The role of Social Psychology in attaining the goals of Education.

 

Introduction

The objectives of education are of great concern to students, parents, teacher, society and other stakeholders. In order to organize students experiences education social psychology plays a crucial role considering that increasingly better instructional materials are being developed and new media especially the internet are being adapted  and being refined for instructional purposes. Nevertheless, provisions for differences among students in rate and style of learning are still not adequate. Teachers and others are well aware of present inadequacies and probably education social psychology will offer solutions for better management of institutions. Teaching and learning are fundamentally social enterprises.  Teachers' roles in the classroom are equally social. Explaining concepts, keeping students on task, and communicating with fellow faculty members and parents are obviously social. Although less obvious, planning classes and grading papers are anticipatory social acts in that these activities require teachers to forecast how students will react to lesson plans and comments, respectively.

The discipline of social psychology has great untapped potential to help teachers understand and manage many of these social aspects of the classroom. Although some concepts from this discipline (e.g., self-efficacy, stereotype threat, etc.) are already known in education circles, many are not. Realizing the potential of these lesser known concepts will pay off in important ways. There are various advantages that once recognized can help manage education institutions.

Gehlbach  (2004) says that  firstly  because social processes are fundamental to so many aspects of learning and teaching, intervening at this level often produces multiple desirable outcomes (i.e., one intervention might have an array of benefits). Furthermore, by drawing on fundamental principles, applications of these ideas may be generalized across many facets of teachers' jobs (i.e., one principle may have multiple applications). Second, the effects of interventions that successfully modify basic social processes can be disproportionately large. In other words, by changing social processes that occur repeatedly, small interventions can have big effects. Third, because social processes often set cycles in motion, interventions that establish positive patterns of interaction can be long lasting.

The core construct of social psychology entails discerning the thoughts and feelings of others with particular attention to how others perceive the situation. According to this formulation, social education psychology is a complex aptitude consisting of an ability dimension as well as a motivational dimension (Gehlbach 2004).

Though we have to be open to naive realism which is the belief that we see objective reality; those that agree with our point of view also see objective reality; but those who disagree must be (a) subject to different (presumably lesser) information, (b) too lazy to process the information fully, or (c) biased (Ross and Ward 1996). Mitigating these biases will help teachers more accurately perceive their students which, in turn, will enhance their pedagogy. To understand how, it is helpful to illustrate how these biases can unfold in classrooms. Among their multiple roles, teachers must monitor students' academic progress—are students' grades, homework completion rates, and conceptual understandings improving or not? When a student's rate of progress declines abruptly, teachers need to understand why. In other words, this is a critical moment for teachers to be motivated and accurate in taking the student's perspective if they are to help remediate the situation. The more accurately teachers infer their students' thought patterns, the more readily they can identify conceptual misunderstanding.

Discussion

Education psychology is the science that studies student behaviors in educational settings; that is, student behaviors and education set the boundaries of the content and methodology of science. The content focuses on the nature of learning, the development of student’s abilities, focuses on the nature of learning, the development of students’ abilities, types of learning outcomes acquired by students, conditions within the student and within the school setting associated with efficient learning, and measurement of the outcomes of learning. Education social psychology does emphasize the theories, principles and related applications that appear to be the most relevant in actual modifying of student behaviors which is the practical function of the school.

The responsibility of educating children is the work of teachers and parents. Typically students spend more time with their teachers hence the need to know how to respond to their needs. Even under optimal conditions, most children and youths will experience some problems in school hence upon teachers to mitigate this in order to have better institutions. The role educational social psychology is to improve and understand the teaching and learning processes. The teacher’s perception of what takes place in class is substantially different from the perception of students. Psychologists have discovered many things about human behavior, and they have established principles and theories that summarize and clarify insights. Objectives, materials, student characteristics, teacher characteristics and interactions are important components of a schooling system. A teacher influences whether a student is able to understand concepts based by his ability to gain the students attention and maintain it. The mentioned factors have to be arraigned in a certain way to achieve learning.

 

Motivation

Motivation is a general term referring to goal seeking or need satisfying behavior. The level or strength of motivation of an individual in connection to a task is judged by attending and persisting behaviors.  A student who attends closely to instruction and persists until the task is completed is obviously highly motivated. The level of motivation is inferred from an individual’s behavior, but this doesn’t mean the level cannot be influenced. A teacher can arrange environmental conditions to secure a student’s attention initially and to maintain persistent effort. Motivation must always be taken into account as one attempts to make instructional system work smoothly.

