Fendler 2012 Magic of Psychology

The Magic of Psychology inTeacher Education

LYNN FENDLER

Educational psychology is a curricular requirement for mostteacher preparation programs in the world. Knowledge ofeducational psychology is assessed on examinations forteacher licensure in most jurisdictions, and understanding ofpsychology is assumed to be indispensible for effectiveteaching at all levels. Traditional university-basedteacher-certification pathways have recently come underattack from various socio-political sectors, and thecurriculum for teacher preparation is among the mostcontested issues. This article examines the lure of psychologyfor teacher education.

Philosophical analysis is required in any serious discussion of educa-tion and psychology and their relationships (Norwich, 2000, p. 205).

Why is psychology a requirement for teacher certification? To address thisquestion, I analyse research from the two relevant disciplines: TeacherEducation and Educational Psychology. According to educational psy-chologists John Houtz and Carol Lewis, psychologists themselves have hadlong-standing debates about what ought to be the proper role for psychol-ogy with respect to teacher education (see also Alexander, 1996; Andre andHegland, 1990; Chase, 1998; Clinefelter, 1979; Hilgard, 1996). Houtz andLewis (1994) tell us that ‘Both William James . . . and John Dewey . . .suggested by their writings that educational psychology was a “middle-man” between theory and practice . . . James considered psychology to bea science but education an art’ (p. 3). Houtz and Lewis concur withDewey’s hope that psychology might serve to make educational theorymore easily understandable for teachers. These debates about the role ofpsychology in teacher education continue today in Educational Psychologyjournals (Hoy, 2000); however, there is less debate among teacher educa-tors, who seem to take it for granted that prospective teachers will studypsychology (Hill, 2000).

One way to frame this article would have been to focus historically on thequestion of how educational psychology originally came to be seen as anecessary part of teacher education beginning in the 1890s.1 However, thatis not my primary focus. Rather, I am more interested in various hypothesesthat might explain why educational psychology continues today, more than

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Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 46, No. 3, 2012

© 2012 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. Published by BlackwellPublishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

a century later, as a requirement in the teacher education curriculum,regardless of the origins of the practice. To develop this study, I examinefour plausible hypotheses that might be offered to explain why psychologyhas continued to be a requirement for teacher certification:

Efficacy: Educational psychology is a requirement in teacher educationbecause the study of psychology improves teaching (regardless of howone might define improvement).

Professionalization: Educational psychology is included in teacher edu-cation because an affiliation with this social-scientific discipline helps toraise the professional status of teaching and teacher education.

Policy/Management: Educational psychology remains in the curriculumof teacher education because the language of psychology gives teachereducators a voice in educational policy making; psychology discoursestake the messy world of teaching and organize those unruly practices tomake them appear rational and manageable.

Habit: Educational psychology continues to be included in the curriculumof teacher education out of habit.

Each of these hypotheses calls for a different investigative approach. Inorder to examine the efficacy claim, I made a survey of recent publicationsand synthesized the findings of educational research reports addressing therelationship of educational psychology to the quality of teaching. Second,to investigate the professionalization perspective, I drew on histories ofpsychology and histories of teacher education as well as professionaliza-tion theories in order to assess the historical role educational psycho-logy has played in professionalization. Third, in order to examine thepolicy/management explanation, I took a genealogical approach to therelationship of psychology and teacher education as disciplines inthe epistemological context of modern social sciences. Finally, to considerthe role and function of habit, I turned to John Dewey’s (1921) philosophyin Human Nature and Conduct.

EFFICACY

Does knowledge of psychology improve teaching? Quite simply, thereseems to be no research that substantiates—one way or another—theimpact of psychology courses in teacher education. Wilson and Floden(2003) asked precisely that question: ‘To what extent do knowledge ofpedagogical theory, learning theory, or child development contribute sig-nificantly to a teacher’s effectiveness?’ (p. 14). Based on their analyses ofall available empirical research reports, Wilson and Floden affirmed that,‘the research on the impact of pedagogical knowledge or preparation wasspotty and inconclusive’ (p. 16). Even since 2003 there appears to be noresearch evidence that addresses the question of whether educational psy-chology has had any effect on teachers or the quality of teaching (see alsoAllen, 2003; Patrick, et al., 2011; Wilson, Floden and Ferrini-Mundy,2001).

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© 2012 The AuthorJournal compilation © 2012 Journal of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain

It is only fair to note that there appears to be no conclusive scientificresearch of any sort that substantiates the effect of any courses in theteacher education curriculum on the quality of teaching. And this non-relationship holds true regardless of what you hold as the criteria of effect.According to Mary Kennedy2 (who has done extensive meta-analyses ofthe research literature on teacher education), there is some fairly weakevidence suggesting that subject-specific pedagogy courses may bolster theconfidence of beginning teachers (see also Kennedy, 1999). But even thatfinding is not robust, and no other parts of the curriculum are supported byresearch that examines the effect of any courses in the curriculum ofteacher education.

Both teacher educators and educational psychologists seem to be awareof this problem; however, the problem has been addressed only recently byeducational psychologists:

But does our involvement in teacher education make a difference interms of how graduating teachers teach? Are teachers more effectivefor having taken our courses? Presumably we believe so, but how dowe know? And how do we convince others who may be skepticalabout the role of educational psychology in teacher education?(Patrick et al., 2011, p. 71, italics in original).

