Neuroscience and Educational Psychology – Exploring Views

The field of neuroscience has received growing publicity in recent years and its potential contribution to the understanding of children's learning, development and education has been an area of considerable debate and controversy, particularly with regard to how far the brain can inform our understanding of social processes.

While educational psychology has been identified as a discipline potentially central to the debates about neuroscience, very little research has been carried out into the views of Educational Psychologists (EPs) regarding the relevance or value of neuroscience to their field.

This thesis aims to help fill this research gap, exploring educational psychology's relationship with neuroscience.

The systematic literature review in this study explored a conceptually linked but distinct sub-domain of neuroscience: neurodevelopmental disorders.

In particular, it considered the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders in children with behavioural difficulties.

19 studies were evaluated in this review. Studies indicated that prevalence rates of several different neurodevelopmental disorders were above those expected for the general population.

A number of methodological quality and topic relevance issues are raised, but overall the results of this review suggest that neurodevelopmental disorders are more prevalent amongst those with behavioural problems.

What is more, it seems that many neurodevelopmental disorders are going unidentified in children with behavioural difficulties.

The empirical paper sought to explore EPs' views about neuroscience, presenting a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 14 EPs.

The qualitative approach to this research yielded rich interview data and several themes were identified in relation to the following three research questions:

1. In what ways is educational neuroscience currently influencing educational psychology practice?
2. To what extent do EPs value findings from neuroscience?
3. What misconceptions do EPs have about the brain?

Potential enablers and barriers to EPs' engagement with neuroscience were also discussed.

Finally, the study's qualities and limitations were outlined and the implications of the research for educational psychology theory and practice were explored.