THE PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES OF THE XXTH CENTURY AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF EUROPEAN PRIMARY EDUCATION

Abstract

In the XXth century primary education both in Europe and throughout the world is largely guided by the results of research in the field of child psychology and personality psychology. Understanding the stages of child development, his individual characteristics, concepts forming and construction of relations with the outside world educators define the principles of educational content and ways of interaction between a student and a teacher in the elementary school. The triangle of psychoanalysis – behaviorism – humanistic psychology presents the main directions of psychological thought in the XXth century. The early theories by E. L. Thorndike, John Dewey, and William James demonstrated the correlation between the children’s thinking and learning potential and theoretical approaches in solving practical educational problems. The psychologists of the XXth century explore the learning process of a child in the context of social, moral, cognitive, behavioral, motivational theories, theories of personality and development. The key psychological ideas that influenced the development of European primary education in the XXth century are stages of personality development, linearity of development, the zone of proximal development (ZPD), types of learning, process of socialization and its peculiarities at different age stages, the role of “formal discipline” in learning, goal-setting and performance studies, spiral curriculum, forming of scientific concepts, motivation training, learner-centered instruction, and importance of sociocultural context.