DSC SGT Week 1-2: Educational Psychology

AP DSC-2026 (APTRT-2026) · Secondary Grade Teacher · Updated 15 Oct 2026

Educational Psychology carries 8 marks. Read one chapter a day, write it from memory, then do the MCQs at the end.

Chapter 1: Growth and Development

A child changes every day: taller, smarter, more social. Psychology splits this change into growth, development and maturation. Exam questions test the difference between them.

1.1 Meanings in simple words

Maturation (పరిపక్వత): changes that happen from inside, by nature, without any training. A baby sits, stands and walks when its muscles and nerves are ready. Training before maturation is wasted effort. This is why we do not teach writing to a 2-year-old.

Learning (అభ్యసనం): change that comes from practice and experience. Development = maturation + learning.

1.2 Principles of development (most asked)

1. Continuity: development never stops; it happens step by step.
2. Uniform pattern / sequence: every child passes through the same stages in the same order (crawl → stand → walk), though speed differs.
3. Cephalocaudal (శిరోపాదాభిముఖ): from head to toe. A baby controls its head first, then its trunk, then its legs.
4. Proximodistal (సమీప దూరాభిముఖ): from the centre of the body outward. Control of shoulder comes before arms, arms before fingers.
5. General to specific: a baby first moves its whole body to reach a toy; later only its hand.
6. Individual differences: each child develops at its own speed.
7. Interaction of heredity and environment: development = heredity × environment. Neither alone is enough.
8. Predictable: we can roughly predict when a child will walk or talk.
9. Different aspects are interrelated: a sick child (physical) also becomes irritable (emotional) and lags in studies (cognitive).

1.3 Factors influencing development

• Heredity (అనువంశికత): what a child receives from parents through genes — eye colour, height, basic body type. Genes are carried on 23 pairs of chromosomes.
• Environment (పరిసరాలు): everything around the child after conception — food, family, school, culture, friends.
• Nature vs nurture: heredity = nature; environment = nurture. Modern view: both work together.
• Twin studies are used to compare heredity and environment (identical twins have the same genes).

1.4 Stages of development and their features

As an SGT you teach later childhood, so learn its features well: children form groups, love games with rules, want approval from friends, and think best with concrete examples.

1.5 Dimensions (aspects) of development

• Physical and motor: body growth, gross motor skills (running, jumping) and fine motor skills (holding a pencil, buttoning).
• Cognitive (mental): thinking, memory, reasoning, problem-solving.
• Emotional: At birth only general excitement; emotions separate into fear, anger, joy etc. by about age 2 (K.M.B. Bridges).
• Social: from self-centred to cooperative; peer group becomes important in later childhood.
• Moral: sense of right and wrong (Kohlberg, Chapter 2).
• Language: crying → cooing → babbling → one-word stage → two-word stage → sentences.

Classroom use: give activities that match the child's stage, respect different speeds of learning, and use games and group work for later childhood.

Chapter 2: Theories of Development

These five theories give 2 to 3 questions in every DSC. For each one, learn the person, the key words and one classroom use.

2.1 Jean Piaget — Cognitive development (how thinking grows)

Piaget (Swiss) watched his own children and found that children do not think like small adults; they think differently at each stage. He called himself a "genetic epistemologist".

Key words (learn them exactly):

• Schema (స్కీమా): a mental file or pattern. A child has a "dog" schema: four legs, tail, barks.
• Assimilation (సాంశీకరణం): fitting new information into an old schema. The child sees a cow and calls it "big dog".
• Accommodation (అనుగుణ్యత): changing the schema to fit new information. The child learns: "No, this is a cow — a new animal".
• Equilibration (సమతుల్యత): the balance between assimilation and accommodation. Imbalance (confusion) pushes the child to learn.

The four stages:

Conservation experiment: pour the same water from a short wide glass into a tall thin glass. A 5-year-old says the tall glass has more water. An 8-year-old says it is the same. The older child understands conservation.

Classroom use: for Classes 1-5, teach with real objects (beads for counting, real leaves for plants). Do not start with definitions.

2.2 Lev Vygotsky — Social-cultural development

Vygotsky (Russian) said a child learns first by interacting with others, then thinks alone. Language and culture shape thinking.

• ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development, సమీప వికాస మండలం): the gap between what a child can do alone and what it can do with help.
• Scaffolding (పరంజా/ఆధారం): help given by the teacher or a friend inside the ZPD, slowly removed as the child improves (like scaffolding around a building).
• MKO (More Knowledgeable Other): anyone who knows more — teacher, parent, classmate.
• Private speech: children talk to themselves to guide their actions; Piaget called it egocentric speech.

