What Psychology Students Want From Service-Learning

Background: Limited research has examined how service-learning (SL) outcomes align with learning goals proposed for the undergraduate psychology major by the APA Board of Educational Affairs Task Force on Psychology Major Competences. Objective: To obtain student perspectives of SL, and to evaluate learning and inform curriculum development of SL specific to psychology learning goals. Method: Undergraduate psychology students ( N = 400) participated in a concurrent mixed-methods survey examining empathy, civic engagement, and professional identity between students who had and had not taken an upper-division SL course. Results: SL students reported increased engagement with APA learning goals of Ethical and Social Responsibility and Professional Development compared to students who did not take SL. SL students scored higher on civic engagement behaviors and professional identity. Students reported wanting more exposure to a range of psychology subdisciplines, various service opportunities, and multicultural diversity to support professional development. Conclusion: SL is a high-impact teaching practice that aligns with psychology learning goals. Teaching Implications: Findings informed the development of a generalist psychology SL course that introduced students to different domains of psychology. We discuss how to integrate learning activities to increase multicultural and other awareness, motivate social justice action, enhance career clarification, and increase professional self-efficacy.

A pedagógia és a pszichológia együttélési formái a Debreceni Egyetemen

Összefoglaló. Az egyetem alapítását követően 1918-ig nem volt önálló pedagógiai katedra, lélektani tanszék pedig csak 1970-től működik. A diszciplínák viszonyát a szakma, a politika és a vidéki egyetem lehetőségei formálták. A változások szakaszra osztva értelmezhetők: a filozófiába és pedagógiába foglaltságtól (Tankó, Mitrovics, Karácsony), a pszichológia fokozatos leválásán át (Kelemen) a térnyerésig (Hunyady, Mészáros, Kovács). Helyi sajátosság: a lélektan a pedagógiai pszichológia révén emancipálódott. Erre épülhetett a pszichológia szak indítása, az intézet kiteljesedése. A változásokat kívánjuk nyomon követni, bemutatni a pedagógia és a pszichológia szervezeti egységeit, fő képviselőit és a viszony jellemzőit az ezredfordulóig. A tanulmány helyi forrásokra és szakirodalmi munkákra támaszkodik. Summary. After the foundation of the University, there had been no independent professorship in Pedagogy until 1918 and the Department of Psychology started functioning only from 1970. The relationship of these disciplines was formed by the profession, politics, and the opportunities of the rural university. Changes can be interpreted by dividing them into periods: from their inclusion in philosophy and Pedagogy (Tankó, Mitrovics, Karácsony), through the gradual detachment of psychology (Kelemen) until their headway (Hunyady, Mészáros, Kovács). A local specialty: Psychology was emancipated by pedagogical psychology. In other words, the launching of the psychology major and the establishment of the department were based on pedagogical psychology. We trace the changes by presenting the organizational units of pedagogy and psychology, also their main representatives, and the features of their relationship up until the turn of the Millennium. The study is based on local resources and works of special literature.

Measuring What Students Know: SNAP’s Guidelines and Suggestions for Assessing Goal 1 Content in Psychology

Although many psychology departments and instructors are aware of the American Psychological Association Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major Version 2.0, they are often less aware of the means by which to assess student mastery of the recommended goals. Our purpose is to discuss general principles for assessment, offer a psychology learner taxonomy that aligns with Goal 1 of the Guidelines 2.0, and present a rubric for reviewing assessments. Goal 1 of the Guidelines 2.0 is based on content knowledge in psychology. Whereas most assessments allow for the measure of the mastery of content to different extents, the results of those assessments can be invalid due to the design or inappropriate use of the rubric. The working group at the Summit on National Assessment of Psychology addressed these issues and curated evidence-informed assessment exemplars designed to measure content knowledge in psychology.

Assessing Goal 4 Communication Skills for Psychology Across Audience, Purpose, and Context

The challenge of teaching communication skills outlined in Goal 4 of the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major is that it occurs in many contexts and the communicator must adapt the form to match both context and purpose. We created a taxonomy of dimensions and kinds of communication that represents the various contexts in communication assignments in psychology classes. We propose a curricular-level solution to assessing the development of communication skill, including multiple assessment opportunities in both course and curriculum with progressively higher standards. We discuss how different forms of rubrics can be used to assess communication and created a “common” rubric that can be adapted and used to assess communication across many different contexts. Finally, since social media have increased the frequency of exposure to often engaging, but misleading or inaccurate communication, we discuss the value of being able to judge the validity of received communications and the importance of teaching students how to evaluate messages critically.

Yes, You Can Get a Job With That Major! Goal 5 Strategies for Facilitating, Assessing, and Demonstrating Psychology Students’ Professional Development

The Summit on the National Assessment of Psychology was held on June 2016 to chart a path for assessing student achievement of the goals of the undergraduate psychology major. Our subcommittee was charged with identifying evaluation strategies and tools for students’ professional development, which included applying psychology to various careers; engaging in effective self-regulation, project management, and teamwork; and developing lifelong professional skills. In this article, therefore, we not only review a wide range of assessment tools for facilitating and evaluating professional development in psychology, but we also discuss the larger importance of the learning goal both to students and to public perceptions of psychology.

Some Roads Lead to Psychology, Some Lead Away: College Student Characteristics and Psychology Major Choice

Understanding which students enter and leave psychology majors in college is critical to understanding the pipeline into the field. In this study, we compared psychology majors with nonpsychology majors on the basis of demographic, degree planning, academic preparedness, and academic performance variables using a unique longitudinal sample of nearly a million college students at 249 colleges and universities. Guided by prior research, we examined which students would persist in psychology, enter psychology from another major, or leave psychology for another major between three points in time: intended major before entering college, second-year college major, and fourth-year college major. Critically, most students who majored in psychology did not initially express interest in the field, but entering and persisting in the field was strongly associated with high school exposure and performance in psychology. Students with poorer performance in college often transfer into psychology from majors that may be perceived as difficult (e.g., science, technology, engineering, and math), whereas higher-performing students appear to leave psychology for these same majors, which may also be perceived as more lucrative. These results are concerning for the field of psychology if individuals with high potential who are originally interested in the field eventually leave.

How Experimental Psychologists Write the Method Sections of Journal Articles

This paper reports an investigation on the move structures and cognitive genres found in the methods sections of research articles (RAs) in the field of experimental psychology. Thirty RAs of experimental psychology were analyzed in terms of the move structure and the cognitive genre applied to realize the moves. The analysis of the move structure of these research articles showed that the basic moves were: describing participants, describing data collection procedure(s) and explaining data analysis. The analysis of the cognitive genres used in the methods sections showed that authors typically require more than one cognitive genre to realize the major moves of the methods sections. The most commonly used cognitive genres in realizing the method section of a RA of experimental psychology were explanation and report. This suggests that the inclusion of the instruction of explanation and report in the EAP writing courses for the psychology major students is essential.