The Influence of Class Attendance on Test Grades in a General Psychology Course

The purpose of this project was to increase student achievement, engagement, and satisfaction using animated instructional videos in an online general psychology course at a community college. This project not only considered the data collected from student activity tracking, but also examined students' perception of how the videos engaged and helped them remember course material. Collection of data was conducted using a pre-intervention and post-intervention survey, a pre-test, a post-test (mid-term exam), and an online behavior evaluation rubric. A statistically significant increase in scores from pre-test to post-test occurred. Students reported that they preferred the animated instructional videos over the textbook and believed videos helped them remember the material. Overall, the project showed that students enjoyed the videos and many recommended that additional ones be created for the rest of the course. Although time-consuming, instructional videos were worth the effort to keep students engaged and learn course material.

A Comparison of Active Student Responding Modalities in a General Psychology Course

10.1177/0098628315620879 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 43-47 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Ryan M. Zayac ◽

Thom Ratkos ◽

Jessica E. Frieder ◽

Amber Paulk

Keyword(s):

General Psychology ◽

Active Student Responding ◽

Thinking Like a Psychologist Introductory Psychology Writing Assignments

10.1177/0098628317727909 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 44 (4) ◽

pp. 335-341

Author(s):

Diane Keyser Wentworth ◽

Lona Whitmarsh

Keyword(s):

Critical Thinking ◽

Psychology Students ◽

Thinking Skills ◽

Critical Thinking Skills ◽

General Psychology ◽

Mental Processes ◽

Writing Assignments ◽

Two Samples ◽

Student Reactions ◽

Teaching the general psychology course provides instructors with the opportunity to invite students to explore the dynamics of behavior and mental processes through the lens of theory and research. Three innovative writing assignments were developed to teach students to think like a psychologist, operationalized as enhancing critical thinking, applying research concepts, and resisting plagiarism. The assignments were evaluated with two samples of general psychology students. In Sample 1, student reactions to the assignments were uniformly positive. In Sample 2, students were assessed directly on their critical thinking skills using a set of three scenarios. An increase in students’ ability to think critically was found. Therefore, these assignments were successful in helping develop our students’ ability to think like a psychologist.

Objectives of the general psychology course.

American Psychologist ◽

10.1037/h0057736 ◽

1954 ◽

Vol 9 (4) ◽

pp. 140-142 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

W. J. McKeachie ◽

R. L. Devalois ◽

D. E., Jr. Dulany ◽

D. C. Beardslee ◽

Marian Winterbottom

Keyword(s):

General Psychology ◽

Can Playing Games Help Students Master Concepts from General Psychology Classes?

International Journal of Game-Based Learning ◽

10.4018/ijgbl.2019040104 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 55-72 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dianne Zielinski

Keyword(s):

Mental Disorders ◽

Human Development ◽

Psychological Disorders ◽

Learning Motivation ◽

General Psychology ◽

Game Play ◽

Final Project ◽

Poor Students ◽

Psychology Course ◽

The Brain

As part of a final project for a general psychology course, students were required to play a game, either digital/video or on a board. Students selected their own games, and were asked to identify psychological principles in their game play. Topics included the brain, sensation and perception, human development, learning, motivation, intelligence, personality, and mental disorders. Students successfully applied all topics to game play, but to varying degrees. Student discussions on the brain and intelligence were well covered. Discussions on personality and psychological disorders issues were relatively poor. Students were able to make connections between concepts and their game-play experiences.

Roger Wolcott Sperry. 20 August 1913—17 April 1994

Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society ◽

10.1098/rsbm.1997.0025 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 43 ◽

pp. 463-470 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

T. J. Voneida

Keyword(s):

Neural Activity ◽

Brain Activity ◽

General Psychology ◽

Movement Coordination ◽

Action Current ◽

Oberlin College ◽

‘Where does behaviour come from? What is the purpose of consciousness?’ Questions such as these, which appeared on the first page of Sperry's class notes in a freshman psychology course at Oberlin College, represent an accurate preview of a career that included major contributions to fundamental issues in neurobiology, psychology and philosophy. Indeed, his first paper, published in the Journal of General Psychology in 1939, entitled ‘Action current study in movement coordination’ (1)*, begins: ‘The objective psychologist, hoping to get at the physiological side of behavior, is apt to plunge immediately into neurology trying to correlate brain activity with modes of experience’, and continues, setting the stage for much that was to follow: ‘The result in many cases only accentuates the gap between the total experience as studied by the psychologist and neural activity as analyzed by the neurologist.’

