Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

276 Jean Piaget
would probably have been totally neglected if consideration had been given to
practical requirements alone.
This short-circuiting presents as many disadvantages from the point of view
of applied psychology itself as it does from that of basic research. It is well
known that the most unexpected applications are sometimes the outcome of
purely theoretical research in physico-chemistry. The example of the countless
uses of our knowledge of electro-magnetics based on Maxwell’s equations is
often quoted: these equations were discovered in the course of purely theoretical
and mainly formal research work (the need for symmetry etc.). Psychology has
not, of course, reached that stage, but there is nothing to prove that the com-
bined research of psychologists and logicians on the liliation of operative struc-
tures will not one day be of greater importance in diagnosis and pedagogics
than many tests, which although easier to handle (since the study of the mental
processes as such presupposes years of study) are much less meaningful.
In short, it may be said - as has already been said in respect of physiology,
etc. - that applied psychology does not exist as an independent discipline, but
that all branches of psychology can always be considered as possible sources of
expected or unexpected applications.
11. The most important applications of psychology are perhaps those related
to education, and it seems appropriate to begin by recalling how many innova-
tors in modern pedagogics were professional psychologists or engaged in re-
search based directly on psychology:, Dewey with his notion of interest, Decroly,
Clapar&.de, Montessori (who first pretended to know nothing of child psychology
and hinted that she could offer an improved version of it, but later changed her
mind), Ferrikre, Vigotsky’s followers, etc. It should next be noted that experimental
pedagogics, a young discipline in full process of development, whose
purpose is to verify by experiment all sorts of pedagogical hypotheses and the
yield of educational methods, remains independent of psychology as long as it
deals only with factual data and laws but leans on it heavily (in the same way as
medicine does) when it comes to understanding and explaining such data and
laws.
i The applications of psychology to pedagogy best known to the general public
are those in the domain of differential psychology, in other words, those concerned
with the characteristics and aptitudes which distinguish individuals from
one another. Firstly there are all the problems of readjustment to school life
in cases of backwardness or temporary crises, in which a distinction has to be
drawn between affective and intellectual factors, and among the latter between
general factors and strictly educational inhibitions (mathematics, spelling, etc.).
Owing-to lack of time or training, the teacher cannot often solve such problems
himself and the educational authorities of many countries have created new
posts for educational psychologists. This has proved to be a very successful
innovation, particularly when these specialists have received a twofold training
as psychologists and teachers. Still greater specialization is required to deal with
cases of dyslexia or of speech disorders, and ‘logopedic’ techniques have been
introduced;’and psychologists, of course, assist in the education of handicapped,