In another approach to the question of relevance, educational psychologistsPeterson, Clark and Dickson (1990) appealed to William James and theReport of the Holmes Group to argue that psychology ought to be usedas the theoretical foundation for the design of the teacher educationcurriculum:

. . . we sense a growing awareness among educational psychologistsof the need to reexamine their own discipline. Such a reexaminationneeds to focus not only on the learning and teaching of educationalpsychology but also on understanding how educational psychology asa course of study influences the knowledge of candidates in teacherpreparation (Peterson, Clark and Dickson, 1990, online version).

In other words, Peterson, Clark, and Dickson argued that the relationshipbetween education and psychology should be rethought. They argued thateducational psychology should no longer be considered in terms of arequired course for prospective teachers to study, but rather the principlesand learning theories derived from psychology should form the intellectualand practical basis for the design of the entire teacher education curricu-lum. In these authors’ views, teacher education curricula should bedesigned according to principles of constructivist learning theories thatrepresent the most up-to-date research advances in educational psychology.One assumption reflected in this argument is that science can solve educa-tional problems, and that curriculum design is a scientific enterprise that issomehow immune to political, economic, or cultural influences.

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From its inception, educational psychology has made attempts to adjustthe boundaries and focus of the discipline in order to become more relevantto teachers and teacher educators (see, e.g., Anderson et al., 1995;Norwich, 2000; Patrick et al. 2011; Poulou, 2005; Travers, 1966). Aseducational psychologists have endeavoured to make their discipline morerelevant for education, they have emphasized primarily the contributions ofpsychology in the areas of special education and diagnostic instruments(such as IQ tests, aptitude tests, and personality tests for self-esteem,self-efficacy, and motivation), which are traditional domains of psychology.Illustrative of how educational psychologists have been striving to maketheir field more relevant, there is now an AERA Special Interest Groupcalled ‘Teaching Educational Psychology,’ and also a journal and a wiki bythe same name. These materials provide resources for teaching educationalpsychology courses in ways that are relevant for teacher education. In thesematerials, the efficacy of educational psychology for the teacher educationcurriculum is never questioned. The resources do not attempt to defendthe value of educational psychology as a knowledge domain for teachers,and the efficacy of psychology for teacher education is assumed withoutevidence.

Reports from teacher education concur with those from educationalpsychology. Regarding research on the question of efficacy, the most recentHandbook of Research on Teacher Education puts it most succinctly:

Clearly, what is still missing from the literature and the field isempirical work that seeks to better understand the role of psychologyin teacher education. While there is an evolving literature on teacheremotion, the literature that brings in the psychological developmentof the self to bear on the effectiveness of teacher education programsis in its infancy (Rogers and Scott, 2008, p. 752).

In any case, at this time the inclusion of psychology in the curriculum ofteacher education—either as a foundational discipline or as a pedagogicaltheory for curriculum design—is not warranted on the basis of efficacy.Researchers in both teacher education and educational psychology seem toacknowledge this lack of evidence; however the absence of evidence doesnot appear as a vexing issue for either field.

PROFESSIONALIZATION

The role of psychology in the professionalization of teacher education iscomplicated because there are at least two separate constituencies withinteacher education to consider. In order to address the question of the role ofpsychology in the professionalization of teaching, we have to look fromtwo sides: the academic/university perspective (Barone et al., 1996), andthe school/teacher perspective (Noddings, 2003). Professionalization is notthe same across those two contexts, and in each context psychology playsa different role vis-à-vis professionalization.



University departments of teacher education have traditionally consid-ered psychology to be a social science that enhances the academic standingof departments of education in the university. Professionalization (espe-cially in the United States) is advanced through the production of researchthat looks like empirical science (as opposed research that looks like arts orhumanities). University departments gain professional status based largelyon their research productivity, and research on teaching and teacher edu-cation was aligned from the beginning with psychology (Kimball, 2009).The history of this relationship can be illustrated with two events in theearly 1960s that served to establish the role of psychology as an assumedelement for the professionalization of teaching.

Both events are connected with the work of Nathaniel Lees Gage (1917–2008), president of AERA from 1963 to 1964 and one of the most eminenteducational psychologists in US history. First, Gage was appointed byAERA to be the editor of the very first Handbook of Research on Teaching(1963). Being a psychologist, Gage invited other psychologists as contribu-tors to this volume, and the Handbook was shaped according to theepistemological commitments and research conventions of educationalpsychology. This first edition of the Handbook of Research on Teachingwas comprised almost exclusively of studies in educational psychology. Infact (by AERA appointments) the first four editions of the handbook wereedited by educational psychologists:

1. 1963: Nathaniel Gage (educational psychology);2. 1973: Robert M. W. Travers (educational psychology);3. 1986: Merlin Wittrock (educational psychology);4. 2001: Virginia Richardson (educational psychology).

