(CZ) Pedagogickopsychologické práce publikované v časopise Pedagogika v letech 1951-2000
(EN) Educationalpsychological articles published in the journal Pedagogika in 1951-2000

This survey study is aimed at a fifty-year period in educational psychology as reflected in articles published in the Pedagogika journal. The criterion for the selection of the articles was the specialist discipline of the author, the thematic focus of the work, the preponderance of the educational psychological aspect if the work had several aspects, and the preponderance of educational psychological method if more than one method was used. The survey study contains seven subsidiary views of educational psychology in Czechoslovakia in the period 1951/1992, and in the Czech Republic in the period 1993-2000. 1. The study states that in the period under discussion 33 contributions with an educational psychological theme were published in Pedagogika. They are cited in the list of literature. In the fifty years, educational psychology experienced two large waves of publication activity. One fell into the period of the mid-sixties and ended with normalisation, and the second occurred in the mid-Nineties and is now rather ebbing. The average number of publications with an educational psychological theme over the entire half-century was approximately 8. 2. Analysis of the articles showed that general stock-taking of the state of educational psychology was not undertaken regularly but more under pressure of external events. From time to time there would be discussion within the field of its definition and specific conception, but this was rarely deep. The subject of educational psychological research was taken up more often, and there was a particularly clear interest in improving diagnostic procedures. The question of targeted interventions remained rather to the side. There was little discussion of terminological problems. Ideological influences had less serious impact on the field than they did on pedagogy, for example. 3. The study has discovered that over the period concerned, 225 authors published articles, and a list of these authors has been compiled. The backgrounds of the authors were relatively diverse. The most important contributions came from the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences and the Slovak Academy of Sciences, from the appropriate departments in Czech and Slovak universities, and from an original research laboratory at a secondary economics school in Prague. Relatively few foreign authors were to be found on the pages of Pedagogika. 4. Study of the contents of the articles shows that most work was concerned with children, pupils, and students. They were studied in terms of personality, psychological attributes, psychological states, psychological processes, and degree of success in and outside of school. Tne psychology of learning in general was given a large amount of space, especially the specific forms of learning. Many theoretical and research works also dealt with learning motivation. One major current was represented by works concerned with the direction of human learning, especially external direction (e.g. programmed learning). Other works were concerned with the degree of success of pupils at school and in life. Another major theme was that of the teacher, his personality, psychological attributes, psychological states and psychological processes. Finally there was the theme of the psychology of teaching, especially pedagogical interaction and communication. Areas of interest included the teacherpupil relationship, verbal communication, testing appraisal and classification of pupils, subsidiary intervention programmes and the impact of attempts to change the work of the school or even reform the school itself. 5. The study also analysed work by 50 authors referring to conferences, seminars, important meetings personal anniversaries and suchlike connected with educational psychology. 6. Another area was that of reviews. 210 reviews by 104 authors were analysed and the original language of the works reviewed statistically was studied over the course of the period. 7. The last section of the survey study focuses on an analysis of published empirical research. In the period 1951-1968,27 empirical studies were published. They were mainly studies in the psychology of teaching and learning, rather less on the psychology of the pupil, and never on the psychology of the teacher. The researchers were almost completely uninterested in age and gender differences among pupils, the school class, school as an institution and the family. 8. In the period 1969-89 a total of 42 empirical studies with an educational psychological focus were identified. The psychology of learning had retreated to the background, and the psychology of instruction took up substantial space, especially psychological views of teacher-pupil interaction. The psychology of motivation experienced a boom. Interest in the psychology of pupil and teacher declined, while interest in the pupil’s family increased. Psychological views of the school class opened up again. Researchers began to be interested in differences of gender and the comparison of pupils from different types of school. In 1990 2000, 36 empirical studies were identified. Priority here is given to the psychology of the teacher together with a newly conceived psychology of the pupil. The psychology of teaching maintains an important position with a strong showing for the psychological view of the curriculum. The psychology of upbringing, especially family upbringing, is added. Interest in the psychology of the school class decreases, but there are more psychological views of the school as a unique institution. The detailed analysis of all 105 empirical studies expressed in clear tables with a unified structure will be published in Pedagogika 51, 2001, no. 1. The study ends by arguing that the future development of the field will not be possible without intensive inter-disciplinary and international co-operation, more well-qualified specialists and an improvement of the teaching of educational psychology at Czech universities.