Kyoiku-shinrigaku no jissen-beisu-apurouchi (A practice-based research approach to educational psychology - Creating studies in making educational practices)

Since the foundation of educational psychology, voices from the field have leveled the criticism that “Our discipline is inessential to educational practice because the former does not directly study the latter.” The mainstream approach to educational psychology involves statistically analyzing data from basic experiments and surveys; however, neither researchers nor practitioners fully understand how to apply this to educational settings. Over the past 30 years, efforts to overcome this obstacle have slowly been making progress.
 
In the approach discussed in this book, educational psychologists perform research by personally conducting some form of practical activity. Although such an approach may be commonplace in medical studies and clinical psychology, it has not yet been employed in educational psychology, particularly in the field of “teaching and learning,” either in Japan or abroad. Needless to say, educational researchers are different from school educators, but it is still possible for them to directly interact with learners.
 
The number of graduate students who have been coming to the author’s (Ichikawa) laboratory with the desire to conduct such research has gradually been increasing over the past two decades. Thus far, we have assisted in and collaborated with individual study support programs for children or students; planned and facilitated study seminars for middle school students; conducted school visits to improve study techniques; aided in the development of school classes; thought about these efforts together; established research themes; and developed graduation theses on this basis.
 
In the past, such studies would have probably never been considered as acceptable topics for academic articles. However, a number of academic journals have recently established genres for papers on educational practice, indicating that a path ahead is opening. This book mainly consists of academic papers presented by the author and a number of graduates and includes the research background and its subsequent development—rewritten for ease of understanding.
 
This approach has enabled us to break down the boundaries between academic disciplines and educational stages (e.g., elementary, middle, and high school), and create opportunities for discussions that revolve around individual practices. Our initial concept of “researchers practicing and practitioners researching” has begun to yield positive results. It is our hope that not only educational psychology students and young researchers but also school instructors and educational personnel in other fields will read this book, and that it will serve as a first step in initiating collaborations.
 

(Written by ICHIKAWA, Shin’ichi, Professor emeritus, Graduate School of Education / 2020)