Example: a child cannot do two-digit subtraction alone. The teacher shows one example and gives hints for the next one. After a few problems, the child does it alone. Hints = scaffolding.

Classroom use: group work, peer learning, mixed-ability groups.

2.3 Lawrence Kohlberg — Moral development

Kohlberg (American) told children the Heinz dilemma: Heinz steals a costly medicine to save his dying wife. Should he? He studied the reason given, not the yes/no answer.

Carol Gilligan criticised Kohlberg for ignoring women's "ethics of care".

2.4 Erik Erikson — Psychosocial development

Erikson said life has 8 stages, each with a crisis between two opposites. Solving it well gives a strength.

Classroom use for SGT (6-12): give tasks children can finish successfully and praise effort, so they feel competent, not inferior.

2.5 Language development

• Noam Chomsky: children are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD); this is why any child can learn any language.
• B.F. Skinner: language is learned by imitation and reinforcement.
• Stages: crying → cooing (2 months) → babbling (6 months) → first word (about 1 year) → two-word sentences (about 2 years).

2.6 Others to remember

• Sigmund Freud: psychosexual stages; oral, anal, phallic, latency (6-12, calm period), genital.
• Carl Rogers: self-concept; child-centred, non-directive counselling.
• Urie Bronfenbrenner: ecological systems — the child sits inside layers: family, school, community, culture.

Chapter 3: Individual Differences and Intelligence

No two children are the same, even twins. A teacher must plan for these differences, and the exam asks about how we measure them.

3.1 Individual differences (వైయక్తిక భేదాలు)

• Inter-individual: differences between two children (Ravi is better at maths than Sita).
• Intra-individual: differences within one child (Ravi is good at maths but weak in drawing).
• Areas: intelligence, aptitude, interest, attitude, personality, physical features, achievement.
• Causes: heredity, environment, age, sex, family background, economic status.
• Classroom use: ability grouping, remedial teaching for slow learners, enrichment for gifted, individual attention, varied methods.

3.2 Intelligence (ప్రజ్ఞ)

Intelligence is the ability to learn, solve new problems and adjust to new situations.

• Wechsler: "the capacity to act purposefully, think rationally and deal effectively with the environment".
• Terman: the ability to think in abstract terms.

Theories of intelligence:

Gardner example: a cricketer (bodily), a singer (musical), a counsellor (interpersonal), a farmer who knows plants (naturalist).

3.3 Measuring intelligence: IQ

• First intelligence test: Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon (1905), France. They introduced Mental Age (MA).
• The term IQ was given by William Stern (1912). Terman revised the test as the Stanford-Binet scale (1916).

Worked example: a child is 10 years old (CA) and answers like a 12-year-old (MA). IQ = 12 ÷ 10 × 100 = 120.

Terman's IQ classification:

Types of tests: verbal vs non-verbal (performance) tests; individual vs group tests. Bhatia's Battery of Performance Tests is an Indian test. Non-verbal tests suit illiterate or very young children.

3.4 Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

The ability to understand and manage your own emotions and those of others. Term by Salovey and Mayer (1990); made popular by Daniel Goleman (1995). Five parts: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, social skills.

3.5 Creativity (సృజనాత్మకత)

Creativity is producing something new and useful. It depends on divergent thinking (many answers to one question), not convergent thinking (one correct answer).

• Features (Guilford/Torrance): fluency (many ideas), flexibility (different types of ideas), originality (unusual ideas), elaboration (adding detail).
• Example question: "List all uses of a brick" — a creative child gives many varied, unusual answers.
• Stages (Graham Wallas): Preparation → Incubation → Illumination → Verification.
• Tests: Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking; in India, Baqer Mehdi's test.

3.6 Aptitude, attitude, interest, habit

• Aptitude (సహజ సామర్థ్యం): natural potential to learn a skill in future (e.g. musical aptitude). Tests: DAT (Differential Aptitude Test).
• Attitude (వైఖరి): a learned feeling for or against something (e.g. liking science). Measured with Likert and Thurstone scales.
• Interest (అభిరుచి): what a child likes to do. Strong Interest Inventory.
• Habit (అలవాటు): an action repeated until it becomes automatic. Good habits save effort; teachers form them by repetition and reward.