The Handbook of Research on Teaching is published as an authoritativevolume by the largest professional organization for educational research inthe world, and that volume frames research on teaching in terms of psy-chology.3 The tradition of appointing educational psychologists as editorsof the handbook was sustained for 40 years. However, the forthcoming(2014) volume will change that tradition because, for the first time, theHandbook will be edited by two educational policy researchers who are notpsychologists; both editors are affiliated with a non-university-based cor-poration, Educational Testing Services. As an isolated event, this shift ineditorial expertise would probably not amount to much; however, com-bined with other factors, there may be some indication that psychology isfading in prominence as an essential element in the professionalization ofteacher education.

The second historical event that reinforced the role of psychology inteacher education was when Gage established the Stanford Center forResearch and Development of Teaching, the first centre of its kind, in 1965.With such an enthusiastic advocate as Gage at the helm of both the Hand-book and the Center, educational psychology was constituted as the foun-dation for professionalization of teaching and teacher education. Forresearchers in departments of teacher education seeking to advance their

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professional status through publications, the research traditions of psychol-ogy served as the primary venue for funding and publishing opportunitiesfor most of the 20th century.

Within this professionalization context, university-based programs ofteacher education reaped some benefit in status through affiliations withpsychology as an empirical research enterprise. However, there are tworecent historical developments (in addition to the change in the Handbookeditorship) that suggest psychology may be in decline as the primary venuefor professionalization in education: 1) the invention of the LearningSciences, and 2) political initiatives that deemphasize the importance ofuniversity coursework in teacher education.

Learning Sciences

In a pattern that is typical across most disciplinary fields, educationalpsychology suffers from relatively low status within the discipline of Psy-chology itself. Perhaps in response to the low status, or perhaps as part ofentrepreneurial trends in educational research, there is now a disciplinaryspin-off field that calls itself ‘Learning Sciences.’ The International Societyof the Learning Sciences was incorporated in September of 2002, anddefines itself as:

. . . a professional society dedicated to the interdisciplinary empiricalinvestigation of learning as it exists in real-world settings and howlearning may be facilitated both with and without technology. . . . Thesociety is widely interdisciplinary and includes members from cog-nitive science, educational psychology, computer science, anthropol-ogy, sociology, information sciences, neurosciences, education,design studies, instructional design, and other fields (http://www.isls.org/index.html).

It appears that the Learning Sciences have been established in order topromote and professionalize the kinds of scholarly projects that previouslybelonged within the domain of educational psychology. In addition, theLearning Sciences are identified explicitly as an applied field whoseresearch agenda is focused on empirical approaches to the measurement ofefficacy in school settings. The focus on applied research makes LearningSciences an appealing disciplinary affiliation for education and other pro-fessional schools. Since the Learning Sciences have been established as aseparate field of study (and as a disciplinary department in some universi-ties4), this institutionalization may in the future serve to generate researchreports about the efficacy of expertise in psychology for improving thequality of teaching. At the same time, with the invention of this newlyinstitutionalized domain of research, Learning Sciences-type studies maybe taking over from psychology as the high-status disciplinary affiliationfor purposes of professionalization. Since research in the Learning Sci-ences may turn out to be indistinguishable from research in educationalpsychology, the change in the label may make no substantive difference to



any intellectual or professional relationships with education. In any case, itis still too early to assess the impact or attraction of the Learning Scienceson teaching and teacher education.

Political Trends

With recent shifts in the US political context, psychology may soon holdless value for the professionalization of teacher education. Current criticsof US teacher preparation (which are growing in influence) have beenarguing that teacher preparation should take the form of ‘residency models’that resemble training programs in medical schools. In this model, univer-sities provide preparation in subject matter (mathematics, history, etc.), andthen teacher candidates complete their pedagogical training through resi-dency placements in schools (see, e.g., Duncan, 2010).5 In general, currentcritics are pushing for teacher preparation to be moved away from univer-sities and into the local schools where the training6 can be designed andsupervised by non-university (sometimes private, for-profit, or religious)credentialing entities. It would seem that current trends in favour of resi-dency models and privatization of teacher education may be serving todiminish the value of educational psychology as a vehicle for raising theprofessional status of teacher education in the university.

It is plausible that educational psychology has played a role in bolstering theprofessional standing for programs of teacher education in universities.However, psychology seems to have had the opposite effect on teachers. Incontrast to the professional advantages of psychology for teacher educators,the professional standing for classroom teachers is not improved, and mayeven be diminished, through affiliations with psychology. From the perspec-tive of teachers, professional development should rest on the refinement ofpractical skills and expertise in craft, not on scientific knowledge and researchpublications. Among teachers (see, e.g., Bryant, 2009; Grady et al., 2008;Helterbran, 2008; Houston, 2008), psychology is not mentioned as a factorin professionalism, and the discourses of teacher professionalization do notmake references to psychology. In fact, the need for a scientific knowledgebase is implicitly and explicitly rejected by teachers. Teacher professionalorganizations tend to prioritize practical skills in the definition of profes-sionalism, and so most aspects of traditional teacher education curriculumare regarded as irrelevant by teachers, except for purposes of credentialing(see, e.g., AFT, 2007; Bryant, 2009; Helterbran, 2008; Servage, 2009).From the teacher’s point of view, professionalism consists of the following:

• Demonstrating responsible work habits (showing up on time in properdress and civil demeanour);

• Pursuing further credentials;• Working cooperatively with other teachers;• Practicing reflective teaching;• Maintaining a certain amount of autonomy or self-determination.

