This is just a start. You'll still want to buy, borrow, or check out an old Educational Psychology Book to get more of the Study Material you'll need for the CLEP exam!

Make sure to read the end of this hub for a breakdown of what the subject matter of the Educational Psychology CLEP exam has! You'll also find links to several instructional videos on information contained in an Introduction to Educational Psychology course.

Learning - a permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of an experience or practice
(Growth and development are not learning, for example, increases in height or weight are not as a result of learning) Most types of learning have a stimulus and a response.

Types of Learning :

Classical Conditioning (Pavlov)
(food) produces UnConditioned Response [UCR] (salivation)
(bell) produces Conditioned Response [CR] (salivation)

Another example of Classical Conditioning would be a child who starts crying when he sees a nurse because he associates her with the pain of a shot.

Classical Conditioning -
Acquisition - the conditioned stimulus should be presented with the unconditioned stimulus a number of times, and the time between the presentation of the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus should be short.
Stimulus Substitution - with conditioning, a link is formed and (in Pavlov's experiment) the bell becomes equal to food in its ability to generate a response... salivation.
Stimulus Generalization - In the example of the child receiving a shot from the nurse, Stimulus Generalization would occur if the child cried when he saw ANY nurse, not just the nurse who administers the shot.
Stimulus Discrimination - In the example of the child receiving a shot from the nurse, Stimulus Discrimination would occur if the child only cried when he saw the nurse who consistently administered the shot.
Extinction - Over time, if the Conditioned Stimulus (bell) is not presented with the Unconditioned Stimulus (food) for a long period of time... the Conditioned Response (Salivation) will diminish or stop when only the Conditioned Stimulus (bell) is presented.
Spontaneous Recovery - When you begin to put the Conditioned Stimulus with the Unconditioned Stimulus again, the Conditioned Response tends to begin to occur again without as much effort.

Operant Conditioning
Behavior + Positive Reinforcement -> Recurrence of Behavior
Behavior + Punishment or No Reward-> Behavior Disappears

*The likelihood of an event occurring again depends on the strength of the event following it.

Know the definitions of:

• Punishment
• Negative Reinforcement
• Reward
• Positive Reinforcement

Classical Conditioning -
• Stimulus Oriented
• Unconditioned stimulus produces the unconditioned response... this is a natural part of the organisms behavior.
• Time interval between the Conditioned Stimulus and the Unconditioned Stimulus is short, and usually fixed.
• The unconditioned stimulus occurs without regard to the subject behavior.
• Association between stimulus response is on the basis of the Law of Contiguity
• There is a pairing of the Unconditioned Stimulus and the Conditioned Stimulus
• Reinforcement comes first (food), and is presented to elicit the response (bell)

Operant Conditioning -
• Response Oriented
• Organisms whole behavior determines whether the Unconditioned Stimulus will be presented or not.
• Time interval depends on the organisms own behavior
• The reward is contingent upon the occurrence of response
• Association between stimulus responses is on the basis of Law of Effect
• No pairing of the Unconditioned Stimulus and the Conditioned Stimulus
• Reinforcement is provided after the response is made by the organism

Breakdown of The Subject Matter included in CLEP Exam:

5% Educational Aims or Philosophies

• Lifelong Learning
• Moral/Character development
• Preparation for responsible citizenship
• Socialization

15% Cognitive Perspective

• Attention and perception
• Chunking/encoding
• Memory capacity
• Mental Imagery
• Organization of long-term memory
• Problem Solving
• Transfer

11% Behavioristic Perspective

• Applications of behaviorism
• Behavioral modification programs
• Classical Conditioning
• Cognitive learning theory
• Law of Effect
• Operant Conditioning
• Schedules of reinforcement
• Token economies

15% Development

• Adolescence
• Cognitive
• Gender identity/sex roles
• Language acquisition
• Mental health
• Moral
• School readiness
• Social

10% Motivation

• Achievement motivation
• Anxiety/stress
• Locus of control/attribution theory
• Learned helplessness
• Intrinsic motivation
• Reinforcement contingencies
• Theories of motivation

17% Individual Differences

• Aptitude/achievement
• Creativity
• Cultural influences
• Exceptionalities in learning (e.g. giftedness, physical handicaps, and behavior disorders)
• Intelligence
• Nature vs. nurture
• Reading ability

12% Testing

• Assessment of instructional objectives
• Bias in testing
• Classroom assessment (e.g. grading procedures and formative evaluation)
• Descriptive statistics
• Norm- and criterion-referenced tests
• Scaled scores/standard deviation
• Test construction (e.g., classroom tests)
• Test reliability
• Test validity
• Use and misuse of assessment techniques

10% Pedagogy

• Advance organizers
• Bilingual/ESL instruction
• Clarity/organization
• Classroom management
• Cooperative learning
• Discovery and reception learning
• Instructional design and technique
• Psychology of content areas
• Teacher expectations/Pygmalion effect/Wait time

5% Research Design Analysis

• Experiments
• Longitudinal research
• Qualitative research/case studies
• Research analysis and statistics
• Surveys

More Video Resources:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZnPf_POJvQ (Intro)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcUo0IIeseM (Intro)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YybEqTjkk_Y&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPYxfj6eanU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yTxm1KEGeE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQRYcXA_vhk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GR1KfTJ-I4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc7CsMLBfVw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1NB5u1MBCc