facilities like television and computers.
All these facilities go a long way to stimulating a child‟s intellectual growth.

The non- simulative homes

Here I am talking about the homes which do not promote intellectual growth. These are homes that
are impoverished. They possess minimal facilities. The material things present are only those that
are necessary for bare survival. These environments are restrictive as well as monotonous and
nothing exiting seems to happen. These are many homes where paper, pen number, charts or colors
are non-existent. Children never venture far from homes unless they are sick and have to be taken
to hospital. When a car visits the neighborhood the whole village goes to witness the wonder. A
child growing up in this kind of environment may have high levels of intelligence but the necessary
simulative is lacking. This child has limited experiences, even fewer words to express himself and
may have problems with ideas.
8.6 Activity

Suppose you were asked to advise the chief of your location on issues concerning intellectual life
of the children in the location. How would you handle issues regarding mental health, family
planning and overcrowded school condition?

The social economic status(SES)

A glimpse into the relationship between the social- economic status and intellectual ability is in
order here. We have noted that children are born in homes that are simulative while others find
themselves in homes that are non-simulative. The question of concern is whether children born in
rich homes excel in intellectual ability while those born in poor homes fail intellectual ability.

Let‟s examine the term social economics status. This is a term used to refer to variations in wealth,
power prestige. We shall acknowledge that levels of wealth, power and prestige are net always
consistent and therefore not operational definable because of relativity inherent. An example may
suffice. Take for example teachers of professors in Kenya. These are members of professionals
that are prestigious but which provide little wealth or power. In Kenya too there are people with
political power but who may not be wealthy. If you have talked with wealthy man who did not get
a good education and there are many of them in Kenya, he holds an educated person who has no
wealth with respect. From these examples it is evident that we cannot use a single variable, not
even income to handle SES. This not withstanding most researchers identify four general levels of
social economic status the upper, middle, working class and lower. For a long term the relationship
between SES and school performance has been tricky. If you listen to the stories told by the
prominent lawyers, doctors, engineers and politicians you realize that they tell one story. How they
suffered their way up the educational ladder to be where they are today.

They were educated through bursaries, the sales of livestock. Stories about huge sacrifices by
individual families abound. These are people who did not have a second change of clothes nor two
pair of shoes. Yet they emerged a shining star in their fields. This means that in Kenya the
relationship between SES and intellectual attainment has no clear cut.

One question begs to be answered is SES the sole consideration determining a child‟s intellectual
performance? Studies done in this area seem to suggest that parents‟ education may not be strongly
related to child‟s excelling performance. Variable that has been found to yield positive results in
this area are parents‟ altitude towards education, their aspiration for the children and the
intellectual activities of the family. These studies explain why children from affluent family may
not necessarily excel in academic matters. We understand why many families with limited income
do an excellent job of supporting their children‟s learning because of their positive altitudes and
behaviors. Lack of income ceased to be an important factor for school, achievement. This not
withstanding an exploration of how poverty could militate against intellectual ability is deemed
necessary at this juncture.

Effects of low SES Achievement

There are cases where poverty acts as a motivator. This happens when parents have encouraged
their children or individual have worked hard to excel in academic work in order to get job and
escape from poverty. This scenario is very familiar to many educated people. These people are
whose efforts have been recognized and they have received support from well wishers and bursary
awarding bodies. There are many children who are not lucky and who seem bound in completely
difficult situations where they are unable to rise above average performance or even mediocre
ability even if they have average intelligence. This picture is occasioned by many factors that exist
and which help to maintain the cycle of poverty: limited resources, family stress, interruption in
this scholarship and discrimination. All these factors lead to school failure or even school drop out
for both boys and girls. When a girl or a boy drop out of school they get poor paying jobs, they
tend to marry and get children earlier than their age mates who continue with their education. This
leads to another generation born in poverty. Children raised in low SES are exposed to hostile
psycho- sociological environments.

• They may wear old and torn clothes.

• They experience problems in verbal and non-verbal skills –speaking
ungrammatically.
• There are less familiar with books and school activities. They experience
problems in verbal and non-verbal skills, speaking ungrammatically.
• They experience difficulties in reading and comprehension, mathematics and
general information.
• Consequently teachers and other children may assume that these children are not
bright.
• They believe that these children are not good in school work and show a negative
altitude towards them.
• The low SES children may respond.
• Being more inhibited and withdrawn leading to repeated failure.
• Repeated failure leads tom learned helpless where the pupil comes to believe that
doing well in school is hopeless. The child has experienced many of his friends and
relatives who never finished their school anyway. So it is normal to quit school as
well. As we noted earlier if he does not finish school.
• He finds a less rewarding job where he barely ekes a living and continues to live
before poverty line.
• This kind of person tends to get more children than his income can support. These
children also drop out of school early and the poverty cycle continues.

8.7 Activity

Suppose you are the district director of education in your district what challenges
would you like to see affected in the homes and in the schools to ensure improved intellectual
performance in the district.
The school differs just like the homes. Some schools being more enriched that others and
therefore providing varying experiences.

• Like the homes, schools are made up of physical and human resources. The physical
resources constitute the buildings and the facilities. Some of the school could provide
simulative environment for the intellectual development of learners while others remain
non- simulative. Issues of concern as mentioned earlier are adequacy, appropriateness, and
security of school facilities. These are those schools which are lacking in this and those that
are overflowing with them as it were. Equally important is the issue of human resource
mainly the teaching staff and the support staff. Like we have said about the home, the
altitude held by the teachers and the school administrative regarding their pupils and very
important in determining academic excellence or failure. Am sure you have seen schools
were nothing that one would ask for in term of facility is lacking but when you examine
the pupils‟ performance you are faced by appalling results. This goes to show that good
will of the teachers their positive attitude towards their work and towards learners may
hold the key to whether learners will succeed academically or fail dismissal.

8.8 Summary
In this lesson I have examined the cause of individual differences in intellectual ability and
discussed the following
➢ Genetic hereditary.
➢ Environmental conditions and demands, focusing specifically on:
▪ The uterine environment.
▪ The home environment.
▪ The social economic status.
▪ The school.

8.9 Key words.

Blue print- a kind of program me with the potentiality to unfolding in line with the inherited
properties of the organism and their interaction with the environment.

Environment :- all the forces that shape the child‟s life. These include the uterus , the home the
school as well as ecological factors that affect the developing person

Hereditary: - the passing down of traits from parents to offspring through the interaction of genes.

Individual differences in learning: - refers to the marked variations among children in their
capacity to learn, the total knowledge a child acquires, ability to adapt successfully to the
environment in general.
Non- simulative: -Impoverished conditions, which retard or inhibit development.

SES: -Relative measure of wealth, power and prestige.

Simulative: -Enriched environmental conditions, which enhance to promote development.

Teratogens: - Any environmental agents that cause abnormalities in the developing foetus .

8.10 Review questions

1. What do you think is the cause of mass failure in subject like chemistry or
mathematics in a school here students score very high marks in other subjects areas? Do you
think the students may have been born inability to learn them?

2. What in your opinion are the major causes of individual differences in your real area ? is it
poverty affluence or nature of school?

3. Suggest ways of improving performance in your district.

WEEK 9

9.0 Motivation and Emotion

9.1 Introduction
In this lesson I have discussed motivation in the context of education. I have specifically examined
how they can apply knowledge of theories of motivation to make learners want to learn.

Motivation concerns itself with the;

• Dynamics of getting pupils to want to learn or have the interest to do so,

• Have the desire to spend time on learning tasks.
• To complete assignment and even to want to excel. For teachers motivating learners remain
one of the greatest challenges of the profession. Many teachers will complain that the pupils
do not want to learn. They are lazy. They never complete assignment and so
 on. This lecture explores motivation in classroom setting. The encouraging message for the
teachers derived for this lesson is that something can be tried out. We do not have to throw
the towel in or fold your arms in despair. We can get them to want to learn. Let us see how.

9.2 Objectives.

By the end of this lecture the leaner should be able to:

• Define the term motivation
• Relate motivation to educational settings
• Explain in different theoretical orientations
• Discuss the use of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.

9.3 Definition of the term motivation

Motivation is defined as the driving force or impetus behind behaviour, thoughts and actions.
Motivation energizes behavior and gives it direction towards a goal. This is always to satisfy a need
foe example; hunger, thirst, pain, avoidance, temperature regulation and elimination. At a higher
level the motivation energizes behavior towards achievement, competence, affiliation, esteem and
so on.

9.4 Motivation in the school setting

Motivating students is one of the critical tasks of teaching. Teachers are expected to get pupils
interested in learning or interested in displaying desirable behavior. This problem can be aptly
summed up by old adage that says that you can take the donkey to the river but you cannot force it
to drink water. Analogues with this saying the teacher should realize that he could have pupils in
the classroom and even provide an atmosphere

Introduction

What drives you to want to learn about psychology? Why did you choose your career? Your partner? Where
you would live? Are your drives different from other people or do we all share the same goals in life?

This chapter will discuss the various theories related to motivation and emotion. You will learn the different
views on motivation, from those deemed instinctual, internal, and those viewed as external. You will also be
presented with the theories of emotion, an abstract concept which has yet to have an agreed upon definition.
Motivation

Ever wonder why some people seem to be very successful, highly motivated individuals? Where does the
energy, the drive, or the direction come from? Motivation is an area of psychology that has gotten a great deal
of attention, especially in the recent years. The reason is because we all want to be successful, we all want
direction and drive, and we all want to be seen as motivated.

