Students Are Open to Dealing With a Changing Discipline

Abstract

The role of the student generation has often been seen as crucial in shaping the focus and practices of a scientific discipline. Therefore, it is essential to understand whether student commitment to the discipline is at risk when confronted with (the need for) change in their discipline. In the current study, we explored this issue for psychology using both experimental and correlational methodologies. Across four different domains—(a) research methods, (b) statistics, (c) history of psychology, and (d) theory of science—we measured students’ (1) interest in issues related to changes in the discipline, (2) expectancy of being able to learn about the evolving nature of psychology, (3) perceived value of engaging with such topics, and (4) intention to dedicate more effort to these issues. While we found consistent differences among the four domains (a)–(d), our experimental manipulation, designed to highlight the (need for) change in psychology discipline, had no significant effect. The experimental groups working on material covering phases of Kuhn's model or the replication crisis showed no decline in expectancy, value, interest, or intention. The results of the correlational analyses and the path model were similarly encouraging: No evidence perceiving the (need for) change in psychology negatively affected study satisfaction. Rather, the relationships were positive. Taken together, our results suggest that psychology students are open to dealing with a changing discipline and that addressing (the need) for change does not compromise students’ commitment to the subject of psychology.