As far as teachers are concerned, psychologists are not teachers and there-fore cannot be considered as experts on teaching. The professional status of

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teachers cannot benefit from association with people who are not experts onteaching. Therefore, from the perspective of teachers, an affiliation withpsychology does not advance their professional standing, and may evenlower it by deflecting attention away from teachers’ expertise and grantingexpert status to a group of professionals who are not teachers.

Along similar lines, Null (2011) has argued that the absorption of normalschools into universities was an anti-professionalizing move in the history ofteaching. Null’s argument is that teaching lost its unique status as a profes-sion when normal schools became absorbed by larger universities whoseinterests rarely align in support of teaching and professional schools. Null’sargument about the institutionalization of teacher preparation parallels theargument about how psychology functions to professionalize teacher edu-cation but to de-professionalize teachers (see also Labaree, 1992).

In sum, it is plausible that psychology remains as a requirement in thecurriculum of teacher education because psychology has helped to raise theprofessional status of university-based teacher education. It is also plausi-ble that the Learning Sciences may be taking over from psychology as thediscipline that serves to advance the professional status of the field. On thatbasis, professionalization can be considered to be one explanation for thecontinued presence of psychology in the TE curriculum. However, at thesame time, it is important to note that the professionalization of teachereducation through affiliation with psychology (and/or Learning Sciences)may be occurring at the expense of the professionalization of teachers.

POLICY AND MANAGEMENT

In the past decade there has been increased emphasis on using ‘evidence-based’ findings from empirical research to justify educational policies andpractices. Public policy explicitly favours empirical research methods,7 andto that extent, psychology is valued as a source for scientific evidence toestablish and justify educational policies. Research in educational psychol-ogy conforms more closely (than other kinds of research in education) tothose scientific criteria for research. Of all the types of research that areproduced in education, it is educational psychology research that has beenmost rhetorically useful for policy makers. Therefore, it is reasonable tosurmise that psychology persists as a research domain in teacher educationbecause teacher educators would like to have a voice in educational policymaking, and policy-making entities find the language of psychology effec-tive for justifying educational-policy reform to voters.

From the perspective of educational psychology Poulou (2005)explained the value of research in educational psychology as being themost appropriate approach in this climate of ‘evidence-based’ policy:

Educational psychology is an evidence-based profession, and it mustbe concerned with research in education. It is proposed that theresearch that will be most valued in society in the future is that whicheducational psychologists are almost uniquely qualified to carry out(p. 557).



Educational policy and educational psychology enjoy a mutually support-ive relationship in which ‘evidence-based’ research is accepted as thestandard for good research and good policy. This climate pertains eventhough policy makers are notorious for cherry picking research findings tosuit their respective ideological stances. Moreover, educational policy—like curriculum—is always a product of political compromise and ideo-logical negotiation. It is widely accepted that scientific evidence is likely totake a backseat in the political and ideological arguments that are mobilizedin order to support any particular direction for educational reform policies.Nevertheless, policy-making entities often make rhetorical use of strategi-cally selected scientific research findings when they attempt to justifyparticular educational policies.

Teacher educators seem to be aware of this problem. The kind of researchthat is useful for teacher education is acknowledged to be not useful forpolicy makers. As Cochran-Smith (2004) wrote in her editorial introductionfor the (US) Journal of Teacher Education:

Although these [small scale] studies can be extremely valuable fortheory-building and also for the enhancement of practice, they havelittle or no value when teacher education is conceptualized as abroad-scale policy problem because they are not intended to establishcausal relationships and because generalizations about the broadparameters of teacher preparation are impossible to draw from them(2004, p. 112).

Cochran-Smith went on to argue that the kind of research required forinforming policy is different from the kind of research that is required tohelp teachers, or to raise the professional standing of teacher education, orto improve teaching. In her view, teacher education research contributes tothe professional status of teacher education, and in that vein conductsresearch that speaks to teacher educators, but not to policy makers (see alsoDarling-Hammond, 2010).

At the same time, there are other ways of looking at the relationshipbetween educational psychology and educational policy. From the perspec-tive of teacher educators and educational policy researchers, for example,Floden and Meniketti (2005) characterized the presence of psychology inteacher education as a product of intuition:

The absence of strong empirical support for arts and sciences andfoundations (especially psychological foundations) seems unlikely tolead policymakers to relax these requirements. The intuitive sense thatteachers should know their subject and understand how people learnis powerful, perhaps as powerful as the sense that doctors shouldknow anatomy and how medicines work (Floden and Meniketti, 2005,p. 299).

These statements about educational policy help to explain the lure ofpsychology in educational research endeavours. Psychology serves to

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frame educational problems in ways that seem amenable to rational man-agement. When educational problems are believed to be researchable interms of psychology, then those problems appear to be resolvable by meansof policies that are based on scientific research findings. This way oflooking at things is an example of broader historical tendencies of modernrationalization and institutionalization. When policy makers want tobelieve (or want voters to believe) in the possibility of improvement and inthe capacity of administrative entities to solve social problems, then rhe-torical appeals to psychology are more effective than appeals to ethnogra-phy, genealogy, curriculum theory, deconstruction, history or philosophy assources of evidence and justification in public debate. In that way, thepersistence of educational psychology in public policy realms is under-standable. The discourse of educational psychology is one component of amodern rational worldview that encompasses a belief in progress and theamelioration of social problems through evidence-based policies. From thepoint of view of modern political rationality and the rhetorical effectivenessof scientific language, it is possible to explain the continued lure of psy-chology as a component in educational research projects.