There are several distinct theories of motivation we will discuss in this section. Some include basic biological
forces, while others seem to transcend concrete explanation. Let's talk about the five major theories of
motivation.

Instinct Theory

Instinct theory is derived from our biological make-up. We've all seen spider's webs and perhaps even
witnessed a spider in the tedious job of creating its home and trap. W e've all seen birds in their nests, feeding
their young or painstakingly placing the twigs in place to form their new home. How do spiders know how to
spin webs? How do birds now how to build nests?

The answer is biology. All creatures are born with specific innate knowledge about how to survive. Animals
are born with the capacity and often times knowledge of how to survive by spinning webs, building nests,
avoiding danger, and reproducing. These innate tendencies are preprogrammed at birth, they are in our
genes, and even if the spider never saw a web before, never witnessed its creation, it would still know how to
create one.

Humans have the same types of innate tendencies. Babies are born with a unique ability that allows them to
survive; they are born with the ability to cry. Without this, how would others know when to feed the baby, know
when he needed changing, or when she wanted attention and affection? Crying allows a human infant to
survive. We are also born with particular reflexes which promote survival. The most important of these include
sucking, swallowing, coughing, blinking. Newborns can perform physical movements to avoid pain; they will
turn their head if touched on their cheek and search for a nipple (rooting reflex); and they will grasp an object
that touches the palm of their hands.

Drive Reduction Theory

According to Clark Hull (1943, 1952), humans have internal internal biological needs which motivate us to
perform a certain way. These needs, or drives, are defined by Hull as internal states of arousal or tension
which must be reduced. A prime example would be the internal feelings of hunger or thirst, which motivates us
to eat. According to this theory, we are driven to reduce these drives so that we may maintain a sense of
internal calmness.

Arousal Theory

Similar to Hull's Drive Reduction Theory, Arousal theory states that we are driven to maintain a certain level of
arousal in order to feel comfortable. Arousal refers to a state of emotional, intellectual, and physical activity. It
is different from the above theory, however, because it doesn't rely on only a reduction of tension, but a
balanced amount. It also does better to explain why people climb mountains, go to school, or watch sad
movies.

Psychoanalytic Theory

Remember Sigmund Freud and his five part theory of personality. As part of this theory, he believed that
humans have only two basic drives: Eros and Thanatos, or the Life and Death drives. According to
Psychoanalytic theory, everything we do, every thought we have, and every emotion we experience has one of
two goals: to help us survive or to prevent our destruction. This is similar to instinct theory, however, Freud
believed that the vast majority of our knowledge about these drives is buried in the unconscious part of the
mind.

Psychoanalytic theory therefore argues that we go to school because it will help assure our survival in terms of
improved finances, more money for healthcare, or even an improved ability to find a spouse. We move to
better school districts to improve our children's ability to survive and continue our family tree. We demand
safety in our cars, toys, and in our homes. We want criminal locked away, and we want to be protected against
poisons, terrorists, and any thing else that could lead to our destruction. According to this theory, everything
we do, everything we are can be traced back to the two basic drives

9.5 Humanistic Theory

Although discussed last, humanistic theory is perhaps the most well know theory of motivation. According to
this theory, humans are driven to achieve their maximum potential and will always do so unless obstacles are
placed in their way. These obstacles include hunger, thirst, financial problems, safety issues, or anything else
that takes our focus away from maximum psychological growth.

The best way to describe this theory is to utilize the famous pyramid developed by Abraham Maslow (1970)
called the Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow believed that humans have specific needs that must be met and that if
lower level needs go unmet, we can not possible strive for higher level needs. The Hierarchy of Needs shows
that at the lower level, we must focus on basic issues such as food, sleep, and safety. Without food, without
sleep, how could we possible focus on the higher level needs such as respect, education, and recognition?
Throughout our lives, we work toward achieving the top of the pyramid, self actualization, or the realization of
all of our potential. As we move up the pyramid, however, things get in the way which slow us down and often
knock us backward. Imagine working toward the respect and recognition of your colleagues and suddenly
finding yourself out of work and homeless. Suddenly, you are forced backward and can no longer focus your
attention on your work due to the need for finding food and shelter for you and your family.

According to Maslow, nobody has ever reached the peak of his pyramid. We all may strive for it and some
may even get close, but no one has achieved full self-actualization. Self-actualization means a complete
understanding of who you are, a sense of completeness, of being the best person you could possibly be. To
have achieved this goal is to stop living, for what is there to strive for if you have learned everything about
yourself, if you have experienced all that you can, and if there is no way left for you to grow emotionally,
intellectually, or spiritually.

WEEK 1O
PERSONALITY

10.1 Genetic Determination of Personality

From genes individuals inherit the “blue print” toward certain traits. The “blue print” refers to
the laid down potentialities
There are partialities toward certain physical traits e.g. Height, body structures and skin
pigmentation.

Genes also lay down the potentiates toward the quality of the central nervous system
This means that the quality of the brain and intellectual functioning has genetic heritability to it
Thirdly genes determine the biochemical balance of the body

Question
What are the materials of personality?

The principle raw materials of personality are: physique, intelligence and temperaments. these
are foundation of personally, which are determine through structural inheritance
These raw materials are then patterned into personality characteristics through maturation
experience and learning

Genetic heredity produces the raw material and sets

Genetic heredity produces the raw materials and set the limit of development

Question

Does genetic heredity alone account for individual differences in personality?

When we acknowledge that we are unique, we have our ways of thinking, feeling and behaving
that distinguish us from everyone else, we also need to acknowledge that genetics heredity explains
these different partially .There are many environmental influences that shape and modify
personality. The genetic blue prints are given room to unfold as the person interacts with differ
environmental conditions and demands.

Equation

What lesson should the teacher derive from genetic information?

That each pupil possesses a distinctive personality from all other pupil.

Physical traits, emotionality, sociability activity levels and intellectual functioning are all
influenced by the genetic potentials inherited by every child

That these innate potentials cannot develop beyond the set limits and therefore have realistic for
every child

10.2 Environmental determinants of personality

Children find themselves growing up in many different environment .Each environment leaves its
owns mark owns the malleable human being of courses the most important environment influences
are those that impact the child early in life during the formative period when the self – concept is
being formed

Many of these influences are experiences at home as the children interact with the parents, sibling
and other person in the home. Today many children go to school egad. What is set at age six in
Kenya, they have being through,

Baby class at age three,

Nursery school at age four and
Pre unity at get five
10.3 The home influences love and acceptance

The home is usually the first social environment that the social encounters. It provides the child
with the earliest social experiences as he interacts with mother, father sibling and other people.

These people normally referred to as significant other in the child‟s life lay down the foundations
of trust or mistrust.

During infancy and early childhood, the individual will lean to trust the mother, then the self and
the world if they are exposed to.

A stable loving, acceptable and warm social environment.

Parental love and acceptances how the seed of trust and feeling of security in the child
These become the foundation upon which psychological health is built.
There are those children who suffer rejection and who are UN love

These develop a deep mistrust toward the mother the self and the world, they feel insecure and
there psychological development start on a troubled note. It is therefore extremely important for
parent to ensure that there young one enjoy love and acceptance because these lay down the
foundation of psychological

10.4 Time Spend at Home

The time a child spends at home with family member is every important in the determination of
personality
The critical issue and one which many parent may be oblivious about the fact that family
influences on personality
Are greater when a major part of anis times is spend in the home with family member
Here we are concerned about the amount of time parent and children spend together at home
The amount of time spend with there person determine how significant that person is many time
parent imagine that if they provide for the physical needs of children They have done their work

If their have paid for their fees

Their is food at home and other necessities are catered for
So what else does the child want from me? The children need to spend time with parent both the
father and the mother

If the parent is pending time with the child then it become easy to influence his attitude values and
behavior

Question

Who is at home with the children?

In many Kenyan homes the child is with other children raising each other with a little help from
the television and other electronic devices while the “ayah” cooks and cleans around the houses.

This means that for same children parental influences is a remote possibility. Many parent are
strangers to their children and vice versa.

10.5 Personal identifications

Identification is a Freudian concept

It refers to child wish to become like the father for the boys or

To become like the mother for girls if the boys became like the father, he assumes the male
gender role if she becomes like the mother
Mostly, a child will identify with family member he respects and love
He\she consciously or unconsciously imitate those persons. The big question here is
Is the father at home to give the boy the model for identification?
Is the mother at home to give the girl the mode of identification?

10.6 Activity

Identify activities that keep mothers and fathers away from home after 5
o‟clock in the evening on Saturday and Sundays
How can these activities be rescheduled to allow parent time with their children?
When the parent keep away from home, could it be that there are escaping something? What is it
In your own assessment, what should be role of the “ayah” the inevitable household technician?
To run the home? To raise the children? Or to offer assistances?

We are concerned about parental absences from the home because each parent has specific
contributions toward rearing children‟s, which nobody else can deputize.

• The mother role is very specific .She should be there to provide nurture as well as female
role modeling.
• The father should provide discipline as well as the male role model.
 • The absence or non- participation of one parent in the child‟s life leaves deficits or gaps,
which could easily filled by, many negative influences. When we complain that our children
are,
• Using indecent language
• Are lazy
• Are dressing badly and so on we should be concerned about the kind of influences they are
exposed as a result of our absences or non-participation in their lives.
Methods of behavior control
The methods used by parents to control the child‟s behavior are very important. These refer to the
incentives the parents put in place to induce good behavior, the frustrations and punishments they
mete out to discourage unacceptable behavior.