Chapter 4: Learning

Learning (అభ్యసనం) is a fairly permanent change in behaviour that comes from experience or practice. A change due to tiredness, illness or drugs is not learning.

4.1 Factors affecting learning

• Learner: health, intelligence, motivation, readiness, interest.
• Teacher: knowledge, methods, behaviour, use of TLM.
• Content: difficulty, meaningfulness, length.
• Environment: classroom light and air, seating, home support.

4.2 Behaviourist theories (learning = stimulus → response)

(a) E.L. Thorndike — Trial and Error (connectionism, S-R bond)

Experiment: a hungry cat was locked in a puzzle box with fish outside. It tried many random movements; by chance it pressed a lever and the door opened. Over trials, the useless moves dropped and the time to escape reduced.

Primary laws:

1. Law of Readiness: learning happens when the learner is ready. A child forced to learn before readiness gets frustrated.
2. Law of Exercise: practice strengthens learning (use), lack of practice weakens it (disuse).
3. Law of Effect: a response followed by satisfaction is repeated; one followed by discomfort is dropped. Most important law.

Classroom use: drill and practice, praise after correct answers.

(b) Ivan Pavlov — Classical Conditioning

Experiment: Pavlov (Russian physiologist) gave food to a dog, and it salivated. He rang a bell just before the food each time. After many pairings, the bell alone made the dog salivate.

• Extinction: bell rung many times without food → salivation stops.
• Spontaneous recovery: after a rest, the bell again produces some saliva.
• Generalisation: dog salivates to a similar sound too.
• Discrimination: dog learns to respond only to one specific bell.

Classroom use: children line up when the school bell rings; a child who was punished in maths class may start fearing maths (fear is conditioned; it can be removed by pleasant experiences).

(c) B.F. Skinner — Operant (Instrumental) Conditioning

Experiment: a hungry rat in a "Skinner box" pressed a lever by chance and got food. It soon pressed the lever again and again. The behaviour (operant) is shaped by what follows it.

• Positive reinforcement: add something pleasant (praise, star) → behaviour increases.
• Negative reinforcement: remove something unpleasant (no homework if work finished) → behaviour increases.
• Punishment: behaviour decreases. Note: negative reinforcement is NOT punishment.
• Shaping: rewarding small steps toward the final behaviour.
• Schedules of reinforcement: continuous (every time) and partial — fixed ratio, variable ratio, fixed interval, variable interval.

Classroom use: programmed instruction and teaching machines (Skinner's gift to education); small steps with immediate feedback.

4.3 Cognitive theories (learning = understanding)

(a) Wolfgang Kohler — Insight Learning (Gestalt school)

Experiment: a chimpanzee named Sultan was kept in a cage with a banana hanging out of reach and some sticks or boxes around. After failing, Sultan sat quietly, then suddenly joined two sticks (or piled boxes) and got the banana. This sudden understanding is insight (the "aha!" moment).

• Gestalt means "whole". The learner sees the whole situation and the relations between parts.
• Classroom use: show the whole picture first; give problems that need understanding, not memorising.

(b) Albert Bandura — Social / Observational Learning

Experiment: children watched an adult hitting a Bobo doll (an inflatable doll). When left alone, those children hit the doll in the same way. Children learn by watching models.

• Four processes: Attention → Retention → Reproduction → Motivation.
• Classroom use: the teacher is a role model; show good behaviour, not just tell it.

(c) Jerome Bruner — Discovery Learning

• Children learn best by discovering principles themselves.
• Three modes of representation: Enactive (by doing) → Iconic (by pictures) → Symbolic (by words and symbols).
• Spiral curriculum: the same topic is taught again at higher levels each year.

4.4 Learning curves and plateau

A learning curve is a graph of progress against time or trials.

• Convex curve: fast progress at first, then slow (easy tasks).
• Concave curve: slow at first, then fast (difficult tasks).
• Mixed (S-shaped): combination of both.
• Plateau (పీఠభూమి): a flat part where progress seems to stop. Causes: tiredness, loss of interest, wrong method. Remedy: rest, motivation, change of method.

4.5 Transfer of learning (అభ్యసన బదలాయింపు)

When learning one thing affects learning another.

• Positive transfer: helps — cycling helps in riding a motorbike; Telugu grammar helps Sanskrit.
• Negative transfer: blocks — driving on the left in India makes driving on the right abroad harder.
• Zero transfer: no effect.
• Theories: formal discipline (mind is a muscle), identical elements (Thorndike), generalisation (Judd), transposition (Gestalt).

