General Psychological Basis for the Formation of Education at a Technical University

The paper discusses the main directions of modern education at the technical universities of Russia in the context of a general psychological basis. As a rule, starting from the second half of the 18 century the educational process is becoming the object of theoretical, not only pedagogical, but also psychological thought. Naturally, this process was interpreted before the second stage of the development of pedagogical psychology in the context of dominant psychological theories, the positions of which were related to the learning process. The process of learning has been interpreted within the categories and concepts of these theories. Until the end of the last century, the associative theory has been dominating, and at the beginning of the 20 century two theories – behaviorism and Gestalt psychology – formulated the basic provisions of learning. Only at the third stage of development of pedagogical psychology, in the second half of the 20 century there were independent theories or, more precisely, learning directions. The review considers general psychological provisions of associative theory, behaviorism and Gestalt psychology of education (learning) and developments, which had a considerable impact on the general theory of education.