Many times some parents leave children discipline to chance. They hope that the children will pick
up all the desire behavior by and by.

These parents are usually shocked when the children turn into monsters that nobody can tame.

• Other parents are conscious of their role in instilling discipline in their children
but they do all the wrong things in his endeavor.
• When they bear their children they do it with a vengeance that leaves children
physically and psychologically damaged.
• When they deprive children they deny them food and other basic requirements
leaving the children hungry unloved and damaged.
• Parents should never feel unloved or rejected during the formative years.
• Child discipline should be accompanied by love acceptance, unconditional
positive regard.

Security of environment

Every child needs to feel secure. For this reason the home should be that secure environment where
the child should go with his joys and success as well as with his sorrows and defeats without feeling
unwanted. Inadequate or unhappy
• The home should provide the child with firm ground that gives ground that
gives him anchorage.
• If the child is well anchored his development moves in the direction of self
actualization.

Emotional climate of the home

The emotional climate of the home is very important; children need a healthy emotional climate.
This is aided by empathy, communication, respect for each other; togetherness and appropriate
method of coping with disagreements. These conditions are conducive to the development of
psychological health in children.

• However in many homes these condition are utopian and unattainable as the order of the
day in many home is the
 • Lack of feelings for one another,
• Lack of communication
• Disrespect and
• Inappropriate methods of coping with disagreement.
• Many children are treated to rude shocks by night and by day when parent “offer free for
all entertainment” in the neighborhood as they hurl verbal barrage of insults mixed with
some physical action of flying kicks and fists at each other
• The unfavourable frictional home climate affects children negatively
• The children from the such homes develop hostility, antagonism and they grow to resist
authority

10.7 Negative home influences

There are negative home influences, which damage the developing personality. We may not be
in a position to mention all of them but offer a few examples.

1. Favouritism

This refers to the condition where the parent prefers some parent openly in their world and
actions. Parents are known to openly talk about the children their like and those dislike. They
will, out of their way to extend favour to the “good” children while the “bad “ones don‟t get to
visit exiting place nor have nice thing bought for them. The favored child get new thing while
the”bad”one gets the old .it causes insecurity and inferiority.

2. Another negative home practice is experienced when a parent shows feeling of

inadequacy

A parent who is feeling inadequate for their role may be because their lack basic resource or
• Maybe because their have misused or mishandled resources become a very dangerous
person
• Many men and women will not accept their short comings. They will use defense
mechanisms
• They may become too harsh and blame the other parent or children‟s to the point that no
ones will dare approach them from everything
• A woman or man who comes home and starts finding fault in everything around him
fortifies herself/ himself against any questions

3. Cheating parents

Parent both men and women may cheat about many thing
About some suspicious past,

• Resources
• Extra marital affairs
• Jobs
• Other children,
 • Sicknesses and so on.

Parent who cheat us a lot of psychological energy to cover up the thing they want to keep hidden.
They also must use resources and they institute same and unexplained restriction

• They become difficult and complicated and sometimes fearful

• They don‟t want you to meet their relatives or people who now them.
• They go places alone and won‟t entertain question

4. Maladjusted family members

Sometimes a family has someone who is maladjusted. For example

• A known thief,
• A drunk or
• A known criminal,
Mostly teachers and other children make it their business to keep reminding the child
about their defective family member
• The child is made to feel inferior and unaccepted because of a father who is in jail or a
mother who crawls home drank or a brother who steals and so on.
• This child feels insecure and rejected which are not recipes for the development of
psychological health.

10.8 Authoritarian control

These are parents who are known to rule the family with an iron fist. The child is supposed to be
seen and not to be heard, to obey every command without questioning. A child raised in this kind
of family background never learns to be resourceful and neither does he learn to be autonomous.
Parents are therefore requested to be authoritative and not authoritarian. Being authoritative means
allowing children room to ask questions and reason out while at the same time being firm loving
while dealing with discipline.

10.9 Marital maladjustment.

Marital maladjustment refers to the situation where the married couple discover that the marriage
is not working yet they still share a roof amid fights , insults, separate lives and public dramatic
scenes or pretences. In many cases where is marital maladjustment the child suffers a great deal.
There are instances where the parents decide to uses the child as a weapon to fight the other partner.
In other cases a partner can gang up with the child against the other partner or the child could go
through a great deal of suffering torn in between the two parents.

N.B The family factor is recognized as the single most important influence on cognitive
development, emotional development of self concept.

What is the critical factor determining psychological health or ill health?

It is noteworthy to point out that if one or two aspects of the home are psychologically unfavorable
they may not cause personality development problems. No home can pride itself to be ideal-each
home has its shortcoming and challenges; therefore the one critical factor in determining
psychological health is the experience and feeling of security. As long as home can make the child
feel secure it is alright.

Question

What cause insecurity in children?

When children are rejected they feel both insecure and nervous and they are
likely to become non compliant.

Rejected children may be abandoned, beaten up or starved. These children build up hate and
hostility, which they vent through retaliation against people and property. These children are likely
to become unsocialised, aggressive and who fear neither man nor beast. They take on everybody
in a compulsive desire to revenge.

10.10. Child over protection

Over protection refer to cases where parent insist on prolonging a child infancy or childhood. They
feed and dress up a child who should have outgrown being fed. The parent over restricts the
child‟s activity saying that he should not play with other children or do anything that can cause
him injury.

The over protected child develop feeling in insecurity jealousy, nervousness, submissiveness and
even enuresis. Enuresis‟ is night bed wetting after age three.

8. The over demanding parent

When the parent demand more than the child is capable of achieving children react differently, one
child may become submissive and work hard to attain parental standard. In the process of pushing
oneself so hard this child could develop neurotic systems

• When another child is driven too hard he may result to cheating to give the parent the
false believe that he is achieving
• A third child may become out rightly rebellious and refuse to be driven.
9. Defective home discipline
When home discipline is defective children become poorly adjusted, aggressive, delinquent or
even neurotic.

10.11 Educational determinants of personality

Educational institution play significant role in personality development
• Schools rack second to the home as their influence comes every in life when the self-
concept is being formed
• In fact once children join school they spend more time there than in any other place
outside the home
• The school has different influence and challenge on the child
• It is the first place that provide the child with challenge At school the child is no longer a
baby
• When he is an equal among peers
• When he cries they laugh at him and teases him has a crybaby.
• When he wets or soil himself and they break into laughter
• School provide the child with the opportunity to measure himself against the peer in term
of intellectual, social and physical abilities

Question

What is a critical factor to consider before introducing a child to school?

Activity

• A child wakes up in the morning and start to cry, he refuses to the breakfast and
neither will he prepare to go school
• The mother beats him and forcefully dresses him up for school.
• When we get to school he looks a pitiable sight. He is dirty, full of tears and
mucous
• The child is resisting school. Can you guess several reasons causing the
resistance?
• What is likely response of the other children toward this child?
• How is the child likely to behave on the following day?

10.12 Readiness for school

The purpose of the following activity is it point out some difficult experience by children when
they enter school.

• Some little boys and girls are traumatized by the school experience and there is nowhere
they can run to escape the torture that school can be.

• The mother and father beats them without wanting to find out why they are unhappy
with school

• When they get to school the teacher continues the tormenting ordeals while the other
children laugh at and taunt the poor child.

• He has to control of his bowel movement.

• He can control his urination.

• He has the ability to communicate his need and he possess the social skill to ask the
teacher for permission to go to the toilet

• At lasts the child should be able to share material and to control his aggression to a
certain extent so that he earn peers acceptance.

• If the child problems are dealt with early enough adjustment to school become possible

• A child fails to adjust to school if they encounter ego-deflating experience. They wet or
soil their clothes and other children laugh at them.

• The teacher beats them.

• The person who washes their soiled clothes shows open disgust and hostility

10.13 The emotional climate of the school

The emotion climate of the school is very important to the child. This is the teacher role become
very critical, as she is normally responsible the emotional climate.

• The teacher influence on personality development is second only to that of the parent
• She is the mother of many children, all of them the same age. They look up to her
• For love
• Acceptance and
• Fair play

The teacher school be seen to treat all children equally avoiding favoritism. She should be seen
to have a keen interest in children and
 • Always remember that children are very sensitive. They want to be assured of love,
acceptance and unconditional positive regard
• Indeed the teacher set the foundation for the child adjustment or maladjustment to school
• The teacher should use the enormous powers she possesses to put children on the right
footing in the direction of psychological health the direction toward self-actualization

Academic success

• The degrees of academic success that the child achieves affect personality development. If
a child is getting good grade in school work he enjoys inner satisfaction which boosts his
ago.
• Good grade not only lead to praise and commendation from teacher and parent they also
attract envy from peers
• They promise a good future as well adjustment to school.
• A child who is performing well will most likely steer away from any disciplinary problem.

Success in extra curriculum activities

• Some children may not shows excellent performance in class but when they are in the
field they hold their own very well some run for school at district or national levels
• Other are on the school teams; football, volleyball, basketball, rugby, tennis, netball and
so on.
• There are those who have talent in leadership while other shine in drama, choir, or dance.

