The Object and Methods of Pedagogical Psychology Today

Any science about human beings will inevitably entail the integration of various fields of knowledge--philosophy, biology, medicine, anthropology, psychology, pedagogy, and so on. The term that is coming into increasingly widespread use is "humanitarian knowledge," which makes it possible to focus first and foremost on the study of the human being in all manifestations (both spiritual and corporal), on determining the conditions and characteristics of age-phase development as the subject of one's own life and activity, as a personality. Pedagogical psychology studies, designs, and organizes complex educational processes that serve to socialize the personality by schooling, while fostering the emergence of that personality as an individual in the dynamics of a child's development. A key problem of pedagogical psychology in Russia continues to be the correlation of instruction and mental development. This article examines the content and character of this correlation that has changed a great deal. It discusses the object and methods of the present-day pedagogical psychology and how pedagogical psychology has been developed in the country. (Contains 3 notes.)