A Hundred Years of the Development of Czech Textbooks of Educational Psychology and the Contexts of their Creation – A Picture of transformations in the conception of the field

The aim of the study is to enable readers to form a picture of changes between 1913 and 2013 in the concept of the field of educational psychology as presented by authors of Czech – or Czechoslovak – textbooks and other texts intended for undergraduate studies and the lifelong education of teachers. It is particularly useful to consider the development of the content of textbooks and the contexts of their creation because these are publications that are adapted to didactic communication in content and arrangement, codify the state of the field concerned, help to create its terminology, and influence professional thought and activity in the professional community concerned.
If we trace the evolution of the content and arrangement of the textbooks it becomes obvious how the accent placed on particular themes has changed over time. For example, we can see how authors successively foreground the problems of the psychological foundation of learning, the proper organisation of the conditions for the educational process, psychological hygiene, biological and social determination of behaviour, collective education, training for work, increasing the effectiveness of teaching, analysis of teaching material/curriculum, teacher education, the degree of pupil success at school, developmental needs, the personality of pupil and teacher, teacher perceptions, the role of advisory services in education, the individualised approach to pupils, inclusive education, encouragement to creativity, the psychosocial climate of the school, teacher authority, psychological burn-out of teachers and so forth. It is evident that the content of textbooks is conditioned by the advance of psychological and educational sciences, by the evolving perception of the differential needs of actors in the educational process, and by change in what society requires from education.
At the beginning of the 21st century educational psychology is a subject concerned not only with study of the conditions of learning, teaching, choice of teaching material and educational function, but with the forms and content of pedagogical communication, the interpersonal relations involved in the educational process including psychological questions relating to school management, the provision of advisory services, the prevention of socially pathological phenomena and preventive educational care for children and young people at risk.