Educational Psychology: Learning and Performance

How do people learn? What should we learn in schools? How to train teachers the best way possible?

After finishing my bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Leiden University I decided to follow the master Educational Psychology: Learning and Performance. I wanted to facilitate personal growth, but not in a clinical way. This master programme offered me a chance to learn how to optimise performance by creating better educational programs and learning methods.

In my opinion the master Educational Psychology: Learning and Performance is a well-organised master's degree, which will prepare you for the future work of a school psychologist. I mostly like the division into three main subjects (innovation, assessment and cultural diversity). For this reason, it is possible to discover which field you are most interested in. Within each subject, students are also free to choose between different topics. In this way you can compose your own learning process. I also like the fact that the coordinators and teachers are really involved with their students. They create informal settings in which you can ask all the questions you're curious about. They stimulate you to work out your own idea's or discover something new and support you in this process whenever you need help.

This master programme is really valuable after finishing a bachelor’s degree in psychology because whereas psychology is mostly focusing on individual processes, the master focusses on the bigger picture. It looks at methods to facilitate learning processes, educational phenomena and theories about specific problems or how to optimize performance. The combination with earlier knowledge about individuals creates new insights in how to facilitate human learning. In sum, I really like this master and would definitely recommend it to anyone who is interested in people, personal growth and future education.

After completing my bachelor’s in psychology at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, I decided to continue at this university with one of their many master programmes. During the Bachelor of Psychology one can specialise in a certain field within the last year. As I chose educational psychology it was the natural next step to do the Master oEducational Psychology: Learning and Performance. This Master provides several interesting courses about education and human learning and they are all conveniently compacted into just one year. We look into topics such as the role of diversity and culture in education as well as innovations and assessment. During the second half of the master you have a choice to do an internship and write your thesis through this, or to do your own research master thesis at the university.

If you have studied psychology with an interest in learning, educational sciences or pedagogy this is a great master to further your knowledge and skills! There are a lot of career and research opportunities arising in the field of education and so the prospects are plenty. This is also quite a small master programme, so the classes and even lectures allow for more intimate teaching and inquiries. During a usual week you will have two classes and one lecture and lots of time for self-study in between. There is also a practical side to the courses where you investigate the more hands-on topics in education. Thus, the choice to do this master was a great one. I managed to gain insight into the new topics within the educational field and into the current research.