School type

Schools differ just like the homes. Some schools are well endowed with physical and human
resources while other could do with a lot more than current available in both type of resource school
also differ in terms of culture. This means that a child personality will be shaped according o what
the school has to offer. The unfortunate bit here is that a child success in school and in life may be
determine solely by the school factor.

1) Why do student rise up against their own school?

2) Why do they burn school property?

3) In recent times the country has been treated to macabre and grotesques activity by student
who buy petrol and burn other student as they sleep.
 4) Rape orgies have been reported in cases where student breaks bond and visit a
neighborhoods village or a girl school with the sole purpose of raping and killing.

5) What is that turn ours good boys into terrors?

6) Are they factor in the school perhaps? Or are the teachers going to forever continue
blaming factor that exit outside the schools?

Personality adjustment and maladjustment

It is difficult to discuss personality without giving some attention to the concepts of personality
adjustment pupil will become adjusted or maladjusted depending on the experience encountered
both at home and at school. Children who are expose to peasant experiences from early childhood
are more likely to develop capacity for adjustment and psychological equilibrium. It refer to the
adequacy of behavior patterns the individual uses to satisfy his need person must satisfy his need
in way that are consistent with social expectations for age, sex and status. To be well adjusted a
person must have acquaint coping skill.

10.12 Characteristic of a well adjusted person

A well-adjusted person is efficient in dealing with situational demands. This means that he
adapts well and deals with challenge competently.
• He accepts his strengths and weakness and goes about life confidently.
• He also display social sensitivity and conforms to social standards. This person
doesn't violate rules
• Adjustment gives the person happiness because the adjusted person live in harmony
with his world and is oriented toward self-actualization

Maladjustment

People are face with adjustment problem all the time if the problem are too severe, and the solution
not forthcoming frustration arise. Severe and continued frustration leads to maladjustment,
desperation, queer, or atypical behavior.

Characteristics of a maladjusted person

The maladjusted person display inability appropriately with the physical and social environment
• Is unable to satisfy ones needs
• Is likely ones needs
• Suffer from anxiety motivated afflictive needs
• Has cultivated a self concept of inferiority and guilt
• Suffer a breakdown of efficiency under stress
 • Will engage in repeated transgression and destructiveness
• Suffer loss of constructiveness
• Will withdraw from school or social activity
• Worries excessively and is likely to fall into depression and pessimism.

Question

Who is responsible for children adjustment?

The primary responsibility for the child adjustment?
• They are the ones who set the basic personality pattern through the security they
provide in early childhood
• It also lies with the teachers. The teachers hold the key to whether the child will be
fulfilled
• Both the parent and the teacher should help children develop their capacity for
adjustment so that they learn to deals with present as well as future problem
competently
• If the parent and teacher do their job well then , cases of children‟s who become
delinquent, school dropouts, those who have hopeless and helpless lives will be
minimized.

summaries

In this lesson we have discussed personality with a specific focus on the following;
• Definition of the term
• Determinants of personality
• Genetic determinants
• The home influences on personality
• Personality adjustment and maladjustment

key concepts

Adjustment; ability to deal with situational demand in relation to social expectation, sex and
status of a person.

Genetic determinants;-inherited potentials, which are passed down from parent to offspring.
Home influences: interactions within physical and human resources within the home and their
impact on personality.
Maladjustment:-inability to deal with personal problem due to deficiency in behavior potential
and skills
Personality:- the whole of a person outstanding characteristics
Review/discussion questions
?
1. Why should the teacher study the topic personality?
2. From observation of people in your neighborhoods or family can you tell which physical,
intellectual or social traits that children inherit from their parent?
3. Who spends more time with the children where we come from? Mom or dad or the
housemaid? When the parents are not in at home, where are you?
4. What is the prevalence of domestic violence in your community? Who better who, mom or
dad?
5. Why do you remember of your best and worst teacher?
6. How will the understanding of force that shape personality influence you as a teacher?

WEEK 11

11.0 CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

In this lesson I have to discuss classroom management. I have specifically focused on.

▪ The relevance methods of identify behavior problem.

▪ Reasons why learners misbehave.
▪ How pupil react to the problem.
▪ Method of behavior change

11.1 Introductions

One of the principle reasons for teacher unhappiness is indiscipline problem. Any time you have a
collection of pupil in a classroom you have a fertile ground for the entire possible misdemeanor.
They make noise pinch each other, steal, cheat, and cough or yawn contagiously. When you report
a new school for the first lesson you may find a cartoon caricature of you deftly outlined on the
chalkboard.
On the next morning you discover that the teacher chairs is missing and in its place is a three legged
one.
You intend to ask about the missing chair but you are confronted with black faces or girls or boys
who won leak any information somewhere at the corner of the chalkboard is one word
UNBWOGABLE or three words ``hatucheki na watu``

Somewhere else is your nickname inscribed!

Which teacher will have the courage to go through all these and still teach?

11.2 Objective

By the end of this lesson the learner should be able to:

➢ Understand the relevance of classroom management

➢ Identify the method the teacher could use to identify problem behavior in the classroom
➢ Outline the possible causes of problem behaviors
➢ Discuss various methods of behavior change

11.3 The relevance of classroom management

The teacher roles in the classroom are mainly two.

• The first being to ensure that the classroom environment is conducive for learning while
• The second ones is the delivery of content. The first role is critical because it might be the
sole determinant to the amount of learn that take places
• The classroom environment is largely determined by the teacher ability to manage all the
variable present in the classroom at any time for the purposes of promoting conditional for
learning.
• Therefore the teacher ability to run a- well –managed class is of utter importance.
• Classroom management is seen as the teacher number one professional problem
gage/Berliners,(1991)

For the teacher to be an effective classroom manager, he should:

 Posses methods of identifying problem behavior in classroom

 Known why student misbehaves
 Possess effective skills for maintaining discipline

11.4 method of identifying problem behaviors in the classroom

For the teacher to be able to identify problem behaviors in the classroom, he needs to be in touch
with the class

This means being aware of what is happening in all part of classroom so that he can intervene
promptly and accurately when in inappropriate behavior occurs

The teacher observation of children will reveal

• Facial expression that may indicate
• Unhappiness
• Anxiety
• Restlessness
• Hyperactivity
• Tension
• Self-consciousness
• Anger
• Nervous habits and
• Day dreaming

The teacher could observe the learner social activity. When children are playing in the field the
teacher could use scientific gadget like the binoculars to observe the pupil social interactions
unobtrusively.

Who are playing together and those who are left out by the other so that a lot of the time they sit or
stand by themselves?

Observation of pupils social interaction will also reveals the pupils

• Who bully others
• Those who are bullied
• The fearful ones
• The quarrelsome ones and
• Those who are defiant

The teacher could also use sociometric to discover the pupils who have problems. For example ask
pupil in the class to nominate other pupil from the same class with whom one would like to share
a cubicle, to be desk mate, to go for walk with and so on.

• The teacher could also ask the class to write a story with the following theme.
• What I dreamt last night. normally, people dreams about thing that bother them
• Another them could be if in I had three wishes.
• The third theme to ask pupil to write about is; the day I was most afraid

The teacher could also use the direct approach or finding out of what is bothering the pupil. The
use of this method requires the teacher to ensure a private discussion in the staffroom and not public
address in the classroom or on parade ground.
11.5 Why does pupil misbehaves?

Pupil do not misbehave for the sake of doing so; they have their own reason a good teacher is the
one who known‟s why learners are likely to show problem behavior. The following are some of
the reasons;

1. Unmet needs

Every child must achieve reasonable satisfaction of his

• Physical
• Social and
• Personality needs in order to develop in a normal and wholesome manner. When these
need are frustrated then problematic behavior arises

2. Poverty

Children came from poor home may lack basic necessities like food. They will also be lacking the
thing required by the school. For example when other children who have good uniforms and can
afford other thing like pen, book, money for trips, the child from a(poor home lack these thing).this
child is also likely to be taunted by other children and called name referring to history cloth. Due
to the hostility of his socio-psychological environment, this pupil has a high likelihood of showing
maladjustment. These children use poverty as a motivator.

3. Broken home

There are children who come from broken home. A home may be broken by,
• Death of a parent or
• Divorce
• Separation and
• Desertion
Any of these condition make children feel very insecure.
4. conflict-ridden home also produces children who are;

• Nervous
• Unhappy and
• Insecure and who are likely to shows behavior problem

5. Personal inadequacies

Sometimes a pupil may feel inequity when he is unable to carry out task that are expected of him
• The pupil who is unable to engage in physical task like the rest of he group or
• One who is unable to achieve on mental task like the other children experience frustration
There are pupils who set for themselves goal that they cannot attain, for example a child with
average mental ability waiting to be position one in a class where competition is high.
 • This pupil can never attain the goal and therefore the frustration that arises becomes a
sources of behaviors problems
• The pupils who are self-conscious tend to feel inferior and friendless and may crave for
affection.

6 The rejected child

Many children come from home where there are neither loved nor valued by their parent; their
need for affection and security is threatened.
• These children may suffer neglect
• Separation from parent
• Their could be nagged
• Humiliated before others
• Compare unfavorably with other
• These children will engage in attention seeking behavior.
• Lacking in reaction of guilt
• Suffer emotion instability
• Lack self control and
• They have underdeveloped ego which make them have no feeling of remorse
• This means that their undesirables behaviors may be associated with child rejection

7. The overprotected child

This is the child whose every flimsy need is catered for.

