Teaching of Psychology

A robust literature has explored multiple facets of the introductory psychology course, but few studies have examined its purposes, student learning outcomes (SLOs), and assessment practices. The second iteration of the Undergraduate Study in Psychology gathered data on these facets in a nationally representative sample of associate (n = 62) and baccalaureate psychology programs (n = 161). Most department chairs indicated that their intro course served as both an introduction to the major and a general education function. Approximately one third of programs incorporated the American Psychological Association Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major 2.0 in their entirety or with minor changes to develop their SLOs for the introductory course. Written assignments and professor-developed quizzes/exams were the most frequently used assessment methods. Discussion centers on how these results may be used by teachers of introductory psychology.

We developed an assignment that required introductory psychology students to read and evaluate the quality of several sources of information about the causal link between vaccines and autism. To evaluate the effects of this assignment, students in several different introductory courses completed a pretest and posttest in which they evaluated the quality of information from a website promoting a pseudoscientific therapy. Students who completed the assignment decreased their ratings of the quality of the information from the website (from pretest to posttest), were better able to identify specific problems with the information, and were less likely to recommend the therapy to a friend. Students who did not complete the assignment exhibited no changes in the dependent measures.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has called for psychologists to become more involved in addressing climate change. One way to address this pressing issue is through curriculum. To this end, we describe an undergraduate course that we created and teach exclusively focused on the interface of psychology and global climate change. The course is a seminar structured around three broad themes: science and impacts, adaptation, and solutions. To support others developing curriculum in this area, we explain these themes and share the course organization and structure, along with our experiences in teaching it. We provide relevant examples of activities and resources in the context of the goals and outcomes of APA’s “Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major.” We discuss considerations of competence and interdisciplinarity in teaching on this issue. Finally, given the magnitude and significance of climate change, we consider experiential aspects of students in the course related to stress.

Test-enhanced learning is a technique instructors can use to increase recall on summative assessments (e.g., exams) via formative assessments (e.g., quizzes). The present research examined recommendations based on the transfer-appropriate processing and level-of-processing (LOP) perspectives to assess the question, does deeper processing on quizzes (i.e., using application questions compared to factual) benefit exam performance? Students were more likely to correctly answer application questions on the exam when quizzes required a deeper LOP, and students appeared to gain a relatively equivalent definitional understanding using either factual or application questions on quizzes. Consequently, the present research supports the use of quiz questions that require a deeper LOP, especially when students are expected to learn beyond rote memorization.

In traditional research areas within psychology, effective researchers stay up-to-date with the latest advances and new methodologies within a specialty area. Failure to do so limits one’s effectiveness and potential impact on advancing that field of study. In our view, teachers of psychology possess the same responsibilities to stay current and incur the same risks if they fail to do so. Psychology educators should not only employ scientifically validated principles of learning and evidence-based pedagogies but should use the methods of psychological science to test the effectiveness of their teaching practices empirically. We articulate and document these complex issues in this manifesto and urge more psychology educators to become leaders in innovative and effective teaching by leveraging our disciplinary understanding of the fundamentals of teaching and learning. We provide pragmatic steps and resources to aid more faculty, especially early career instructors, in becoming scientist-educators.

The effects of offering and seizing optional learning opportunities rarely have been investigated. Thus, university instructors have no basis on which to decide whether offering optional learning opportunities to their students would be worth the effort and which students would seize and benefit from them. To target these questions, we designed a teaching−learning format in which we offered psychology undergraduates optional learning opportunities throughout the semester. We investigated the cognitive and motivational prerequisites of N=108 students who seized versus forwent the learning opportunities and compared their learning outcomes both with and without controlling for prerequisites. Concerning prerequisites, we found that students who seized the learning opportunities had a better school grade point average, whereas they did not differ from the students who did not seize the learning opportunities regarding their prior knowledge or their motivational prerequisites and outcomes. Students who seized learning opportunities had better performance outcomes, even after initial prerequisites or time spent learning were controlled for. We conclude that there is a benefit of seizing optional learning opportunities for students, and therefore, instructors should enable their students to take this chance.

A project was developed to introduce the core principles of repeated-measures designs. Using the levels of processing approach to memory, students are prompted to engage in either shallow, moderate, or deep processing of 54 common nouns. An unexpected recall task then measures the number of words remembered in each condition. Data from 293 students from two universities across 16 years indicate that the exercise reliably produces significant differences across conditions. This exercise employs several methodological techniques that are used as a basis for class discussion such as counterbalancing, randomized-blocks designs, reduction of carryover and specific-item effects, and elimination of experimenter expectancy effects. In short, most of the design considerations that would be required of a repeated measures approach are represented, and students can identify their purposes and effects from having participated in the demonstration.

Personal statements are an important component of applications for counselor education and psychology doctoral programs. However, a paucity of empirical information exists about what types of content are viewed favorably and how this content influences admissions decisions. In the current study, 97 faculty members from clinical psychology, counseling psychology, and counselor education doctoral programs completed an online survey about how favorably they viewed content included in personal statements. Respondents viewed personal statements as the most important component of an application, and there were no significant differences in favorability ratings of content or stylistic issues across program types. Recommendations for those mentoring students applying to graduate school and faculty reviewing applications were provided.

Interteaching (IT) has demonstrated more effective and durable learning than traditional lecture-style teaching. Whereas IT’s effectiveness has been established in traditional face-to-face courses, there is a need to extend the evaluation of IT to increasingly common course delivery modalities such as online courses. The purpose of the present study was to compare IT and traditional online course delivery across two sections of the same graduate-level course. IT was adapted by having students form pairs to video chat synchronously about comprehension questions, submit a teaching record, and then listen to the instructor’s recorded follow-up lecture to address the questions from the paired discussion. Results showed that students in the IT section performed better on average on quizzes and most assignments.

Interviews for faculty positions in psychology often include a teaching demonstration or research talk, but there is little empirical data about what makes these job talks successful. Psychology faculty (N = 303) described the job talks required at 4-year institutions and the attributes of a successful job talk. For both teaching demonstrations and research talks, being accurate and knowledgeable was of highest importance, but being practiced, open, and engaging were also important. However, significant differences between institutions showed that baccalaureate institutions emphasize teaching skills during job talks and doctoral institutions emphasize research skills. The results confirm that a polished job talk is crucial, but they also illustrate that successful job talks must fit the teaching and research mission of the institution.

Writing a textbook is close to a unique experience in the work of a psychologist. In this article, we discuss the steps authors need to take in preparing to write a textbook. We take the reader through a series of steps, from formulating an idea for a textbook to negotiating a contract. Writing a textbook can be one of the greatest joys of a career, but it is more joyful if one prepares for each step of this long process. This article seeks to help potential authors with this preparation.

Although most psychology courses do not include the topic of eating, we believe it can be rewarding to teach because much of the conventional wisdom about eating is wrong. Teachers can use scientific evidence to clarify incorrect, but long-held, beliefs that many students have about eating, including the extent to which weight is under individual control, whether diets are effective in the long term, whether obesity is deadly, and whether comfort food is comforting. Teaching about psychological theories of self-regulation works well in the context of eating because eating is the prototypical self-control task and because most students are aware of the difficulty of controlling eating. In this article, we discuss misconceptions surrounding the psychology of eating and theories of self-control, and we provide easy classroom activities that make the topic of eating fun to teach.