Abstract
Volume 44, No. 1
Topical Articles
Undergraduate Psychological Writing: A Best Practices Guide and National Survey
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 5–17
There is no comprehensive guide for teaching psychological writing, and little is known about how often instructors teach the topic. We present a best practices guide for teaching psychological writing beyond just American Psychological Association style, discuss psychology-specific writing assignments, and examine psychological writing instruction. In an online survey, 177 psychology instructors across the United States reported on psychological writing instruction and their writing assignments. In general, we found that instructors reported using many best practices. Comparisons between courses revealed that instructors use course-specific writing instruction such that it becomes progressively complex across courses. However, instructors might not provide students with enough training to successfully complete assignments. Instructors assign diverse assignments, though, suggesting that students get varied practice at psychology-specific writing.
Ecological Validity of the Testing Effect: The Use of Daily Quizzes in Introductory Psychology
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 18–23
The testing effect is the enhanced retention of learned information by individuals who have studied and completed a test over the material relative to individuals who have only studied the material. Although numerous laboratory studies and simulated classroom studies have provided evidence of the testing effect, data from a natural class setting with motivated students are scant. The present two-class quasi-experiment explored the external validity of the testing effect in the Introductory Psychology classroom. The control class studied assigned chapters from the textbook whereas the quiz class studied chapters and completed daily quizzes on those readings. Subsequently, both classes completed exams over this textbook information. The quiz class scored significantly higher than the control class on these test questions about the textbook information; these differences were significant both when the test questions were the same as the quiz questions and when they were new, related questions from the textbook. These data suggest the use of daily quizzes to embed the testing effect into the Introductory Psychology classroom can improve student learning.
PsyToolkit: A Novel Web-Based Method for Running Online Questionnaires and Reaction-Time Experiments
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 24–31
This article reviews PsyToolkit, a free web-based service designed for setting up, running, and analyzing online questionnaires and reaction-time (RT) experiments. It comes with extensive documentation, videos, lessons, and libraries of free-to-use psychological scales and RT experiments. It provides an elaborate interactive environment to use (or modify) the existing questionnaires and experiments from the PsyToolkit library or to design new studies. Once users have set up their study, they can recruit participants for online participation, and data can be downloaded in spreadsheet format after collection. This article provides examples of how questionnaires and RT experiments can be set up using the website. The PsyToolkit links to online questionnaires and experiments, and these links can easily be embedded in social media networks for participant recruitment, including Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. PsyToolkit’s exhaustive documentation enables students to work independently. This article finishes with pedagogical considerations.
Milgram’s Obedience Study: A Contentious Classic Reinterpreted
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 32–37
Given the many older criticisms of Milgram’s obedience study and the more damning recent criticisms based on analyses of materials available in the Milgram archives at Yale, this study has become a contentious classic. Yet, current social psychology textbooks present it as an uncontentious classic, with no coverage of the recent criticisms and little coverage of the older ones. Also, none of the texts present any coverage of the recent reinterpretation of the study’s findings in terms of engaged followership based on participants’ acceptance of the experimenter’s scientific goals. Hence, the present article provides sources for summaries of the criticisms and a summary of the reinterpretation and its supporting empirical research for teachers who want to incorporate coverage into their courses.
Meaningful Gamification in an Industrial/Organizational Psychology Course
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 38–45
Motivation and game research continue to demonstrate that the implementation of game design characteristics in the classroom can be engaging and intrinsically motivating. The present study assessed the extent to which an industrial organizational psychology course designed learning environment created with meaningful gamification elements can improve student perceptions of learning, course experience, and learning outcomes compared to a traditional course. A mixed analysis of covariance revealed that those in the gamified condition showed significantly higher perceptions of learning, engagement, and motivation than those in the traditional course. This research suggests that students can learn just as effectively as traditional courses but have more favorable and positive experiences in the course through more, novel, interactive teaching methods. Future research implications are discussed.
Methods and Techniques
Distributed Concept Reviews Improve Exam Performance
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 46–50
Distributed practice is a learning strategy in which studying is distributed, or spaced, across multiple study sessions. Another learning technique, interleaved practice, mixes material from multiple lectures. I designed this study to test the effect of distributed concept reviews of interleaved material on exam scores in an introductory psychology course. Students who received the concept review outperformed students who did not receive the review—a result driven by exam questions related to concepts presented in the review itself. In fact, the number of times a concept was presented in the review was directly related to the likelihood of a correct response on the exam. These results indicate that distributed, interleaved concept reviews are an effective method of improving student learning in broad introductory courses.
