Handbook of Demonstrations and Activities in the Teaching of Psychology

Volume I: Introductory, Statistics, Research Methods, and History

Mark E. Ware, David E. Johnson

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317759409
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

For those who teach students in psychology, education, and the social sciences, the Handbook of Demonstrations and Activities in the Teaching of Psychology, Second Edition provides practical applications and rich sources of ideas. Revised to include a wealth of new material (56% of the articles are new), these invaluable reference books contain the collective experience of teachers who have successfully dealt with students' difficulty in mastering important concepts about human behavior. Each volume features a table that lists the articles and identifies the primary and secondary courses in which readers can use each demonstration. Additionally, the subject index facilitates retrieval of articles according to topical headings, and the appendix notes the source as it originally appeared in Teaching of Psychology, the official journal of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, Division Two of the American Psychological Association. Volume I consists of 97 articles about strategies for teaching introductory psychology, statistics, research methods, and the history of psychology classes. Divided into four sections (one for each specialty), the book suggests ways to stimulate interest, promote participation, grasp psychological terminology, and master necessary scientific skills.

Section III

Research Methods

Introducing Scientific Thinking

Joe Hatcher described his use of fascinating riddles to expose students in introductory and experimental design courses to key points concerning scientific thinking as well as the process and experience of being a scientist. Students liked and learned from this unusual approach, which reminds one of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

Art Kohn used a simple stay-switch probability game to demonstrate the importance of testing our beliefs empirically. Despite students’ and faculty’s beliefs to the contrary, a simple in-class experiment illustrated that switching wins twice as often as staying. This demonstration pointed out the value of validating our beliefs empirically. A follow-up questionnaire showed that participating in this experiment may increase students’ trust in the empirical method.

Michael Stadler used a game called Black Box to teach various inductive and deductive processes that are useful in scientific reasoning. The game involved hiding four balls in an 8 × 8 grid and imagining a laser beam being directed though any of 32 doors that represented the rows and columns of the grid. Feedback such as absorption or reflection of the beam gave students clues with which to hypothesize where the balls were located.

Since Oskar Pfungst exposed the “thinking horse” as an unwitting fraud, Clever Hans has been used to illustrate various concepts in experimental psychology. Michael Marshall and David Linden replicated the Clever Hans effect by training a rat to bar press in response to a signal that was surreptitiously controlled by the instructor. This demonstration stimulated student interest and critical thinking.

Using concepts and principles from a basketball game, James Polyson and Kenneth Blick taught their students about the fundamentals of the experimental method. The basketball game provided a context for illustrating an hypothesis, independent and dependent variables, and controls. The authors expressed delight at the quality of classroom discussion using this technique.

Evidence suggesting that older left-handed individuals are underrepresented in the general population provided an engaging vehicle for David Johnson to introduce research methods into his courses. After viewing a graphical representation of this relation, students attempt to explain it. This fetching way of presenting diverse research issues can be used in various courses.

In a program that incorporates research into the curriculum at all levels, Christiane Brems developed a method for introducing students to research slowly and carefully. Her approach decreased students’ trepidation, and close collaboration of students and faculty in the research process increased enthusiasm and enjoyment for students and teachers.

Donald McBurney used the problem method, sometimes called the case-study method, in teaching research techniques to undergraduates. Problems were assigned in advance, students used course material to solve each problem, and solutions were discussed in class. The approach emphasizes problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, and students found the method challenging and interesting.

Thomas Wilson and Douglas Hershey designed an unusual classroom activity for students in a research methods course. Students identified and evaluated their own procedural knowledge of the research process, generated scripts from their event-based mental representation of the process, and compared their own scripts to one from expert psychologists. Students considered the activity to be interesting and useful.

Reviewing the Literature

Linda Lewis, a librarian, outlined the advantages and disadvantages of bibliographic computerized searching and described the databases in psychology. Given the rapid growth in the number of databases and the increased availability of equipment, she predicted accelerated expansion in the use of computer searches but concluded that they cannot answer all bibliographic needs.

Pam Baxter echoed Lewis’ call for bibliographic instruction in the psychology classroom. She suggested that librarians introduce the types and variety of reference works and demonstrate how students can better define their topic.

Retta Poe devised a series of presentations and exercises to help students improve their literature review papers in an abnormal psychology course. The sequential writing assignments included focused free writing, summarizing an essay, summarizing a journal article, integrating findings from two studies, and preparing a reference list in the proper style and format. Although time-consuming, this approach was evaluated favorably by students and teachers.

Teaching Research Ethics

Bernard Beins generated the Barnum effect to teach students about the ethics of deception in research and the feelings of subjects who are deceived. Students in research methods classes received feedback about a bogus personality inventory and rated the perceived validity of the interpretations. Seniors were more skeptical than juniors and sophomores. This technique is an engaging and effective way to help students learn firsthand about the costs and benefits of research.

Deciding not to conduct a study because it involves deception or invasion of privacy is as much an act to be evaluated on ethical grounds as is conducting such a study. Robert Rosnow designed a classroom exercise to demonstrate that the ethical evaluation of a study can be considered from several standpoints. He used role-play and discussion to sharpen critical thinking and develop an appreciation of the nuances of research ethics.

David Strohmetz and Anne Skleder used Rosnow’s (1990) role-play for teaching research ethics to undergraduates in research methods classes. Results indicated that the exercise can be a valuable tool for sensitizing students to the factors involved in judging research ethics.

Richard Hubbard and Kathy Ritchie use the human subjects review process to stimulate students’ critical thinking in their experimental psychology courses. Students integrated existing literature into their proposals and operationally defined their methods and measures. They critically analyzed their objectives and evaluated potential risks and benefits of their proposals. The procedure challenged students to present arguments logically to scientific and general audiences.