However, even granting the overarching influence of modern politicalrationality driving educational research, the predominance of psychologyin educational research does not help to explain the continued presence ofpsychology in the curriculum of teacher preparation. In other words, if weacknowledge the value of psychological discourses for the articulation andjustification of educational policy, then we can understand why educationalpsychology would be included as a requirement for graduate curricula inEducational Administration and/or Educational Policy. We can even under-stand why the study of educational psychology might be included ascurricular requirement for all doctoral programs in education. However, inthe absence of any evidence of the value of psychology for improvingteaching, the role of psychology in policy-making does not provide suffi-cient warrant for its inclusion in the curriculum of teacher education.

Again, as with professionalization, educational psychology seems toserve administrative and managerial entities by providing a particular kindof language for justifying policy initiatives, but this function of psychologyoperates without any apparent intellectual, practical, or professional ben-efits for teachers or classrooms.

HABIT

Dewey’s (1921) Human Nature and Conduct: An Introduction to SocialPsychology provided a generative launching point for my thinking aboutthe role psychology plays in teacher education. After re-reading this book,my analysis took an unexpected turn. In order to trace that change ofdirection, I begin this section with a summary and interpretation ofDewey’s conceptualization of habit.

In Human Nature and Conduct Dewey was himself wrestling with thedefinition, focus, and scope of psychology. Specifically, the argument of



this book distinguishes ‘orthodox psychology,’ which is concerned with‘separate and individual minds,’ from ‘social psychology,’ which is con-cerned with the relationship of individual minds to the environment. ForDewey, social psychology serves as a happy medium between psychology(which is too individualistic) and sociology (which is too collectivistic).Instead, Dewey favours a social psychology in which we can understandhuman action as being always in relation to an environment, especially toother people.

A second major focus of Dewey’s book is the argument that habits arenot necessarily bad things. In Dewey’s conceptualization, habits can havepositive moral value. Dewey emphasizes that there are good habits as wellas bad habits, ‘For what makes a habit bad is enslavement to old ruts’ (loc.596). For Dewey, to separate thought from habit is to separate mind frombody, a division that Dewey explicitly rejects. By way of explanation,Dewey drew an analogy between habit and art saying that all good artistsmust have habits like automatic skills, and that habits are necessary butinsufficient for making art. Like art, good habits should consist of auto-matic behaviours combined with thoughtful intelligence.

In the first part of the book, Dewey argued that habits are not individualor ‘private possessions’ of a person. According to Dewey, habits can beconsidered as analogous to physiological functions or mathematical func-tions, and as such, habits occur in the relationship between the organismand the environment: ‘The social environment acts through native impulsesand speech and moral habitudes manifest themselves’ (Dewey, 2007/1922,loc. 147). As an illustration of the social context of morality, Dewey citedthe example of demographic categories: we make judgments based onsocial classifications. Dewey’s way of framing the concept of habit isuseful as a way of thinking about the role of psychology in teacher prepa-ration because Dewey’s conceptualization pushes us to think relationallyand to consider the question of psychology in the broader social context ofteacher preparation.

For Dewey, habits can be virtuous or vicious. Virtuous habits are thosethat facilitate progress: ‘We can retain and transmit our own heritage onlyby constant remaking of our environment’ (loc. 208). In Dewey’s concep-tualization, habit-versus-intelligence is a false dichotomy: ‘the real oppo-sition is not between reason and habit but between routine, unintelligenthabit, and intelligent habit or art’ (loc. 683). Dewey argued that habits arethe stuff of character: ‘Character is the interpenetration of habits’ (loc.356). ‘Character is the name given to the working interaction of habits’(loc. 377). It is clear that one of Dewey’s major objectives in this book wasto argue that habits are not necessarily bad things, and that the establish-ment of good habits is a worthy goal for education.

With respect to the fourth hypothesis, then, it is possible to affirm thatpsychology persists in the curriculum of teacher education because ofhabit; however (at least as long as we are using Dewey’s conceptualizationof habit) we do not know if it is a good habit or a bad habit. The continuedpresence of psychology in teacher education may or may not be justified byvarious instrumental and political rationalities (such as efficacy, profession-

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alization, and policy making), and any one of those rationalities could(hypothetically) be based on good pragmatic intelligence, or bad thought-less routine.

However—and this is where my analysis took an unanticipated turn—there is a concept (other than habit) in Human Nature and Conduct thatprovides another plausible hypothesis for why psychology remains in thecurriculum of teacher education: the belief in magic.

In Human Nature and Conduct, Dewey expressed his abhorrence for allbelief in magic. For Dewey, belief in magic is expressed in human conductwhen we persist in doing something even when we have never been pre-sented with any evidence that our actions will produce the effects we want.Dewey argued that belief in magic is a waste of human intelligence.Bemoaning the fact that magical thinking still pervades in political under-takings, Dewey wrote, ‘We think that by feeling strongly enough aboutsomething, by wishing hard enough, we can get a desirable result, such asvirtuous execution of a good resolve, or peace among nations, or good willin industry,’ (loc. 250).