Chapter 5: Memory, Forgetting and Motivation

What a child learns is useless if it is forgotten, and a child who is not motivated does not learn at all. This chapter covers both.

5.1 Memory (జ్ఞాపకశక్తి)

Memory works in three steps: Encoding (taking information in) → Storage (keeping it) → Retrieval (bringing it out when needed).

Atkinson-Shiffrin model (three stores):

Types of remembering: recall (bring out without help, like fill-in-the-blanks) and recognition (identify from options, like MCQs — easier than recall).

5.2 Forgetting (విస్మృతి)

• Hermann Ebbinghaus studied memory using nonsense syllables (like ZOK, DAX). His forgetting curve shows we forget most of what we learn within the first day; after that, forgetting slows down.
• Causes of forgetting:
  • Decay (disuse): memory fades with no use.
  • Interference: proactive (old learning blocks new) and retroactive (new learning blocks old).
  • Repression (Freud): painful memories pushed out of awareness.
• How to remember better: spaced revision (not cramming), understanding meaning, mnemonics (e.g. VIBGYOR), overlearning, sleep, linking new to old knowledge.

5.3 Motivation (ప్రేరణ)

Motivation is the inner force that starts, directs and keeps up behaviour toward a goal. Without motivation, even an intelligent child does not learn.

• Intrinsic motivation: from inside — the child reads because the story is interesting. Best and long-lasting.
• Extrinsic motivation: from outside — marks, prizes, praise, fear of punishment.
• Need → Drive → Incentive → Goal is the motivation cycle (hunger → restlessness → food → eating).
• Level of aspiration: the goal a child sets for itself. Keep goals neither too high (frustration) nor too low (no effort).

Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

How a teacher motivates: praise effort, give challenging but possible tasks, use games and stories, link lessons to real life, show progress, give choice, avoid harsh punishment.

Chapter 6: Personality and Mental Health

Personality (మూర్తిమత్వం) is the total pattern of a person's thinking, feeling and behaving that makes them unique. The word comes from the Latin "persona", meaning a mask worn by actors.

• G.W. Allport: personality is the dynamic organisation of psychophysical systems that decide a person's unique adjustment to the environment.
• Personality depends on heredity + environment; it is stable but can change slowly.

6.1 Type theories (people grouped into types)

6.2 Trait theories (people described by traits)

• G.W. Allport: cardinal traits (dominant, rare), central traits (5-10 main traits), secondary traits.
• R.B. Cattell: 16 source traits; test = 16 PF questionnaire.
• Big Five (OCEAN): Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism.

6.3 Freud's psychoanalytic theory

The mind is like an iceberg: conscious (tip), preconscious, unconscious (largest, hidden).

• Id: born with it; wants pleasure now (pleasure principle). "I want that sweet."
• Ego: balances wishes with reality (reality principle). "I'll ask for it after lunch."
• Superego: conscience, moral rules from parents and society. "Taking without asking is wrong."

6.4 Measuring personality

• Subjective methods: interview, autobiography, case history.
• Objective methods: questionnaires, rating scales, observation, situational tests.
• Projective techniques (the person "projects" hidden feelings onto unclear pictures):
  • Rorschach Ink-Blot Test — Hermann Rorschach; 10 ink-blot cards.
  • TAT (Thematic Apperception Test) — Murray and Morgan; person tells stories about pictures.
  • CAT (Children's Apperception Test) — Leopold Bellak; pictures of animals, for children aged 3-10.
  • Word Association Test (Jung); Sentence Completion Test.

6.5 Mental health, adjustment and stress

• Mental health: the ability to face problems, adjust to situations and live happily with others. A mentally healthy teacher creates a healthy classroom.
• Adjustment (సర్దుబాటు): the process of balancing one's needs with the demands of the environment.
• Conflict (Kurt Lewin): approach-approach (two good choices), avoidance-avoidance (two bad choices), approach-avoidance (one choice with good and bad sides).
• Frustration: when a goal is blocked. Stress: the body and mind's reaction to pressure — headache, anger, poor sleep, low concentration. Manage with exercise, rest, talking to others, time planning.

6.6 Defence mechanisms (Freud)

Unconscious ways the mind protects itself from anxiety.

