ABSTRACT
Talking to education students over the years, people have frequently heard students question the value of much of the psychology they were taught; in large part, people agree with them. Not all aspects of psychological research have findings that are practical and useful in the school situation, nor is this confined to education. It is true of most applied areas of other disciplines, in that only part of the pure study is useful. In many books there is a great deal of material which has no practical use or application to the teacher; topics like the percepton of visual illusions, the learning of lists of words and nonsense syllables which are very untypical of what really happens in school, etc. This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book selects carefully those areas which people know from their own experience and research have useful, practical applications to everyday classroom environment.