In order to illustrate the belief in magic as it shapes human conduct,Dewey gives the example of trying to teach someone to adopt a betterposture. He explained that telling a child to stand up straight, and thenwishing very earnestly for better posture to happen, is an example ofprimitive magical thinking. For Dewey, this is a problem because magicalthinking gets in the way of ‘intelligently controlled habit’ (loc. 261). InDewey’s view, belief in magic is a false psychology because it separatesmind from body. Dewey preferred to think of ‘psychical’ mechanisms assimilar to bodily mechanisms, which exist in an interdependent relationwith one another. Frankly, I find Dewey’s argument here rather hard tofollow,8 but what he seems to be saying is that when we imagine the bodyand mind to be interdependent, then we realize that we must provideeducational support not only for the mind, but we must also provide supportin the environment to educate the body. In other words, if we expectchildren to change their posture as a result of our having instructed them tostand up straight, then our expectation is based on belief in magic; it is notreasonable or intelligent to expect that we can overcome bad habits byearnest talking and fervent wishing. In contrast, if we create a socialenvironment in which the child is sufficiently motivated to stand upstraight, and we provide this environment repeatedly over an extendedperiod of time, then our expectation is based on intelligence. Dewey’s goodhabits can be developed by repeated practice in an ‘intelligently controlled’environment.

According to Dewey’s formulations of intelligence in Human Nature andConduct, it is possible to explain the presence of psychology as a goodhabit in teacher education from two different points of view. First, from theperspective of political rationality, psychology serves the political aim ofadvancing the professional status of teacher educators; therefore it is rea-sonable to include educational psychology in teacher education programs.Second, from the perspective of educational policy making, psychologyserves the purpose of giving colleges of education a voice in educational



policy making; therefore it is reasonable to include educational psychologyin colleges of education. Both of these scenarios are reasonable explana-tions for the lure of psychology, given those stated aims and respectivevalue systems.

However, for the most part, those are not the arguments that have beenadvanced by educational psychologists. Instead, most educational psy-chologists have been appealing to the efficacy explanation; psychologistsargue that psychological knowledge helps to improve teaching. This sce-nario fits Dewey’s definition of a bad habit. As an example of this argu-ment, here is a (long) passage from a paper delivered by two educationalpsychologists at the 2007 conference of the American Association ofColleges for Teacher Education:

Arguably, the central business of the classroom is learning. Preciselywhat is entailed in learning, motivation, and development, and howsuch processes play out in the context of the culture of the classroom,should be a core component of teacher preparation. We wish to makeit clear, however, that we are not suggesting that we turn teachercandidates into students of learning in the formal, scientific sense. Thestudy of learning from this perspective is the purview of theoretical,experimental and educational psychologists. Nevertheless, a rela-tively deep grasp of current conceptions of learning, cognition, moti-vation, etc. is, we believe, essential if we are to expect teachers to beable to diagnose and assess learning needs, and to plan and deliverappropriate remedies. The question is how to produce a level ofexpertise that will allow teachers to manifest the skills such deepapplications require? [sic] The focus on diagnostic skill, in the contextof case analysis, and tutoring situations, is, we think, the best hope forachieving such a level of skill, and this focus addresses all three of therelevant perspectives. It would result in changes in the professionalteaching standards. It would provide a rich data source. Finally, asmentioned, it would lead to more effective practice in the classroom(Lindner and Ternasky, 2007).

Lindner and Ternasky’s paper exemplifies the kind of argument advancedby most educational researchers when they advocate for educational psy-chology in teacher preparation. There are two main points I want to high-light with respect to this excerpt. First, the passage does not appeal to anyscientific research findings or build a persuasive case that demonstrates thevalue or contributions of educational psychology for teachers. Rather, thepassage asserts the value of psychology without evidence, and without somuch as an anecdote to serve as an illustration. This way of thinking is anexample of Dewey’s idea of belief in magic. Second, Lindner and Ternasky(like Peterson, Clark and Dickson, 1990) assert that education would beimproved if teachers would just apply the scientific findings of research inpsychology in the proper way. This is a rationalistic argument that assumes(without evidence or argument) that educational reform occurs as a productof scientific progress and not as the product of historical (socio, economic,

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cultural, and political) contingencies, which—given overwhelming histori-cal precedent—is also an example of belief in magic.

Most, but not all literature from educational psychology advances argu-ments that resemble the one by Lindner and Ternasky. One exception to thisline of argument is offered by Norwich (2000), an educational psychologistwho has provided us with the most extensive (book length) examination ofthe relationship between education and psychology (see also Gallagher,2003). Norwich argued that the epistemological basis for psychology,which is explanatory and interpretive, is different from—and maybeincompatible with—the epistemological basis for education, which is prac-tical and applied. Throughout the book, Norwich’s treatise does not attemptto reconcile or finesse the incompatibilities between education and psy-chology. Rather, his analysis sustains the dichotomy, calls it a dilemma, andleverages the incompatibility into a productive tension:

There is an inescapable ideological impurity in education, whicharises from these connections and tensions between multiple values.. . . Such connectedness is in the nature of this and other human fields.It is better confronted and dealt with than responded to in the falsepurism of either a technological, inclusive or a romantic individualistconception of education (Norwich, 2000, p. 201; italics in original).