The Perils and Promises of Teaching Integration in Introductory Psychology

Journal of Psychology and Theology ◽

10.1177/009164719502300410 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 23 (4) ◽

pp. 296-302

Author(s):

Christopher R. Grace ◽

Kathryn Ecklund

Keyword(s):

General Education ◽

Introductory Psychology ◽

Christian College ◽

General Psychology ◽

Different Types ◽

Psychology Courses ◽

Introductory Class ◽

Psychology Course ◽

College Or University

Teaching effectively at a Christian college or university demands excellent skills and particularly so in introductory psychology courses. With an expansive area and a large portion of students taking the class to fulfill a general education requirement, general psychology professors are challenged uniquely. Adding integration issues can overwhelm even the most diligent instructor. Yet, few pedagogical and theoretical resources on the effectiveness of different types of integrative components are available. The purposes of this article are to explore the perils and promises associated with teaching an introductory psychology course and to provide some resources and illustrations that have been found to be effective. The article also serves as an introduction to an integration curriculum incorporated into several general psychology courses at two different universities. An introduction to the curriculum reader is provided in this text, as well as an overview of other materials and topics that lend themselves to integrative discussions. Finally, the efficacy of a laboratory type experience for instilling an integrative component to an introductory class is discussed.

On Changing the Framework of Psychology: Comparative Psychology is What General Psychology Should Be

10.1207/s15328023top1403_4 ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 147-151 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Jack Demarest

Keyword(s):

Comparative Psychology ◽

General Psychology ◽

Left Behind ◽

American Psychology ◽

When behaviorism became the dominant force in American psychology, many of the concerns of functionalism, including evolution, adaptation, and ontogenesis, were left behind. Contemporary psychology textbooks and curricula continue to perpetuate this behaviorist framework despite its atheoretical, nonbiological orientation. Even as these concepts begin to work their way back into textbooks and classrooms, they are treated unsystematically as appendages to the traditional behaviorist framework. Comparative psychology, the last bastion of the functionalist viewpoint, can solve this problem, but misconceptions about the field abound. Some of these misconceptions are discussed in this article, and I demonstrate how a comparative psychology course can provide the framework for reorganizing the focus of general psychology and integrating it into a neofunctionalist perspective.

Varying Color Intensity to Represent Time Decay in Visual Icons

Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting ◽

10.1177/154193120204601713 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 46 (17) ◽

pp. 1589-1593

Author(s):

Patrick K. McGinty ◽

Shannon R. Worthan ◽

Michael D. Matthews

Keyword(s):

Control Systems ◽

Command And Control ◽

Sensitive Information ◽

General Psychology ◽

Color Intensity ◽

Military Academy ◽

Elapsed Time ◽

Significant Difference ◽

Psychology Course ◽

And Control

The U.S. Army is developing a number of digital command and control systems that convey complicated information through the use of visual icons. The purpose of the current research was to test a method to identify time lapses in the display of such information. Eighteen U.S. Military Academy cadets enrolled in a general psychology course volunteered to participant in the experiment. Using a between groups design, the participants were assigned to one of three groups. Each group was tested with three, four, or five color intensities of icons and the time and accuracy of responses were recorded. The results indicated that the number of color intensities used to code elapsed time in a visual icon affected identification time, with five color intensities resulting in significantly longer detection times than when three color intensities were used. There was no significant difference among the three groups is accuracy of responses. Implications for the display of time-sensitive information on command and control systems are discussed.

Explicit Writing Instruction in Synthesis: Combining In-Class Discussion and an Online Tutorial

10.1177/0098628320979899 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 009862832097989

Author(s):

Emily S. Darowski ◽

Elizabeth Helder ◽

Nikole D. Patson

Keyword(s):

Class Discussion ◽

General Psychology ◽

Approaches To Teaching ◽

Single Class ◽

Guided Practice ◽

Online Tutorial ◽

Literature Reviews ◽

Class Period ◽

Class Instruction ◽

Identifying effective and time-efficient approaches to teaching students how to write from scholarly sources benefits students and instructors. Students in a general psychology course learned a concrete method to improve this type of synthesis writing. The intervention was brief, consisting of viewing an online tutorial outside of class and spending a single class period on instructor-guided practice with writing samples. Students used this method to write literature reviews for a poster assignment debunking psychological myths. Compared to a previous semester that did not learn this concrete technique, students’ writing scored significantly higher on most measures of synthesis. This suggests that a short tutorial teaching a concrete application, paired with limited in-class instruction, can help improve this important aspect of writing.