• He eats whenever and whatever he want
• Have many material possession
• Lack a sense of responsibility
• Develop infantile behavior
• Exhibits problem like thumb sucking
• Dad manner
• Rudeness
• Impoliteness
• Disobedience
• Will be bossy
• Selfish
• Show off and
• Lacking in frustration tolerance

8. Unfavorable School Practices

Many time conditions that exist in the school may result in a child unwholesome development.
These are condition which could be detrimental to the good psychological health of their pupil.
These are;

a) Failure to cater for individual differences.

 When the student feel that the teacher are not caring for them individually
• Feel insecure
• Uncertain and
• Afraid
• These students may show disobedience

b) Autocratic control
If there teacher and the school administration do not exercise democratic control in their
interaction with people then the problem arise. The pupils who are ruled with an iron fist
have their resourcefulness and initiative stifled.
• Control their behavior,
• Their though or
• Their action
c) Humiliating pupil in public
There are times when student do the wrong thing. For example
• When they fail to complete assignment
• They make noise in class
• Thy are rude
Many times the scolding is meant to make the erring boy or a girl suffer
humiliation in the present of peer or the whole school

• A teacher who is expose pupil to this kind of humiliation is like us to contribute to

delinquency

• This will occur when the pupil decide to skip the school all the together and join a gang
of truant pupil who care nothing for school

d) Teacher can also use label on pupils.

This happen when the teacher decides to refer to pupil social inferiority or even stress on the
pupil negative behavior or wariness.
• Dumb
• Bad
• Stubborn
• Disobedient and
• Outright defective

Naturally children have a way of fulfilling their teacher prophesies by displaying their label.
They become what their teacher says thy are

e) The Teacher Competence

The teacher ability to fit their role is critically important any teacher who has problems in
any area of his duty is likely to contribute to the emergence and existence of problematic
behavior. In order to cover up his shortcoming he will blame
 • The school
• The pupil
• He parents
• The society

11.6 How pupil react to problem

Pupils react to problem by becoming problems. Problematic pupil who cannot all will not adjust
to the socially acceptable norm for behavior.
The problematic pupil is likely to shows any of the several outwardly manifested behaviors; for
example

1) Absenteeism
• Absenteeism can be either physical absence which means that the child is bodily away
from class many times which fakes reasons of sickness or other reasons
• This can observed if the pupil is looking outside the window.
• Passing notes the other in the class, is starling vacant
• Fidgeting or
• Day dreaming

2) Show of misconduct

The problematic child is likely to be in involves in misbehavior, for example

• Noise marking
• Aggression
• Defiance
• Use of profane language or
• Basically acting tough
3) Stealing

Pupil will engage in stealing for various reasons

• Sometimes they want to get revving or
• They wish to vent hostile feeling toward parent
• A child may steal due to lack of respect for other people property
• There are children who steal without an apparent good reason.
• This may happen a child has problem that are psychological in nature

4) Lying

This refer to twisting or falsifying information for selfish motives

• Children tell lies in order to escape the consequences of punishment or to get attention
• Also their will tell lies in order to reduce anxiety or
 • Even to get something they want

5) Cheating

• Pupil will cheat when a task is too difficult and particularly when parent and teacher have
set standards that the child cannot attain.
• The child will also cheat in order to avoid failure
• The cheating child may also be the one who feel both inadequate and inferior

6) Truancy

The truancy child stays away from school without the knowledge of the parent
• He may go finishing, movie watching or just any other activity that keep him away from
school
• A chili will besom truant if school is threatening for example
• A pupil who is being bullied or one who is performing poorly in school will be truant

Activity

Try and list the entire method teacher uses to deal with inappropriate behavior
• Type of punishment
• Other method
• Try to suggest reasons for your answer

WEEK 12

12.0 Punishment

In their effort to maintain order in the classroom teacher use many method of behavior change.
Among them punishment rank very high
• Punishments is a form of invasive control of behavior
• Aversive means unpleasant, noxious or painful. student can be punished through the
following ways
• A teacher could administers an aversive stimulus like caning, or kneeling
• A teacher could also remove an individual from a reinforcing situation e.g removing a
student from class also called time out
• Punishment is also be physical like scolding or blaming a student
12.1 Purpose of punishment

When a teacher administers punishment to a pupil he hopes to do the following

• To make undesirable behavior less probable
• To weaken to
• To suppress or
• Eliminates it

With this in mind we need to acknowledge that punishment may not always have any of these
effects on the undesirable‟s behavior
• There are times when the punished behavior is not suppressed nor eliminate and the
teacher need to known why this happen

1) Intensity of punishment

Intensity refers to the strength or severity of punishment. Punishments of high intensity are likely
to eliminate undesirable behavior.
• Also any child playing with a sharp object stops doing so if cut by the object.
• In the school situation, very severe punishment are discouraged because they can harm
both the body and the mind

2) Consistency of punishment
Consistency refer to the condition of punishing a pupil every time the undesirable behavior
occurs
• This mean that the pupil known that he can escape with the punishment behavior
when the teacher is not around
• Making punishment consisted is not humanly possible
• Inconsistency make undesirable behavior recurs

3) Contingency of punishment

Contingency refer to the pairing of punishment with the undesired behavior.

• It means that punishment should be administrated immediately the undesirable behavior
occurs
• The principle is that if punishment is made contingent upon the undesired behavior or
the association between it and the behavior will be created and thus it will be power to
suppress that behavior

What is the situation like in the classroom or in the school? Many times the teacher are unable to
deliver punishment consigner upon the undesirable behavior e.g. a student who comes late, or one
who disrupts the classroom activity may have to wait for hours before punishment is delivered

• Also it is not humanly possible to monitor a pupil so as punish him contingents

 • Therefore, pupils known they can get away with punishable behavior.
• Consequently punishment as a method of behavior control fails

Activity

Imagine you are in a day school in one of the low seas area one week you are on
duty and you notice these boys who report to school late. The same boy did not wash his uniform
and you give him the prescribed punishment. You also discover he did not finish his home
assignment. By the end of the day you have not noticed any other pupil because you are
preoccupied with his particular one. Discuss this case suggestion how you could intervene in this
case

12.2. Facts about punishment

When you talk about the punishment we have certain expectations

• We expect that it will serve an incentive to induce behavior change.
• We expect the punishment pupil to avoid errors but where are punishment could meet our
expiation we should also realize that it could also be an incentive to induce other
undesirable behavior

There are times when punishment can provide the pupil with end satisfaction. For example
• A child who attract the teacher attention only when he talk in class will continue talking
• For this pupil punishment is desirable, it s rewarding
• For this reasons teacher are advised to recognize pupil and reward them for any good
behavior they show and not wait to recognize the pupil only when he has misbehaved
• Another factor determines whether learner will engage in undesirable behavior or not is
knowledge of punishment.

Also happen if the teachers punish the pupil for dependent behavior the child become more
dependant
• This happen even at home a mother beats the child of clinging on to her.
• Common sense would have it that the child should run away from the mother but he does
not. This child clings to the mother even more firmly.

12.3 The punishment of aggressive behaviors

If the teacher punishes a pupil for aggressive tendencies this pupil is likely to be more aggressive
and particularly if subjected to harsh physical punishment.
 1) Punishment may not eliminate the undesirable behavior. For example a child who is
punished for smoking in school may stop smoking while in a school but continue to do so
in other place
2) At other time punishment may eliminate one undesirable behavior but another equally
undesirable behavior emerge e.g. a child may be punished for being aggressive and actually
stops but become withdrawn
3) There are pupil who may fear punishment so much that they become avoidant. they may
fake illness, become truant fail to attend school sessions
4) It also noted that when a pupil is punished he is not provide with an alternative behavior.
For example a child can learn to control his aggressive tendencies but does learn to be
friendly.

12.4 Negative effects of punishment

It has become increasingly important for teacher to known that effects of punishment are frequently
undeniable

1) For one, the threatening aspect of punishment may produce emotional tension in the pupil
who may actually learn to hate the punisher because of the fear of the punishment

2) The pupil may acquire many undesirable behaviors to avoid being punished. He may cheat,
lie and become anxious.

3) The teacher needs to be aware that punishment has limited usefulness as a control technique
• It has real disadvantages in the terms of the total learning of the child
• Teachers need to note that if their interaction with pupil is largely characterized by punitive
relationship, they are likely to be ineffective in promoting a wide range of desirable
behavior.

12.5 Conditions under which punishment should be given

From the foregoing it looks like we are discouraging the use of punishment. However we recognize
that punishment cannot be dismissed or ignored. The teacher may find the following suggestion
useful;

• If the teacher must punished he should specify and communicate the punishable behavior
to the pupil by means of classroom rules and regulation
• The pupil should be posted where the pupil can see them
• The rules should be reviewed often
• Pupil should be informed of the alternative behavior that is what they would have done
instead of the punished behavior.
• The punishment should always be perceived as fair. This means that the teacher should
not be seen to partiality. Those who deserve to be punished must receive their
 punishment as prescribed. Impartiality can be a major cause of school unrest and increased
indiscipline.
• The teacher should try and avoid group punishment at all cost. A lot of gain is made if the
teacher is able to isolate stun dent or two and punish them instead of punishing the whole
class. When the teacher uses group punishment, it ceases to be punishment as learners may
actually enjoy it.