Faculty Forum
A Naturalistic Investigation of Media Multitasking While Studying and the Effects on Exam Performance
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 51–57
The present study investigated the use of multiple digital media technologies, including social networking platforms, by students while preparing for an examination (media multitasking) and the subsequent effects on exam performance. The level of media multitasking (number of simultaneous media technologies) and duration of study were used as predictors of exam performance in a sample of 441 college students. Analysis of the data indicated that students with low level of media multitasking (0–2 digital technologies) scored significantly better on the exam than students with a high level of media multitasking (7 or more digital technologies). There were no significant difference in the duration of study time between low-level media multitaskers and high-level media multitaskers.
Modeling Community Engagement in an Undergraduate Course in Psychology at an HBCU
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 58–62
This article describes an undergraduate course in community psychology at an Historically Black University. The course integrated community engagement using a local neighborhood revitalization project as a platform for students to volunteer, prepare a historical analysis, and sense of community project. The course aims to fulfill a requirement under the Counseling, Community, and Health Foundation for psychology majors. The course used applied experiences within a neighborhood context to introduce students to theories and principles in community psychology. The article will discuss implications for undergraduate psychology education and the value of providing undergraduate community psychology courses to students.
Teaching the Psychology of Engagement with Beauty: State and Trait
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 63–67
An undergraduate senior-level course, the psychology of beauty, taught within the positive psychology approach, was designed with the aim to increase state and trait levels of engagement with beauty among its students. The course was a service-learning course in which students were paired by the Area Agency on Aging with elders in the greater community as a practicum experience. They studied the moral beauty of the elders, learned from their wisdom, and aimed to fulfill social needs of the elders.
Results suggested that in nearly every class session, students significantly increased their state levels of engagement with beauty and state levels of engagement with moral beauty during their visits to the elders’ homes, both with moderate to large effect sizes. Trait levels of engagement with beauty, however, did not increase over the span of 12 weeks.
Undergraduates Learn About Industrial–Organizational Psychology and Human Factors From an Informational Brochure
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 68–73
An informational brochure was created to assist students and faculty unfamiliar with the industrial–organizational (IO) and human factors (HF) disciplines. The brochure highlights the content of these two professions, presents advice for undergraduates to prepare for admission to IO and HF graduate programs, provides sources of IO and HF information, and suggests employability options in IO and HF. To determine if this brochure effectively informed students about these professions, students read either the IO and HF brochure or information about school psychology. Knowledge about IO and HF programs increased significantly after reading the IO and HF brochure. Suggestions for its distribution are offered.
Teaching About Psychological Disorders: A Case for Using Discussion Boards in the Classroom
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 74–77
This study compares the traditional use of case studies against the novel use of discussion boards to teach naive students in the United Arab Emirates about anxiety disorders. Sixty-six female students from an abnormal psychology class were randomly assigned to either the case study condition (CSC) or the discussion board condition (DBC). Students read about anxiety disorders and at the end of the class rated their experience based on four learning outcomes. In each instance, students in the DBC rated their learning outcomes significantly higher than students in the CSC. This suggests that incorporating discussion boards as a pedagogical tool can add a new dimension for engaging student interest, fostering knowledge development, and increasing empathy.
The Generalist's Corner
Comfort Food: Nourishing Our Collective Stomachs and Our Collective Minds
Teaching of Psychology 44(1): 78–84
Food is a powerful motivator in human functioning—it serves a biological need, as emotional support, and as a cultural symbol. Until recently, the term ‘‘comfort food’’ has been inadequately and unscientifically defined. In addition, the popular media have oversimplified the concept of comfort food as purely unhealthy food, often consumed in moments of stress or sadness. Recent empirical research, detailed within this article, seeks to correct these misrepresentations by describing how comfort food serves as a social surrogate and as a cognitive/emotional representation of others. We discuss these findings with potential coursespecific content examples. We also discuss broader teaching implications, highlighting the applicability of comfort food research to virtually every area psychology.