Educational Psychology: The distinctive contribution

This paper, written in the twenty-first anniversary year of the journal Educational Psychology in Practice, attempts to uncover those distinctive aspects of the discipline and the practice of applied psychology in general and educational psychology in particular. After considering some of the reasons for attempting this task at this point in time and outlining some of the difficulties involved in achieving this task, five distinctive dimensions are identified and discussed. These are: (i) adopting a psychological perspective to human problems; (ii) uncovering mediating/psychological variables which link particular situations with specific outcomes; (iii) employing psychological knowledge to create explanatory models of complex human problems; (iv) using evidence based strategies for change; and (v) sharing and promoting big ideas from psychology. Some of the possibilities which these distinctive features offer for innovation in educational psychology practice and research are listed, together with their implications for educational psychology practitioners in the future.