Social cognitive perspective

Social cognitive theory is a highly influential fusion of behavioral, cognitive and social elements that was initially developed by educational psychologist Albert Bandura. In its earlier, neo-behavioral incarnation called social learning theory, Bandura emphasized the process of observational learning in which a learner's behavior changes as a result of observing others' behavior and its consequences. The theory identified several factors that determine whether observing a model will affect behavioral or cognitive change. These factors include the learner's developmental status, the perceived prestige and competence of the model, the consequences received by the model, the relevance of the model's behaviors and consequences to the learner's goals, and the learner's self-efficacy. The concept of self-efficacy, which played an important role in later developments of the theory, refers to the learner's belief in his or her ability to perform the modeled behavior.

An experiment by Schunk and Hanson, that studied grade 2 students who had previously experienced difficulty in learning subtraction, illustrates the type of research stimulated by social learning theory. One group of students observed a subtraction demonstration by a teacher and then participated in an instructional program on subtraction. A second group observed other grade 2 students performing the same subtraction procedures and then participated in the same instructional program. The students who observed peer models scored higher on a subtraction post-test and also reported greater confidence in their subtraction ability. The results were interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that perceived similarity of the model to the learner increases self-efficacy, leading to more effective learning of modeled behavior. It is supposed that peer modeling is particularly effective for students who have low self-efficacy.

Over the last decade, much research activity in educational psychology has focused on developing theories of self-regulated learning (SRL) and metacognition. These theories work from the central premise that effective learners are active agents who construct knowledge by setting goals, analysing tasks, planning strategies and monitoring their understanding. Research has indicated that learners who are better at goal setting and self-monitoring tend to have greater intrinsic task interest and self-efficacy; and that teaching learning strategies can increase academic achievement.

Psychology of Education and Upbringing are considered in such sections of age psychology as – psychology of pre-school, junior school, high school, middle school children and psychology of student age. Any of this branches may be differentiated to smaller parts according to the educational subject or discipline.

We pointed out the part in which we are interested – Psychology of Teaching Foreign Languages (PTFL)

If we want to compare this two disciplines, Psychology of Teaching Foreign Languages and Pedagogical Psychology, first of all we must delimit two notions the research subject and object.

Pedagogical Psychology and Age Psychology have common research objects – growing, developing and forming person (child, teenager, young man).

The research subject of Pedagogical Psychology is psychological laws of education and upbringing. So Pedagogical Psychology studies laws in mastering knowledge and skills and individual peculiarities in these processes.

As any other branch of scientific knowledge PTFL has not defined at once complexity and versatility of the research subject. At first times the research subject of PTFL were process of memorizing and mastering. Gradually expanding area of study PTFL includes a problem of the psychological analysis of general didactic signs, e.g. consciousness and problem of accounting specificity of foreign language in comparison with native language. At that time the necessity of studying person’s motivation sphere was noted.

The research methods used in educational or pedagogical psychology tend to be drawn from psychology and other social sciences. There is also a history of significant methodological innovation by educational psychologists, and psychologists investigating educational problems. Research methods address problems in both research design and data analysis. Research design informs the planning of experiments and observational studies to ensure that their results have internal, external and ecological validity. Data analysis encompasses methods for processing both quantitive (numerical) and qualitative (non-numerical) research data. Although, historically, the use of quantitative methods was often considered an essential mark of scholarship, modern educational psychology research uses both quantitative and qualitative methods.