CONTINUITIES AND DISCONTINUITIES - FUTURE-DIRECTIONS FOR RESEARCH IN EDUCATIONAL-PSYCHOLOGY

The purpose of this article is to suggest future directions for resear ch in educational psychology as we enter our second hundred years of p sychology in America. The basic theme is that there are both continuit ies and discontinuities in our development from the early days of Hall , Thorndike, James, and Dewey to the current multiplicity of perspecti ves represented in educational psychology. Eight issues are presented that will guide future research directions. They include (a) specifyin g basic constructs; (b) developing integrative models and linkages bet ween constructs; (c) returning to the problems of acquisition, learnin g, and transfer; (d) applying models from the sciences and mathematics ; (e) dealing with the discontinuity of contextual and cultural models ; (f) including content and disciplinary perspectives; (g) adapting to diversity; and (h) developing multiple perspectives on the unit of an alysis issue. The article concludes with a call for the allowance of m ultiple perspectives and multiple possible selves for educational psyc hologists while maintaining a commitment to psychological models and t he improvement of education.