When students come to school and encounter teaching –learning situations, they have interests and needs that may at times, divert their attention from the instructional objectives. Some students experience deprivation of physiological and safety need during school hours. We can then be concerned with their needs for love and belonging, esteem, self actualization and the desires to know and understand. Helping students to satisfy these needs is a primary means of developing high motivation. The need to attain success is related to social needs of students and is present in most students. Students who experience a diminished sense of belonging at school are less likely to remain motivated and engaged in school; consequently, they are more likely to drop out ( Juvonen 2006).

Punishment and threat of punishment are still widely used by teachers all too often, improperly and ineffectively.  A reward is something given to one person by another person or group which brings pleasure or satisfaction to the recipient. When a student is rewarded immediately, after some behavior and knows that the reward is given for the behavior, there is tendency for the behavior to be strengthened. If a reward is promised a student will produce the desired behavior. Punishment brings pain or dissatisfaction to the recipient.

Attitudes and values

Attitudes and values are among the most vital outcomes learned in school, for they are important in determining how the individual reacts to situations and also what he seeks in life. Thus attitudes and values serve both as mediators of responses and motivational forces. An attitude is a system of three interrelated components- cognitive (information), affective (feelings) and action-tendency (behavior). There is a difference between attitude and concept in that concept influences an individual’s acceptance or rejection of attitudes objects like persons, ideas, things, situations etc.  The attributes of individuals and of groups they belong to are important determiners of attitude acquisition and development. Of interests to education social psychology is the primary group and reference groups which the individual uses as standard against which he compares the adequacy of his behavior.

Pleasant feelings, success, and rewards produce favorable and lasting attitudes; while unpleasant feelings, failure and punishments lead to unfavorable attitudes and also in some cases, to the extinction of previously favorable attitudes. A teacher and other administrators can work on developing a program of instruction once it has been established what attitudes will lead to efficient learning. The learning of attitudes can be facilitated through:

·         Providing exemplary models

·         Providing pleasant emotional experiences

·         Using group techniques

·         Arranging of appropriate practice and encouraging independent attitude cultivation.

As Reynolds et al. (2008) emphasize, students must feel safe before learning can occur. Furthermore, the complex mechanisms underlying the problems of achievement, dropping out, and safety can easily feed off of one another to form destructive cycles.

Though home background does influence attitudes and values, some students do diverge markedly from the value system of their parents. It is important for teachers to recognize their own attitudes and values and those of their students so that they may accept, rather than discriminate inadvently against, a student who attitudes and values are different from their own. Accepting students does not mean accepting antisocial behavior or permitting highly withdrawn student to remain unattended. Regardless of a student’s values and attitudes certain behavior cannot be permitted for example fist fighting, cursing, stealing, vulgar language, destruction of property and open rebellion against the rules and regulations needed to operate a school or classroom. According to Ross (1977), the fundamental attribution error consists of people's pervasive tendency to explain the social behavior of others by overweighting the causal role of an individual's personality traits and undervaluing situational causes. Confirmation bias refers to the tendency of people to seek out and value information that corroborates their pet hypothesis, often while ignoring or devaluing contradictory information (Wason 1960).

The teacher interacts with students by speaking, writing, and making actual physical motions. Students also have some of the same means of interacting with the teacher as the teacher does with them. The teacher usually, however, controls the kind and amount of interactions. Thus when a teacher decides to lecture or to have the students study independently, there is no verbal interaction among the students or between the teacher and students. On the other hand a teacher who understands social psychology will inculcate classroom discussions, panel discussions, small group discussions, question and answer sessions to call for much interaction.

 Group cohesiveness

A cohesive group is one in which all the members wish to stay I that group: in other words, the members are sufficiently attracted to one another or to the group activity so that they wish to stay in that particular classroom or group. Education social psychology enables teachers to identify and know how to manage cliques and majority-minority patterns that emerge in their classes. If not well managed, it will lead to isolation hence affecting group activities like classroom discussions.

A major domain in which social psychologists have substantially enhanced our understanding of the social world is that of interpersonal and intergroup relations. One of the more intriguing phenomena to emerge from this domain is the research on intergroup bias (Devine 1995). One obvious classroom application of this work is to guide teachers' organization of group work and to improve intergroup relations between students from different backgrounds or cliques. Personal attraction, performance of tasks and maintenance of group prestige have been identified as the basis of cohesiveness. Cohesive groups tend to communicate more effectively with one another and also conform more readily to the dominant group opinion that less cohesive groups.  To establish cohesiveness within smaller groups, teachers may put students together who have an interest in the same activity or common goal or put friends together in the same group. Also, the task or activity can be arranged so that the members experience success feelings or secure praise through doing the job well. In working with individuals and smaller groups, within the class so that each member experiences a feeling of success in an excellent means of encouraging cohesiveness and securing high student achievement.