Brad Johnson and Rioh’det Corser presented an activity designed for graduate ethics classes that can also be used in undergraduate courses. Students played the roles of ethics committee members and the psychologist accused of committing the ethics violation in a simulated hearing. The hearing concluded with the committee making a determination for the disposition of the case after which the class as a whole discussed the case.

Recognizing the growing controversy over the ethics of using animals in research, Harold Herzog reviewed two prominent philosophical justifications for animal liberation and described an exercise that facilitates class discussion of animal research issues. Students simulated participation on an institutional animal care committee and decided whether a series of hypothetical experiments would be allowed. Students reported that the technique increased their awareness about the complexity of making ethical decisions.

Teaching Research Design and Methods of Observation

Mark Vernoy developed a Stroop-type experiment that demonstrated an interaction effect in a factorial design. Data for several semesters of an experimental psychology laboratory course indicated a consistent main effect and a significant interaction. The computer program that executes this experiment is described and explanations for the interaction are mentioned.

Using the Howard-Dolman depth perception apparatus, Dominic Zerbolio and James Walker at the University of Missouri-St. Louis devised an exercise that facilitates exposition of a factorial design and addresses perceptual problems experienced in everyday life. The exercise illustrates the nature of an interaction and the necessity of additional analyses of simple main effects.

William Stallings had graduate students design and conduct an experiment to evaluate effects of fertilizers on the growth of radish seedlings. The goal of this project is to provide practice in making design decisions, collecting and analyzing data, and writing results. Informal evaluations suggested that the technique is a promising one for teaching experimental design.

James Carr and John Austin provided a brief overview of single-subject designs and described a demonstration for teaching these designs to undergraduate psychology majors. Using a reversal design, students collected repeated measures of their own behavior, and they graphed and visually interpreted their data.

Recognizing a lack of emphasis on naturalistic observation, Harold Herzog described exercises designed to provide students experience in quantifying behaviors observed in a small mouse colony. These techniques can be applied in numerous courses and with almost any species, including humans.

Dwight Krehbiel and Paul Lewis stressed the importance of observational methodology and described a program that focuses on this approach. They pointed out specific advantages of systematic observation and described pertinent lab exercises designed to show students how subdisciplines of psychology can be integrated.

Andrea Zeren and Vivian Makosky described an in-class activity that permits systematic observations of spontaneous human behavior as portrayed on television. The activity involves: a lecture about observational techniques; a demonstration of time sampling, event sampling, and trait ratings; and a class demonstration that compares and contrasts the three methods. Students reacted favorably to the exercise and claimed that it helped them to understand observational techniques and other facets of research.

Miriam Goldstein, Roy Hopkins, and Michael Strube developed a classroom demonstration of observer bias. Students were led to expect that response time of a subject’s performance on a motor task would decrease across three trials, because of alcohol consumption. The subject (a trained confederate who drank a nonalcoholic beverage) displayed consistent behavior and performance across trials, but students reported a trend that was consistent with their expectancy. The demonstration had a strong and memorable effect on students.

Working in Groups

Large enrollments and limited resources often preclude requiring all psychology majors to participate in one-on-one research with faculty members. Pamela Gibson, Arnold Kahn, and Virginia Mathie designed two research team models to offer research opportunities for as many students as possible. Model 1 is a single-faculty, single-project team, and Model 2 is a large multifaculty, multiproject team. Students and faculty valued these approaches because they involved students in all aspects of the research enterprise.

David Carroll described a method for improving performance in laboratory courses. Students worked in small groups and each person made a unique contribution to a research project. The technique encourages cooperation, and evaluations suggested that students liked the approach and that it enhanced their academic performance. Advantages and potential problems were also mentioned.

Thomas Plante described a program that involved many students in multiple research projects supervised by one faculty member. The procedure included laboratory group meetings and the appointment of a student project manager for each study. Participation in the group enhanced the students’ interest in and understanding of psychological research and improved their chances of being accepted into competitive graduate programs.

Andrew Newcomb and Catherine Bagwell described the laboratory component of their introductory psychology course and a teaching fellows (TFs) program in which undergraduates directed these laboratory experiences. They presented the goals of the course and described its curriculum; discussed goals and operations of the TF program; mentioned the specific responsibilities of the TFs as well as the procedures for selecting, training, and supervising them; and summarized the many advantages of this exemplary program.

Presenting Research Results

Paul Gore and Cameron Camp used a poster session as an integral part of an undergraduate experimental design course. Undergraduates designed and conducted original experiments using radishes as subjects. The students presented the results of these experiments in a poster session. The authors described the benefits of using radishes as subjects. Radishes? Yes, radishes.

In-class poster sessions supplanted traditional term papers in several of Brian Baird’s courses. He described instructions to students about preparing posters, logistics of planning and conducting poster sessions, and the approach’s advantages for students and faculty. Students preferred this approach over conventional term papers; in one survey, 100% of the respondents favored poster sessions.

The homework assignment used by Ruth Ault teaches students to organize information from an APA journal article. She distributed the contents of a short journal article in scrambled order and instructed students to unscramble the order of paragraphs and to determine the headings under which the paragraphs were subsumed. This exercise helped students learn about conventional organization and style, and it saved time for the teacher when students later wrote their own experimental reports.

Blaine Peden replicated and extended Ault’s (1991) “What Goes Where?” active-learning exercise by evaluating its use with inexperienced and experienced writers of research reports. Results were similar to Ault’s and Peden suggested ways to make the activity more useful for experienced report writers.

William Addison described how a research proposal, used in conjunction with reports based on data collected ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Section I :Introductory
• Section II: Statistics
• Section III: Research Methods
• Section IV: History
• Table
• Appendix
• Subject Index