6.7 Children with special needs and inclusive education

• Inclusive education: all children, including CWSN, learn together in regular schools with support. Based on RPwD Act 2016 and RTE 2009.
• Learning disabilities: dyslexia (reading), dysgraphia (writing), dyscalculia (maths), dyspraxia (motor coordination).
• ADHD: difficulty in attention, overactivity, impulsiveness.
• Gifted children: IQ above 130-140; need enrichment and extra challenge.
• Slow learners: IQ about 70-89; need repetition, concrete examples and patience.
• Teacher's role: early identification, seating near the board, simple instructions, peer support, remedial teaching, never labelling or mocking.

Telugu terms for this subject

These are the Telugu Academy terms used in Telugu-medium DSC papers.

Practice MCQs (30 questions)

Do these after reading all six chapters. Target 27 or more. Write the reason for every wrong answer in your mistakes notebook.

1. Development from head to toe is called: (a) proximodistal (b) general to specific (c) cephalocaudal (d) continuity
2. "Gang age" refers to: (a) infancy (b) early childhood (c) adolescence (d) later childhood
3. Adolescence as a period of "stress and storm" was described by: (a) Stanley Hall (b) Piaget (c) Freud (d) Erikson
4. Fitting new information into an existing schema is: (a) accommodation (b) assimilation (c) equilibration (d) conservation
5. A child believes the moon is alive and follows him. This belongs to Piaget's: (a) sensorimotor stage (b) concrete operational stage (c) pre-operational stage (d) formal operational stage
6. Object permanence develops in the: (a) sensorimotor stage (b) pre-operational stage (c) concrete operational stage (d) formal operational stage
7. Help given by a teacher and slowly withdrawn is called: (a) ZPD (b) MKO (c) private speech (d) scaffolding
8. "Good boy - good girl" orientation belongs to Kohlberg's: (a) pre-conventional level (b) conventional level (c) post-conventional level (d) none
9. Erikson's stage for ages 6-12 is: (a) Trust vs Mistrust (b) Identity vs Role confusion (c) Industry vs Inferiority (d) Initiative vs Guilt
10. Language Acquisition Device was proposed by: (a) Chomsky (b) Skinner (c) Vygotsky (d) Piaget
11. The term IQ was coined by: (a) Binet (b) Terman (c) William Stern (d) Wechsler
12. Mental Age 8, Chronological Age 10. IQ = (a) 125 (b) 80 (c) 90 (d) 100
13. An IQ of 95 falls in the category: (a) dull (b) superior (c) borderline (d) average
14. "g" and "s" factors of intelligence were given by: (a) Spearman (b) Thorndike (c) Thurstone (d) Gardner
15. Thurstone's Primary Mental Abilities are: (a) 5 (b) 7 (c) 8 (d) 180
16. Structure of Intellect model was given by: (a) Gardner (b) Sternberg (c) Guilford (d) Cattell
17. Creativity mainly depends on: (a) convergent thinking (b) memory (c) recall (d) divergent thinking
18. In Pavlov's experiment, after conditioning, the bell is the: (a) unconditioned stimulus (b) conditioned stimulus (c) unconditioned response (d) conditioned response
19. If the bell is rung repeatedly without food, salivation stops. This is: (a) extinction (b) generalisation (c) discrimination (d) spontaneous recovery
20. Programmed instruction is based on the theory of: (a) Thorndike (b) Pavlov (c) Skinner (d) Bruner
21. Removing something unpleasant to increase a behaviour is: (a) punishment (b) positive reinforcement (c) extinction (d) negative reinforcement
22. Insight learning belongs to which school? (a) Behaviourist (b) Gestalt (c) Psychoanalytic (d) Humanistic
23. The first step in Bandura's observational learning is: (a) attention (b) retention (c) reproduction (d) motivation
24. Enactive, iconic and symbolic modes were given by: (a) Piaget (b) Vygotsky (c) Bruner (d) Kohler
25. A flat period with no visible progress in a learning curve is: (a) plateau (b) extinction (c) transfer (d) insight
26. When old learning interferes with recalling new learning, it is: (a) retroactive interference (b) proactive interference (c) decay (d) repression
27. The capacity of short-term memory is: (a) 5 ± 2 (b) 9 ± 2 (c) 7 ± 2 (d) unlimited
28. The lowest level in Maslow's hierarchy is: (a) safety (b) esteem (c) love and belonging (d) physiological
29. A student who failed says, "The teacher gave out-of-syllabus questions." This is: (a) projection (b) rationalisation (c) sublimation (d) regression
30. Children's Apperception Test (CAT) was developed by: (a) Murray (b) Rorschach (c) Bellak (d) Jung