 

Environment

In interactions, teacher leadership, the instructional procedures used by the teacher, student achievement and emotional security are all closely related. A balance is achieved between student-initiated and teacher-initiated talk as the teacher responds to student suggestions concerning activities, listens to students attentively, accepts student feelings, asks questions, and praises and encourages. A warm and effective environment can be maintained in an organizational or structural context characterized by businesslike approach to instruction, orderliness, flexibility and fairness. This kind of emotional climate and structure, combined with a variety of instructional methods, each to attain particular objectives, produces high student achievement, emotional security and zest for learning.

The social conditions are increasingly changing and the teachers cannot afford to be averse to these changes. The caliber of students keeps on changing in that we get students who are highly hooked to technology, lots of expectations from parents and society. What can teachers do to weather such a storm? The recourse is in education social psychology which has remained timeless in preparing and offering practical solutions for management of better institutions.  Many youths of today feel alienated from adult society, including their parents and their teachers. They feel they are not understood. Many don’t identify with the value systems of their parents or teachers. Not finding satisfaction in the world  as it is and becoming disillusioned about being able to change  it for better, many youth turn to drugs, open rebellion against adults, rejection of much of the curriculum content and code of conduct of the schools. With such a scenario the teacher’s task appears daunting but it presents opportunities of meeting the challenge. Skills and understanding of social psychology can help a teacher know how to help students solve their daily problems of living and eventually become a well-integrated person. A teacher should be concerned with personality integration of student’s life for the betterment of the institution.

Motivational, discipline and personality integration are integrally related. Every social system, including the school and classroom as a system, requires some regulation of its members to enable it to function effectively. In school settings, discipline refers to control of procedures in order to facilitate the attainment of educational objectives. Discipline procedures in the schools historically have moved from the use of force to self-discipline. Current trends as informed educational social psychological informs that discipline should be self-control as a result of learning sense of responsibility of self, other classmates, and the school. Good discipline is a function of good teaching. The teacher’s best efforts are directed at creating a classroom environment supportive of healthy personality integration and rich with learning experiences that capitalize on the enthusiasm of youth.

Developing an emotionally secure environment

Feelings of acceptance and belonging are important in achieving an emotionally secure classroom or school. Such an environment is characterized by : a feeling of general warmth, encouraging moderate expressions of emotion and feeling by students; democratic group decisions, use of non-punitive control techniques. By the time the student finishes high school, he should have fairly realistic appraisal of himself, his motor skills, his knowledge and intellectual abilities, his interests and his emotional make up. Very few institutions do give an understanding of students of students strengths and weaknesses hence needing up graduating students who don’t know who they are. Educational social psychology then becomes a mediator in such instances to help students find acceptance and appreciate their special individual selves.

In addition to motivating students to expend more effort on homework, cognitive dissonance could be used to help students persist on their academic goals for the semester. Teachers might facilitate this process by assigning students to write down their goals through a regular classroom assignment. This relatively common exercise could be strengthened by having students then try to convince a peer to adopt at least one of their goals.

To strengthen the intervention further, teachers could assign students to inform their parents of their list of goals and the reasons why they want to pursue them over the course of the year. As Cialdini (2009) notes, by trying to convince their classmates of the merits of their goals, they will likely convince themselves; by describing their goals and the reasons for their goals to audiences like their parents, they will bolster their commitment to their goals; and by posting the goals in class, the goals will remain salient for students.

 

Conclusions

We can conclude that, social psychological principles need to be adapted into actual classroom practices. Social interactions lie at the heart of classroom learning. As a result, thoughtful, new applications of social psychological principles may have multiple, large, lasting benefits for teachers and students.

 

References

Devine, P. (1995). Prejudice and out-group perception. In A. Tesser (Ed.), Advanced social psychology (pp. 466-524). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: Science and practice (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Gehlbach, H., & Brinkworth, M. E. (2010). The social perspective taking process: Strategies and sources of evidence in taking another's perspective.

Ross, L., & Ward, A. (1996). Naive realism in everyday life: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding. In E. S. Reed & E. Turiel (Eds.), Values and knowledge (pp. 103-135). Mahwah: Erlbaum.

Ross, L. (1977). The intuitive psychologist and his shortcomings: Distortions in the attribution process. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 10, pp. 173-220). Orlando: Academic.

Gehlbach, H. (2004). A new perspective on perspective taking: A multidimensional approach to conceptualizing an aptitude. Educational Psychology Review, 16(3), 207-234.

Reynolds, C. R., Skiba, R. J., Graham, S., Sheras, P., Conoley, J. C., & Garcia-Vazquez, E. (2008). Are zero tolerance policies effective in the schools?: An evidentiary review and recommendations. The American Psychologist, 63(9), 852—862.

Juvonen, J. (2006). Sense of belonging, social bonds, and school functioning. In P. A. Alexander & P. H. Winne (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 655-674). Mahwah: Erlbaum.