12.7 Behavior modification techniques

There are several method the teacher could use in classroom management and which could go
along way to minimize cases of indiscipline while at the same time they will help to maximize the
occurrence of desirable behavior. They follow the principle of learning that we are quite familiar
with. They are the following.
• From classical conditioning eliciting and extinction principles
• From operant conditioning: reinforcement
• Behavior contracting from Premark principle

12.7.1 Classical conditioning

1. Eliciting

Eliciting is the act of expecting and calling upon the pupil to display the desirable behavior. The
teacher could call the student by name and ask him to answer a question or to do a certain
assignments or pick something on the floor. He should be told you, well well done. The positive
response from the teacher will enhance the chances of recurrence of behavior

2. Extinction

This refers to the elimination of a response through the withdrawal of reinforcement. The teacher
could ignore a behavior that is undesirable sometimes. For example, some attention –seeking pupil
who comes to class late so that he can be asked why he s late could be ignored

• A student who does thing to make the class laugh could be discouraged if the teacher
instructs the class not to laugh
• Extinction works very well if the teacher accompanies it with the reinforcement of
alternative behavior. In the case of the second pupil reinforcing him every time he display
seriousness in the classroom interaction

12.7.2 Reinforcement

Reinforcement is the key concept derived from operant condition theory. Reinforcement refers to
the use of reward as incentive to induce and strengthen desirable behavior.
 • The teacher should always remember that rewards are useful when they are seen
as potentials sources of need satisfaction.
• Secondly reward must be attainable. If a pupil is attracted to a certain reward but
he knows that he has little a changes of attaining it he will not work for it.
• Thirdly the reward punishment ratio should be right a pupil must receive more
reward than punishment to the ratio of 5:1
• When the ratio drops furtherto1:1 the pupil s likely to develop delinquent
behaviors

Token economy

• Tokens are concrete forms of reinforces. They can be in the form of point or poker chips
• If a pupil performs a desirable task, he is given tokens. For example punctuality can earn
a pupil two tokens
• Turning in complete homework 5 tokens
• Presenting neat work 2 tokens
• Token can also be taken away if the pupil misbehaves

12.7.3 Behavior contracting

Behavior contracting involves two people. The teacher and the student. These people identify the
undesirable behavior as well as the desirability to change it the behavior to be change could be,

• Lateness
• Poor grooming,
• Untidy work
• Non- completion of homework.
• The strength of this method lies in the fact that the pupil is an involved party in the contract
.he is cognitively involved in his own behavior change and consequently, when behavior
change occurs it become durable.

12.8 preventive disciplines

• Beyond reward and punishments

• The teacher should respect and love children
• Respect their identity
• Help them to develop social competence so that they can win peer acceptance
• An achieving child will feel worthy, recognized, competent and autonomous
• Every child may achieve some degree of it.
• Provide good teaching
• Let children be committed to behavior change
• Adopt a teamwork approach-involve teacher administration and parents.
• Design a complete discipline ladder
 • Train self management and disciple
• Invite good discipline
• Focus on student success and self-esteem
• Implement fair and firm rules
• Plan lesson thoroughly
• Continually monitor the classroom environment
• Minimize problems early

Summaries

This lesson has discussed classroom management focusing on the following issues
❖ Relevance of classroom management
❖ Methods of identifying problem behavior in the class
❖ Why pupils misbehave
❖ Method of behavior change
➢ Punishment
➢ Behavior modification techniques
❖ Preventive discipline

Discussion/Review Questions

1. In your own assessment what are the root causes of discipline problem in your
area?
2. To what extend do teacher reply on punishment and with what result?
3. Have you come across a teacher who tries to use the other behavior modification techniques
discussed above?
4. In what ways do teacher apply to preventive discipline?

key concepts

Classroom management: the skill the teacher uses to ensure delivery of content n an atmosphere
of order and good behavior as well as the ability to deal with cases of discipline.

Contingency:- refer to the immediacy of punishment it refer to proximity in time and space

Eliciting;- refers to creating condition that that favor the production of a behavior.

Extinctions:- the disappearance of a response due to non-reinforcement

Intensity of punishment:- refer to the strength or severity of punishment

Reinforcement:- refer to the strengthening of a response by proving certain incentives

Tokens:- concrete forms of reinforces, which use the same principle as money.

WEEK 13
13.0 Ego Defense Mechanisms

We stated earlier that the ego's job was to satisfy the id's impulses, not offend the moralistic character of
the superego, while still taking into consideration the reality of the situation. We also stated that this was
not an easy job. Think of the id as the 'devil on your shoulder' and the superego as the 'angel of your
shoulder.' We don't want either one to get too strong so we talk to both of them, hear their perspective
and then make a decision. This decision is the ego talking, the one looking for that healthy balance.

Before we can talk more about this, we need to understand what drives the id, ego, and superego.
According to Freud, we only have two drives; sex and aggression. In other words, everything we do is
motivated by one of these two drives.

Sex, also called Eros or the Life force, represents our drive to live, prosper, and produce offspring.
Aggression, also called Thanatos or our Death force, represents our need to stay alive and stave off
threats to our existence, our power, and our prosperity.

Now the ego has a difficult time satisfying both the id and the superego, but it doesn't have to do so
without help. The ego has some tools it can use in its job as the mediator, tools that help defend the
ego. These are called Ego Defense Mechanisms or Defenses. When the ego has a difficult time
making both the id and the superego happy, it will employ one or more of these defenses:

DEFENSE DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE

denial arguing against an denying that your physician's diagnosis

anxiety provoking stimuli of cancer is correct and seeking a
by stating it doesn't exist second opinion

displacement taking out impulses on a slamming a door instead of hitting as

less threatening target person, yelling at your spouse after an
argument with your boss

intellectualization avoiding unacceptable focusing on the details of a funeral as

emotions by focusing on opposed to the sadness and grief
the intellectual aspects

projection placing unacceptable when losing an argument, you state

 impulses in yourself onto "You're just Stupid;" homophobia
someone else

rationalization supplying a logical or stating that you were fired because you
rational reason as didn't kiss up the the boss, when the real
opposed to the real reason was your poor performance
reason

reaction formation taking the opposite having a bias against a particular race or
belief because the true culture and then embracing that race or
belief causes anxiety culture to the extreme

regression returning to a previous sitting in a corner and crying after

stage of development hearing bad news; throwing a temper
tantrum when you don't get your way

repression pulling into the forgetting sexual abuse from your

unconscious childhood due to the trauma and anxiety

sublimation acting out unacceptable sublimating your aggressive impulses

impulses in a socially toward a career as a boxer; becoming a
acceptable way surgeon because of your desire to cut;
lifting weights to release 'pent up' energy

suppression pushing into the trying to forget something that causes

unconscious you anxiety

Ego defenses are not necessarily unhealthy as you can see by the examples above. In face, the lack of
these defenses, or the inability to use them effectively can often lead to problems in life. However, we
sometimes employ the defenses at the wrong time or overuse them, which can be equally destructive

WEEK 14

14.0 THE EXCEPTIONAL LEARNER

14.1 Introductions

I find extremely difficult to give this lesson justice in the limited time and space I have.this is due
to the fact that exceptionally deserves a whole books. It is a discipline of study on it owns right
with many area of specialization and focus. In this lessons I have introduces you to the exceptional
learner with the hope that the around interest will eventually sensitize you to seek to know more
about it by enrolling in special education program available or our university.
14.2 Objectives

By the end of this lesson the learner should be able to

❖ Define the term of exceptional child
❖ Describe five board categories of exceptional children
❖ Explain causes of exceptionality
❖ Discuss the concept of intervention
❖ Describe services for exceptional children

14.3 Definitions of the term exceptional children

Henry (1950), defines exceptional children as those who deviate from what is supposed to be
average in physical mental emotional or social characteristics to such an extent that they require
special educational services in order to develop to their maximum capacity. Admittedly it is
difficult to define exceptionality but as the foregoing definition go it is important to note that
exceptional children are those who will require specialized skill and service some exception
children may require to be put in a special school while other may need individualized attention in
regular classroom.

14.4 Categories of exceptional children

Exceptional children can be categorized follows

▪ The intellectually different this category includes the gifted and the talented, mentally
handicapped and those with specific learning disabilities
▪ The physically different this category include the orthopedic, physically handicapped,
the crippled or deformed
▪ Those with health problems; this category include the children who are diabetic, those
who suffer from arthritis heart disease, kidney disease, tuberculosis, leukemia, sickle
cell and anemia.

14.5 Classifications of exceptional children’s

The gifted and talent

Who are gifted?

There is no agreement about what constitutes a gifted student one reason being that individual
can have many gifts. The general consensus is that the gifted learners are those with
▪ Above average general ability
▪ High level of creativity
▪ High level of task commitment or motivation to achieve in certain area
There are other characteristics that distinguish the gifted learner from other children these are
▪ They are larger, stronger and healthier than the norm group
▪ They have great curiosity and good memory.
▪ They are more emotionally stable than their peers as adults they are better adjusted
than the average person.

14.6 How a teacher indentifies the gifted children

A gifted children may not be those who simply learn quickly with little effort although this
characteristics is present, it is important that the teacher notice those children who reason thing out,
think clearly, use common sense and practical knowledge

▪ Have knowledge of many thing

▪ Have a large vocabulary accurately used
▪ Perfume difficult mental tasks

Ask many questions and are interested in a wide range of thing

The intellectually gifted child is original and uses good but unusual method or ideas. He is also
alert and keenly observant and responds quickly.