At first glance, Norwich’s (2000) Education and Psychology in Interactionarticulates an argument that appears similar to Gage’s (1978) The ScientificBasis of the Art of Teaching. On the surface of it, both books characterizeeducation as a complicated combination of art and science. However, atanother level, Gage’s account can be seen as a one-sided promotional pitchfor psychology, and in that way it is utterly different from the multi-facetedanalysis in Norwich’s book. In my reading, Gage’s use of the term ‘art’ inthe title of his book performs a kind of window dressing or rhetoricalappeal to educators who are not psychologists (of whom Gage targetedparticularly Elliot Eisner). Gage framed the argument in this book to makeeducational psychology seem like the reasonable middle ground betweentwo ideological extremes. He constructed this framework by setting up adichotomy between two caricatures, or straw-man characterizations of artand science:

We can conceive of a continuum with votaries of a humanistic art ofteaching at one end. This art rejects the offerings and findings of thosewho seek to apply scientific method to the improvement of teaching.At the other end are believers in the replacement of teachers bytechnology, in the form of teaching machines, computer-assistedinstruction, multimedia packages, and the like. Our present concernwith the scientific basis of the art of classroom teaching belongs nearthe middle of this range (Gage, 1978, p. 14; italics in original).

After this introduction, the remainder of Gage’s book goes on to provideexamples that show how the discipline of educational psychology is indis-



pensable in the preparation of teachers, just as the disciplines of anatomyand physiology are indispensable in the preparation of medical doctors.Gage’s argument includes anecdotes and summaries of cherry-pickedresearch findings that illustrate the ways educational psychology has beensuccessful in advancing our understanding of how people learn. Gage’sbook concludes with a flattering appeal to teachers that pits teachers againstteacher educators:

The applications [of educational psychology] will be more warmlywelcomed because teachers will have a much greater say in determin-ing the substance, method, and organization of the education. Thevoice of teachers on these matters will be more enlightened becausethey will have understood and shared in developing, through collabo-ration with research workers, the scientific basis for the objectives andmethods of teacher education programs (Gage, 1978, p. 94).9

Unlike Gage’s (1978) book, Norwich’s (2000) argument sustains a meas-ured tone and careful approach to characterizing the relationship betweenart and science in teaching. In the end, Norwich advances a nuancedposition that makes good on the promise of the term ‘uncertainty’ in hisbook title:

Whatever contribution psychology makes to education is also one ofmany contributions from allied fields. Its links with education provideit with a constant reminder of its place amongst the network ofconnected social sciences relevant to education (Norwich, 2000,p. 203).

It is either self-evident or ironic that Gage’s enthusiastic promotion of ascientific basis for teaching turns out to be an example of belief in magic,an unscientific (even anti-scientific) advocacy approach to educationalresearch, in contrast to Norwich’s more humanistic essay that takes intoaccount a wide range of incommensurable evidence without imposing onthat evidence a template of ideological purity.

WRAPPING UP: IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH INTEACHER EDUCATION

In this final section I try to tie together the investigations across the fourhypotheses. In sum, the findings are these:

Efficacy• There appears to be no evidence that the study of educational psychol-

ogy has had any measurable effect on teachers or the quality ofteaching.

• There appears to be no evidence establishing a relationship betweenany elements in the teacher education curriculum on the quality ofteaching.

346 L. Fendler


Professionalization• Psychology has helped to advance the professional status of teacher

education as a university department or academic discipline, but it hassimultaneously diminished the professional status of teachers.

• There are some indications that educational psychology’s academicclout may be fading.

Policy and Management• Policy makers make rhetorical use of scientific research findings to

support their respective political agendas, so the language of psycho-logical research is more useful for justifying policies than the lan-guages of philosophy or history.

• Educational policy is shaped more by politics than by science, soscientific research serves rhetorical purposes more than substantivesupport.

Habit• Educational psychology identifies itself as an evidence-based science,

and most educational psychologists claim that knowledge of psychol-ogy helps to improve the quality of teaching.

• Since there is no scientific evidence that psychology improves teach-ing, the argument for efficacy is based on a belief in magic.

When educational psychologists argue for the relevance of psychology inteacher education, they tend to do so by claiming that educational psychol-ogy helps to improve teaching and the teaching profession. The majorclaim is that educational psychologists are scientists whose interests lie ineducation and learning. Educational psychologists typically differentiatetheir own expertise from that of other sub-fields in education by saying that,unlike teacher education (for example), educational psychology is sciencedriven and evidence based. However, we have found that that claim is itselfnot science driven or evidence based. Since we have no evidence to suggestthat psychology helps people become better teachers, it is possible toconclude that the arguments put forward by educational psychologists arebased primarily on belief in magic, the fervent wish that the study ofpsychology might help teachers to understand how children learn, andthereby enable them to teach more effectively. As Patrick et al. (2011)write:

. . . how confident are educational psychologists that teacher gradu-ates really are better teachers than they would have been as a result ofhaving taken and passed their courses? It is our premise that this is so,however, as we noted already, this assumption must be empiricallyinvestigated rather than taken on faith (p. 81).

