By early 1930, and 1950's educational psychologists developed and formulated theories based on early pioneers and their work. The theories include learning, motivation, development, teaching and instruction. Learning theories emerged from classical conditioning theoretical paradigm, which describe how stimuli occur originated by Ivan Pavlov. In a similar manner, B.F. Skinner describes how reward shape and maintains behavior. On the other hand, Canadian American psychologists Albert Bandura describes the condition of learning by means of vicariously imitating models, and the information processing theory which attempted to explain how people solve problems by metaphor principles.

Attribution theory describes motivations role in a person success or failure in school situations. The developmental theory of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget attempts to identify factors that influence intellectual ability from a qualitative approach at different ages by interacting with the environment to gain intellectual competence. American educator Robert Gagnè developed a hierarchical theory that identifies some types of learning are prerequisites to other kind of learning. This type of educational ideology by Gagnè has been part of a determining standing sequences of instruction. (Berlinger, 1996, Walberg and Haertel, 1992, Hilgard, 1996). These theories described above are just a few of the handful paradigms developed over the years by psychologists and educational professionals that have influenced the growth and educational perspectives of educational psychology in the United States but Japan, China, and Russia as well, (Hideo, 1992).

Cognition and Behaviorism Influences

Under the impetus of cognitive psychology instructional psychology began to come into its own. The idea was that internal mental processes can be used to explain instruction. Thus, the coming of age of instructional psychology primarily concerned with human learning and development and how their development can be enhanced through instruction. According to ( Walberg and Haertel, 1992), one way of putting it was that psychology was no longer applied to education but was a fundamental research on processes of instruction and learning. Finally, cognition and education were looking at both participants of the learning experience the teacher, and the student and how each component viewed each other information processing. The problem which still prevails today is looking at the intellectual components that reflected the study of reading, mathematics, science, and problem solving. These new approaches yield new methods but the problem came when psychologists and educators attempted to put into a practical format for the teachers (Walberg and Haertel, 1992, Hilgard, 1996).

Behaviorism became part of American psychology by means of European influences just as immigrants introduced other theories in America. For example, associationism and British empirical literature taught we the activities of organisms are random and that certain activities result in pleasure effects and remain in the organisms repertoire ( Walberg and Haertel, 1992, Hilgard, 1996). On the other hand, Russian psychology Ivan Pavlov confirmed that they could condition selected reflexes and that they provided models for understanding covert processes in animals and their overt behaviors.

James Watson moved American psychology away from the study of consciousness (Walberg and Haertel, 1992, Hilgard, 1996). Watson was considered the foremost advocate of behaviorism in the United States. He rejected the mental concept of thought as an explanation for behavior and used instead stimulus-response paradigms to explain behavior. Watson believes that all psychological phenomena are the result of observable events in which all cognitive processes have a behavior counterpart( Walberg and Haertel, 1992, Hilgard, 1996, Ormrod, 1995). This new idea of Watson became very popular among American psychologists especially learning theorists and became known as neobehaviorism. Learning theorists became to promote the new ideas one American who developed was B. F Skinner who strongly influenced educational psychology. His theory was based on operant conditioning and the experimental research of behavior using animals. According to (Walberg and Haertel, 1992 Ormrod, 1995), Skinner established the relationship between behavior and environmental stimuli. Rather, than using hypothetical constructs. Skinner collected data on single cases and used explicit behaviors that were discrete and observable dependent variables.

In sum the contributions of cognition and behaviorism led to development of new ideas and techniques in the 1960s and beyond