Book excerpt: "The purpose of this handbook is to bring together leading scholars in the science of educational psychology to present state-of-the-art evidence with the hope that this evidence can and will be used to improve educational practice. The chapters in Volume 3 of the handbook focus on the application of educational psychology to learning and teaching. These chapters address five basic concerns: the application of educational psychology across the life span, assessment and instructional decision making, teaching core skills and content, general methods of instruction, and teaching special populations. The most prominent emphasis across these 23 chapters is the identification of effective educational practices. The chapters in Volume 3 also emphasize the theoretical orientations underlying each period of development, core skill or content area, and instructional method. Although many of the theories that are examined in Volume 1 reappear in the chapters in Volume 3, they are now contextualized in a specific field of study, providing a nuanced look at how the theories operate in specific domains"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).