From Dewey’s perspective, belief in magic is ‘false psychology,’ and so thearguments advocating psychology as a requirement in the curriculum ofteacher education enact a performative contradiction.



But what about the implications for the curriculum of teacher educa-tion? We might consider the first three hypotheses as encompassing arange of reasonable goals for teacher education: to improve the quality ofteaching, to advance the professionalism of the field, and to have a voicein the shaping of educational policy. At the conclusion of this study, itseems that the inclusion of psychology in the curriculum of teacher edu-cation has had spotty results. Specifically, in order to succeed in accom-plishing the first goal (efficacy), teacher educators might acknowledgethat neither research nor political opinion supports the continuation of thecurrent curriculum of teacher education, so reform is warranted. If teachereducation were to be reformed in alignment with the trends favouringresidency models, such a reform would be more closely related to theexpertise of teacher educators than to the expertise of psychologists, andtherefore it would be a direction of reform that could also serve thesecond goal, professionalization.

I acknowledge that the professional status of teacher education isunlikely to be elevated anytime in the near future; but in any case, theresearch traditions that appear in the Handbook of Research on TeacherEducation, (which has always been edited by teacher educators) seem to bemore in line with a professionalization agenda for teachers than wereprevious affiliations with psychology (which may be in decline, anyway).Psychology does not seem to offer teacher educators any reasonable poten-tial for fulfilling either the first or the second goal. With respect to the thirdgoal (policy making), if teacher educators want to have more influence, itwould be (ironically?) more rational for teacher education to abandon thepretence (magical thinking?) that policy is shaped in accordance withscientific research findings, and acknowledge realistically that policy-making is a political activity. If teacher educators want teachers to havemore of a voice in policy making, then teachers need the kinds of skills thatlobbyists have. The curriculum of teacher education, then, should includecourses in mass communication, political advocacy, legal language, fundraising, and governance processes.

In order to fulfil commitments to evidence-based reform, the scientificthing to do next would be to conduct a naturalistic experiment. Teachereducators would agree that teacher education has three goals: efficacy,professionalism, and influencing policy. Given those goals and based oncurrent research findings, we could select at random several institutions asa treatment group that would reform teacher education curricula by replac-ing courses in psychology with courses in political activism and commu-nication arts. Then teacher educators would conduct rigorous, comparative,longitudinal scientific research studies that examine whether a curriculumemphasizing proficiency in communication arts is more effective than oneemphasizing psychology for helping people to become better teachers,advance the professional status of teaching and teacher education, andenable educators to articulate arguments that policy makers find useful andcompelling. Since both policy and curriculum are shaped by political windsmore than by scientific research findings, it is likely that any future researchof this sort will be just as inconclusive as previous research. At the same

348 L. Fendler


time, this approach to research on the curriculum for teacher educationwould provide teacher educators with a fundable research agenda for theforeseeable future.

Correspondence: Lynn Fendler, Department of Teacher Education, Collegeof Education, Michigan State University, 362 Erickson Hall, East Lansing,MI 48824-1034, USA.Email: [email protected]

NOTES

1. The first edition of the Teacher’s Handbook of Psychology had already appeared in the UnitedStates in1886, and The Herbartian Psychology Applied to Education was published in the UnitedKingdom in 1897.

2. Personal communication, January 2010.3. The Handbook of Research on Teacher Education has a different history of editorship. All three

editions were edited by teacher educators, not educational psychologists:

1990: W. Robert Houston (Martin Haberman and John Sikula, associate editors);1996: John Sikula;2008: Marilyn Cochran-Smith, Sharon Feiman-Nemser, John McIntyre, Kelly Demers.

4. Universities offering graduate degrees in Learning Sciences include University of Nottingham,Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech.

5. Arne Duncan is the United States Secretary of Education (2012).6. Teacher educators in the United States generally object to the use of the word ‘training’

when it refers to teacher preparation. Ostensibly as part of the move toward professionaliza-tion, US teacher educators (unlike educational researchers in the United Kingdom, Canada,and Australia) publicly insist on the use of the term ‘teacher education’ rather than ‘teachertraining.’

7. It is not yet clear what specific culture of research will be favoured by the Obama administration.There are some early indications that the field of educational research may be more open andpragmatic than it was in the last Bush regime.

8. My confusion is this. If, as Dewey asserts, body and mind are inter-connected, then it seems to mewe should be able to teach the body through the mind, and vice versa. However, that doesn’t seemto be what Dewey is arguing here. His argument instead is that since body and mind are notseparate, we must teach both the mind and the body. We teach the mind by engaging the mind inreflection on experiences; we teach the body by engaging the body in physical exercises. In anycase, I don’t think the specifics of this argument are relevant to the overall point I’m trying to makein this section.

9. It was tempting in this paragraph to cite a different quotation from the same page of Gage’s book:‘Just as the physician occasionally tells a tobacco addict that smoking is preferable to gainingtwenty pounds, so the teacher may cut down the academic learning time of the occasional pupilwho needs to learn to work under pressure.’ But that seemed unsporting.

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Fendler 2012 Magic of Psychology