After the biography of the Austrian teacher and psychologist Elsa Köhler (1879–1940), her pioneer scientific work in the foundation of empirical educational research is described. As a teacher, she was early engaged theoretically and practically in the integration of students’ developmental status into teaching methods (i.e., aptitude treatment interaction and differential teaching methods). Starting from 1922, she was member of the influential research group of Karl and Charlotte Bühler at the Department of Psychology of the University of Vienna working on developmental and language psychology. Within this team, she implemented innovative quantitative and qualitative empirical methods for systematic observation and recording of development in childhood and adolescence in longitudinal case studies. Even more, Elsa Köhler was the first who transferred these methods to research in the educational (classroom) situation and to longitudinal research on the development of whole classroom groups. She was the one who introduced empirical research methods to alternative teaching and education approaches in the 1920s and 1930s. In addition, she used her developmental analyses implemented in the educational situation for developmental interventions to optimize the self-regulation and personality development of primary and secondary school students. Elsa Köhler integrated basic psychological and educational research with applied research in the domains of the developmental psychology of childhood and adolescence as well as of educational psychology and pedagogy, which today are named as educational research. Reception of her scientific work is of historiographical significance and gives impulses for modern interdisciplinary educational research as well.

Keywords
History of educational research; Educational psychology; Teaching methods; Developmental psychology; Research methods