14.7 Problems associated with giftedness

The gifted and talented children constitute a group of student with special education need that are
often overlooked by the school. The very gift that make them outstanding are the one that cause
them untold difficult the teacher may not the following problems.

Non- Participation

The gifted children need stimulating and challenging work. If they get bored with classroom routine
they may become indifferent, restless, inattentive, disturbing and even annoying

They may get into trouble

The gifted children may get into trouble because they have abundant energy, insight, a vivid sense
of hum our, strong feeling of truth and justice which make them outspoken. They get
misunderstood sometimes teachers will think that the gifted child is rude, unruly and indiscipline
they do not understand them.

14.8 How to manage the gifted children

Many suggestion have been put forward

Some people feel that the gifted children should be put in classes according to mental age rather
than chronological. For this reason some approaches have advised that they could be retained in
class with his age mate but be given additional work or material. This is concepts of enriching
the regular classroom by allowing the gifted child to conduct independent researches, offering
them additional learning and even offering them extra curriculum activities.

Activity

1. Do you know that many gifted children underachieve and even drop out of school?

2. Try and find out the causes of this phenomenon. When there are problem in the school like
strikes, many gifted children are expelled from the instruction. Can you explain why this happen?

3. Are you aware that at time gifted children are dismissed as show offs?

14.8.2 The Mentally Handicapped Children

According to the America association on mental deficiency (AAMD) mental retardation refer to
the substantial limitation in present intellectual functioning which is characterized by sub average
intellectual functioning existing concurrently with related limitation in two or more of the
following; communication, self –care, home living, social skill, community use, self direction,
health, safely functional academic, leisure and work. Mental retardation manifests before age 18.

14.8.3 Causes of Mental Retardation

Mental retardation could be caused by the factor:

In-born error of metabolism for example in the case of phenylketunoria (PKU). In PKU the child
is born with genetic defect, with interferes with the ability to metabolize protein. As a result the
child has very low IQ. and may not acquire language nor any self help skill and may require life-
long care. However there are cases when the chromosome 21 may have three mental retarding
called down syndrome or mongolism

Prenatal factors; disease like rubella condition like Rhesus factor, malnutrition and even drug taken
by the mother during the pregnant are known to cause cases mental retardation injury to the central
nervous system during the birth process. Postnatal factor-these are conditions existing after the
birth of the baby for example infection e.g. meningitis

14.8.4 Categories of mentally retarded children

Mentally retarded children are classified as follows

The profoundly method; with IQ below 30

The severely mentally retarded IQ; 30-35

Children in this category cannot be trained in self –help skill like dressing feeding or toileting.

They cannot be trained in socialization or economic usefulness and they need life long care.

The trainable mentally retarded IQ 35-50

These children have potentialities in three areas

1. They can learn self care like feeding, dressing, undressing; toileting and sleeping
2. They can learn to adjust in the home and the neighborhoods
3. They can learn economic usefulness in the home

The educable mentally retarded IQ.50-79.these children can do writing, arithmetic and reading at
a very slow rate. The educable mentally retarded children have some capacity for school
adjustments to a point where their get along independently in the community. They can acquire
minimum occupation queasy which will enable them to support themselves partially or totally at a
marginal lever.

The slow learner IQ ranges from 80-90

This is borderline category of learner who have problem in catching up with the rest of the children
in class academically. They are capable of achieving a moderate degree of academic success at a
slower rate than the average child.

14.9 The learning disabled children

Learning disability is a new and control version categories of exception learning. There is no fully
agreed upon definition

Cartwright (1981) defines learning disability as a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group
of order manifest of significant difficulties in the ability. Nervous system dysfunction and may
occur across the life span.

Halloran and Kauffmann (1976) say that children will special learning disabilities exhibits a
disorder in one or more of the basic psychological process involves in understanding or using
spoken or writing language spelling or arithmetic. They do not include learning problems, which
are due primary to visual, hearing, or motor handicaps, to mental retardation, emotional
disturbances or to environmental disadvantage
14.9.1 Are teaching disabled children a homogeneous group?

The learning disable children are a heterogeneous group. Each child may have specific difficulties
in one or more academic area e.g. poor coordination, problem paying attention, hyper activity and
impulsivity, problem organizing and interpreting visual and auditory information, disorder of
thinking memory speech and hearing or difficulties keeping friends. Callahan and kauffman
(1997). For purpose of academic life, we need to be aware that most children with learning
disabilities have difficulties reading cause by problem related to sounds which consequently make
spelling hard. A third category of children of has problem writing. The writing is virtually
unreadable
A forth category of disabled learner speak in a halting and disorganized manner.

14.9.2 What Seems To Be The Problem?

The problem of learning disabled children are that ;

They a lack effective ways to approach academic task .they do not know how to focus on relevant
information or get organizes. They tend to be passive learner party because they do not know how
to learn. These learners cannot work independently on homework or seatwork.

14.9.3 How Can They Be Helper?

The learner disabled children should be diagnosed early in order to prevent them from becoming
frustrated and discouraged. If they do not understand the problem they being professional for the
necessary intervention measure. Teacher handling learning disabled children should emphasize
study skill and method of processing information in a given subject like reading and mathematics.
Those who need specialized attention by special education specialists should be referred to them.

Activity

In Kenya we learning disabled children could be confuse with mentally retarded

children why do you think, this is the case?

14.10 Physical Differences

14.10.1 Cerebral palsy

What is cerebral palsy?

Cerebral palsy is a disorder affecting voluntary movement. It causes a child to have difficulty
moving or coordinating hi or her body. The problem may be making the child appear clumsy. It
can also be severe making voluntary movement practically impossible. Spasticity refers to muscles
that are too tight or tense. Most children with cerebral palsy may also have secondary handicaps
e.g. hearing problem, speech problem or mid mental retardation.

What cause cerebral palsy?

Cerebral palsy is caused by damage to the brain before birth like in case associated with
anoxia(reduced oxygen supply in the fetus brain). It can also be caused by brain damage during the
birth process or during infancy.

14.10.2. Physical Challenges

This category constitutes the physically different children eg the orthopedic physically
handicapped crippled or deformed. These children may have special orthopedic devices such as
brace, special shoes crutches or wheel chair. They also require physiotherapy and other medical
service that will help them to develop there physical potentials. They need teacher who will allow
for their physical limitations.

14.11 Sensory Exceptionalities

14.11.1 Hearing Impairment (the deaf)

Who are deaf children?

The deaf children are those who are born with little or on hearing or who suffer the loss of
hearing in infancy before speech and language pattern are acquired. Not all hearing impaired
children are deaf. There are those with partial hearing loss.

14.11.2 Classification of hearing impairments

The deaf refer to those children whose sense of hearing is non functional.
The congenitally deaf are those born deaf.
The adventitiously deaf those born with normal hearing but who lose the sense of hearings
through disease all accident.

14.11.3 Cause of hearing impairment

Hearing impairment has many causes
Heredity; 30-60%of deafness is attributed to genetic factors. Deafness can cause by dominant
genes recessive genes o r sex linked genes

Maternal rubella; is also known to cause deafness. Maternal rubella refers to a viral infection also
called germen measles. If the expectant mother suffers from this disease during the first three
month of pregnancy, the baby may be born with hearing impairment

Prematurity; prematurity refer to case where babies may be born before term and are more likely
to suffer hearing impairment than full term babies.
Rhesus incompatibility (rh)

The rh factor affects the babies who have a different blood group from the mother. For example if
the mother is rh –ve and the fetus is rh +ve there will be incompatibility. The mother blood sense
the fetus blood as something foreign and produce antibodies that the fight the baby red blood cell.
One of the complications which may arise from this could be hearing impairment.

Meningitis; meningitis is a viral infection, with causes inflammation of the manages if this
condition is not checked early, it causes brain damage and one likely complication it may cause in
hearing impairment. It is estimated that 8.1%of children lose their hearing after birth due to
meningitis.

Osiris media; otitis media is an infection that cause fluid to accumulate in the middle ear. If the
condition is chronic or untreated it can create mild or moderate hearing loses.

14.11.4 Characteristic of the hearing impaired children

Hearing impaired children do not hear speech. Consequently, they do not acquire oral language.
Intellectually some deaf children could have superior intelligence, other normal average, while
other may be mentally handicapped.

What are some of the sign of hearing impaired children

Some of the signs of hearing problem are turning one ear toward the speaker, favoring one ear in
conversation when the speaker faces cannot be seen, and omission of consonant sounds.
Some of the physical problems associated with hearing impairment are ear aches, discomfort in the
ears, stranger ringing or buzzing noise, discharge from the ear or excessive heavy wax building in
the ear canal also cause hearing impairment. Frequent cold and sore throat are occasional indicator
of intentional that could impair hearing.

14.11.5 How are hearing impaired children

Over the year several approaches have been developed in the management of hearing impaired
children.

They have been trained in speech reading also called lip reading
They have also been trained in sign language and finger spelling

Today technological innovation such as teletypewriters and many avenues of communication

through email and the internet have expanded communication possibilities for all the people with
hearing impairment.

14.12 The visually impaired

Definition of the term blindness

Blindness is generally defined as visual acuity for distance vision of 20/200 or less in the better eye
with the best correction. Very simply put a person will be defined as blind if they can see an object
that the normal sighted person can see from 200ft at 20 feet. That means that a blind person has to
be very close to the object in order to see it (20feet)while the normal person sees it from 200feet.a
person with visual acuity greater than 20/70 in the better eye with correction has low vision but can
learn to read print and who must use hearing and touch as the prominent learning channels.

