272 Educational Psychology
division status as Division 15. Only three years later, in 1949,
Dael Wolfle, the APA executive secretary, claimed that
educational psychology had “lost its momentum,” and in
the early 1950s the suggestion was made to combine educa-
tional psychology with Division 12, Clinical Psychology
(O’Donnell & Levin, 2001).
Notwithstanding these problems, the discipline of educa-
tional psychology seemed quite defined in its early years.
Practitioners focused on problems in education and looked for
resolutions to those problems. However, these years were
marred by considerable criticism of educational psychology
and of educational psychologists, and it was much more likely
that a psychologist working in education would refer to him-
self or herself as a psychologist than as an educational psy-
chologist (Sutherland, 1988). Ironically, perhaps, America’s
consternation over Russia’s advances in science and technol-
ogy spurred a new interest in research and funding of educa-
tion, which in turn spurred a renewed interest in educational
psychology. Thus, Division 15 showed more than a seven fold
increase between the years 1959 and 1967, growing from only
525 members to almost 4,000, making it one of the largest
divisions within the American Psychological Association
(Charles, 1976).
In the 11 years between 1977 and 1988, however, Division
15 membership declined by almost 40% (Farley, 1989). Al-
though this decline was substantial, the 1,400-member loss
still left Division 15 with more total members than many
other APA divisions, and still in the top 10 in terms of total
division membership. As Farley notes, this membership loss
was largely due to many factors, including the creation of
closely related or component divisions within the APA that
drew members away from Division 15, as well as member-
ship drifts to special societies such as the Psychonomics
Society. In particular, the more education-centered organi-
zation, the American Educational Research Association
(AERA), also drew members away from the APA. Many fac-
ulty and graduate students have also elected to pursue mem-
bership in one or more additional organizations that reflect
their individual theoretical, research, or population interests.
These organizations are as likely to be traditionally psy-
chology based (e.g., American Psychological Society,
Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) as
they are to be traditionally education based (e.g., National
Association of Developmental Education, the National Read-
ing Conference). Rather than reflecting disagreement or an
outgrowth of factions within educational psychology, this
diversity of organizational membership instead reflects the
growing recognition by contemporary educational psycholo-
gists that we are qualified—perhaps uniquely so—to serve a
wide variety of public interests.
TRACING PROGRESS THROUGH
THE WRITTEN RECORDOne way of tracing the history of a discipline is to examine
that discipline’s documents. In the case of educational psy-
chology, there are two primary document resources: profes-
sional journals and academic textbooks. One of the first
reviews of textbooks was by Worcester (1927). Worcester’s
1927 review found an “amazing lack of agreement” in the
content of educational psychological texts. One author, for
example, used 30% of the textbook space for psychology and
tests in primary-school subjects, while other authors ne-
glected these topics entirely. There was also marked dissimi-
larity in the discussions of laboratory practices of educational
psychologists, with some focusing on, for example, testing
of individual differences, statistical methods, and studies of
memory, while others investigated transfer of learning and
intelligence testing. Most of the approximately 37 different
textbooks used among the labs were, in practice, general
psychology texts (Worcester, 1927). And, as Charles (1976)
notes, things were not much different even 25 years later. A
1949 comparison of texts used in educational psychology
classes revealed that while one author devoted a full 20% to
the topic of intelligence testing, another author devoted a
scant 1.5% to this same topic.
Content analyses have also been performed on the found-
ing journal in the field of educational psychology, theJour-
nal of Educational Psychology.In an examination of 641
articles reviewed by decade from 1910 to 1990, O’Donnell
and Levin (2001) delimited different “central themes.” They
found that articles in the teaching category decreased from
30% to a mere 0.03% and that articles in the intelligence-
testing category dropped from 13.3% to 0.0%. Articles in
the learning category, however, increased by almost 47 per-
centage points—from 13.3% to 60%. Ball (1984), in a
content analysis of articles published during the first 75
years of theJournal of Educational Psychology,found sim-
ilar trends.
Ball notes that while there has continued to be a strong
research content core, the emphasis of the research has
shifted over the years. For example, in the early days of the
Journal of Educational Psychology,the emphasis was on
practical issues related to teachers and teaching; the 1940s
and 1950s ushered in increased interest in personal and social
issues; and the 1970s and beyond reflected a growth in theo-
retical rather than strictly practical areas, especially in moti-
vation and psycholinguistics. Ball (1984) also noted a trend
toward both more multi-authored articles and longer articles;
additionally, he noted that the number of women in the field
had increased substantially.