The role of educational psychology in teacher education: expert opinions on what teachers should know about learning, development, and assessment

The aim of this study is to identify psychological topics within the areas of learning, development, and assessment that are especially important for teachers and should be included in the university teacher education curriculum. Based on the observation that teacher educators in psychology often face the challenge of having to select certain topics from a large body of possible content, at the risk of causing large variation of knowledge between teachers, we asked 48 experts from different fields of teacher education (psychologists, non-psychologists at university, and educators from the induction phase) to evaluate psychological topics with respect to their importance to teaching. In the following two rounds (Delphi method), experts selected topics which they felt should be taught at university. Although differences existed at the beginning, a ranking of topics was obtained. Further, we explored the way experts with different backgrounds achieved consensus to support the validity and acceptance of the results. Concluding, we discuss the usefulness of the results with a focus on the acquisition of psychological knowledge for teachers and to foster the position of educational psychology within teacher education.