14.12.1 Cause of visual impairment

There are varied causes to visual impairment

Infectious disease like German measles

If the expectant mother contract German measles during the first three month of pregnancy, the
child is likely to be born blind

Hereditary factors. If the child has a genetic defect affecting chromosomes.14-16 they are born
with small or absent eyes.

Accident and injury to the eyes also cause blindness.

Poisoning cause by the spitting cobra or other chemical that are harmful to the eyes is known to
cause blindness

Tumors’ these are growths in the brain which suppress the visual area of the brain can cause
blindness

14.12.2 Problem associated with visual impairment

Children who have difficulty seeing will often hold books either very close or very far from their
eyes. Other problem associated with visual impairment are rubbing eyes frequenty.squinting,
displaying sensitivity to bring light or being awkward in games required eye hand coordination

Other characteristics of the visually impaired are;

Problem n mobility: - whenever they are new environments they need mobility training so that they
can get by independently. In a way, blindness affects speech is slower in rate and lacks
modulations. The blind people use less lip movement in articulation of sounds they also lack
affective use of gesture and bodily actions typical of the sighted.

14.12.3 The management of the visually impaired students

There are special material and equipment that help visually impaired student to function in regular
classrooms. These include large print, typewriter, tape and recorders, special calculator, the abacus,
three dimensional map, models and special measuring devices.instrutionsin in Braille are useful.

14.13 interventions

Interventions are a concept that involves identifying the child with handicaps and helping that child
in developing his maximum potentials?
When should intervention programs begin?

Intervention should start early in child development. At least by age two some problem should be
noticeable. This is the best time to start intervention. Include the following

1. Observation

Identification of children with special needs begins with observation.

A teacher or parent can observed the child behavior and psychological processes i.e. those with
problem with hearing, sight, language acquisition or deficits in certain processed and achievement
of development milestones.

Screening is a process used to find out whether the observed problem is present in other children
in the population. After screening processes diagnosis follows. Diagnosis is a procedure carried
out by qualified medical personnel.

In Kenya example of screening and diagnosis are the free eye, ear or dental service offered by
certain bodies of professional. The operation smile is one such body that deal with children with
cleft lip and palate.

Activity
 1. Have Kenyan families today shed the stigma associated with exception?
2. Do you known of home where these children are still hidden away from the public eye?
3. What impairing condition are found predominantly in you area?
4. What in your opinion is the major cause of this impairment?

14.14 services for exceptional children

In Kenyan today there are many services available for exceptional children.
Special school and units

There are special schools and units of every category of special children among them are
residential and day school for various handicapped children.

There are units attached top regular primary schools. For example, there are many schools, which
may have a class for mentally retarded or hearing-impaired children.

These children learn in their special unit but can play and interact with the rest of the children in
the school

2. Grants

The government provides grant for capital development and aid for the expenses of learning
school and units.

3. Teacher and support staff

Teacher for exceptional children is train at Kenya institute for special education at maharani,
Nairobi Kenyatta University and mason university offer degree program in special education.
The government post teacher to special school and units. Some school employ teacher aids to assist
special teachers. Some non-government organizations run their own special school and hire their
own teachers.

14.14.1 Support staff

Education for exceptional children requires a teamwork approach. To run an idea special education
program will require the following personnel. Psychologists, therapists occupational and
physiotherapists, social nurses and teacher aides. Some categories of exceptional children need
house mother and resource persons. All these are very expensive services.

14.14.2 The curriculum

Curriculum materials for exception learner are develop at the Kenya institute of education.
The institute has a special education department with qualified staff in most area of exceptionality.

The ministry of education science and technology has an inspectorate department charge with the
responsibility of inspecting teacher and other service offered to exception children.

14.14.3 Teacher training

Today both Kenyatta University and Massena university are admitting form four leavers who wish
to make bachelor’s degree in special education. Form four leaver who qualify for the university
admission criteria of c+ and who do not meet the criteria set by the jab may join the degree program
as self sponsored candidates. These teachers took a two-year diploma in special education at Kenya
institute of special education KISE and many of them have enrolled and graduated with bed special
education at Kenyatta University. Some of them have graduate with master degree while other are
PhD holders today. Before KISE was established in 1985 special education teacher were trained at
siriba, kamwenja and high ridge teachers college
Those teachers working special school and who may not meet the requirements of either diploma
or degree courses are given three months in-service course at KISE

14.14.4 Placement and referral

In 1984 17 education assessment and referral service were established. Every district has at least
one assessment central. An assessment teacher was posted to every district to asses children with
suspected disability and to make referral and placement of the children to special school and units.
They prepare learning material and collect information about handicapped children in the district.

14.14.5 Coordination of services

The government coordination all service for handicapped children through the national
Rehabilitation committee in the ministry of culture and social service. There are also other
agencies/societies, which are actively concern with various area of disabilities.

These include
1. The Kenya society for deaf children
2. The Kenya society of the blind
3. The Kenya society of the mentally handicapped
4. The association of the physically disabled of Kenya

14.14.6 Vocational training

Some special school offer vocational training as part of the8.4.4 curriculum they teach such courses
as leatherwork, agriculture, home economic, woodwork and metal work. Skill technicians are
employed to help the teacher in these programs. The ministry of culture and social service also
manage vocational rehabilitation centres where courses similar to those offered in youth
polytechnics are offered.
14.14.7 Public education and awareness

The governments of Kenya and other agents have made a lot of effort to educate the public about
the need of handicapped personal. Medical services such as radio, television and local newspaper
have been used to create awareness of handicapped personal needs. Among other thing talent and
capabilities of exceptional person are exposed inculcating positive attitude among members of the
public.

14.15 summaries

This lesson has introduced the student to the exceptional learner.

Defined the exceptional child as that child who deviates from the norm to such an extent that he
requires a modification of the school services in order to develop full potential

❖ The lesson has looked at the broad categories of exceptional children

❖ The classification of exception children has also been discussed in this lesson

➢ The gifted
➢ The mentally retarded
➢ The learning disabled
➢ The physically different children
➢ The sensor ally impaired

❖ Cause of handicapped conditions as well as the management of exceptional children have

been addressed in this lesson
❖ The concept of intervention has been discuss

❖ Services available for exception children

14.16 Key Word

Cerebral palsy: this is disorder affecting voluntary movement. The children affect has problem
with neuromuscular coordination cause by brain damage before or during birth.

Hearing impaired children: refer to the group of children who may have partial hearing loss as
well as those who are deaf.

Intellectually different: refer to those children who deviate from the norm group in mental
characteristic. This group include those children who are mentally retarded and therefore have
lower1.q below 90, lowered mental functioning and adaptive behavior. This category also covers
those children whose mental capacity is above the norm group above 140 and who may be talented
in special areas.
Intervention: refer the identification of children with exceptional conditions screening and
diagnosing their case which leads to the provision of the necessary professional services as well as
placement.

Learning –disable children: this refer to those children who have significant difficulties in
listening speaking, reading, writing, reasoning or mathematical skill. These difficulties are not
attributed to mental retardation nor are they attribute to environmental deprivation.

They have to do more with psychological processes than other factors.

Orthopedic cases: These groups refer to hose children who are physically handicapped crippled
or deformed.

Visually impaired children:-are those who are partially sighted or those who are blind.

14.17 Review Questions

1.1 define the term exceptional children

2. Give reasons why families with exceptional children maybe stigmatized in your community
3. Has your community develop a kind of language for the deaf people
4. Which category of exceptional people is accorded full social recognition so that they can sit on
councils etc?
5. What are the major causes of exceptionality in your community? Do you know if any attempts
to screen for any of the area exceptionalities in your district?

References and further reading

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Jovanovich college publishers.
Brigham J.C. (1986): Social Psychology of Slow Learner, London, routledge and Kalgan Paul.

Cartwright,G.P. Cartwright, C. A. and ward M.E.(1981): educational special learner, Belmont,

C.A wads worth.

Cruickshank wm (1958) Education of Exceptional Children and Youth, New Jersey, prentice hall
inc Englewood cliffs

Cruickshank, wm and Johnson G,D.(1961);Education Exceptional Children And Tough

Englewood Cliffs, N.J prentice-hall, inc

Gage and Berliner, DC. (1991) Education Psychology, Toronto, Houghton Mifflin Company.

Gardner, h. (1983): Frame Of Mind the Theory Of Multiple Intelligences. New York, Basic
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Aberrant k. (1994) Cognitive Psychology, Boston, Allyn And Bacon.

Hallahan, DP and Kauffman, TM .(1997): Exceptional Learner Introduction To Special

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Halloran D.P Huffman JM (1976): Introduction to Learning Disabilities a Psycho Behavioral

Approach, new jersey, prentice-hall

Henry N.B Ed (1950); The Education of Exceptional Children, Illinois, national society for the
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Kimmel D.C and Weiner I.B (1985): Adolescence, New York, john Wiley and sons inc

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Myers D.G (1996): Psychology New York worth publishers inc.

O‟Leary K.D and O‟Leary S.G (1977); Classroom Management (second edition)New York,
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Renzulli;js and reins, SM (1991): the school wide enrichment model’s comprehensive plan for the
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Severe LJ Brigham JC and schemer br. (1976); a contemporary introduction to social psychology
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