Abstracts of recent articles published in Teaching of Psychology

Abstract

In 2020, the pandemic altered not only the way many teachers approach the classroom but also their understanding of challenges faced by students and the relevance of psychology to every-one ’ s lives. This article serves as an STP Presidential welcome to the work and resources of the Society. I also highlight the rationale behind the 2022 STP Presidential task forces. These task forces were shaped by events of the past two years and focus on four major themes: Teaching to make a difference; ethical literacy, thinking, and reasoning; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); and our interconnected world. The pandemic changed the way many of us teach and let ’ s hope we can take what we have learned to move forward with increased resilience and improved pedagogy. Background: provide a good opportunity for to effective learning strategies integrated with content. Objective: and ’ self-reported use of strategies before and after a term paper assignment and examined relationships between Method: Three hundred eighty- fi ve introductory psychology students completed surveys on their use of 11 learning strategies at the beginning and end of the semester, read an empirical article and wrote a term paper about the learning strategy of practice testing, and completed four exams among other assessments. Results: Replicating prior work, students generally reported improvements in their use of learning strategies over the course of the semester, though improvements were largely attributable to grade point aver-age (GPA). Two learning strategies — self-explanation and practice testing — were positively correlated with course performance in the second half of the semester, over and above the effects associated with GPA. Conclusion: Teaching students about bene fi cial learning strategies may increase their adoption of those strategies as well as their course performance, replicating prior research. Teaching Implications: In order to improve course performance, instructors may consider adapting assignments in ways that increase students ’ knowledge and use of effective learning strategies. training in ethics included signi fi cantly more ethical principles in their honor codes. Conclusion: Findings support APA ’ s call to embed training on ethics throughout the undergraduate curriculum. Background: Most students rely on ineffective study habits to learn material instead of using evidence-based strategies known to improve learning. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a novel in-class quizzing strategy (i.e., Make & Take Quizzes) that was intentionally designed to engage students in evidence-based study strategies. Method: Final exam grades between sections of identical courses where students completed (N = 74) or did not complete (N = 73) Make & Take Quizzes were compared. Changes in the use of study strategies from the beginning to the end of the semester in two courses where students completed the quizzes were also examined. Results: Students in Make & Take Quiz sections signi fi cantly outperformed those in sections without the quizzes. Students ’ overall strategies for studying did not signi fi cantly change; however, there were signi fi cant improvements in the speci fi c strategies of deciding on the main ideas when studying and putting ideas into one ’ s own words when studying. Conclusion: Make & Take Quizzes appear to help students learn course material, while also engaging them in the use of speci fi c study strategies. Teaching Implications: An easy-to-implement strategy, instructors can engage students in the effective use of evidence-based study strategies by incorporating Make & Take Quizzes in their courses. and Conclusion and teaching implications: These results suggest that moving traditional paper assignments into a multimedia format is a no-cost way to improve the student experience. Background: Allen, Fielding, East, et al. demonstrated experimentally that structural awareness, or the ability to disregard a research problem ’ s topic and instead focus on its structural features, can be trained using StatHand (https://stathand.net). Most training bene fi ts persisted for 1 week. Objective: The objective was to assess the longer-term effects of training. Method: One year after training (or control activities), 54 participants were re-administered 5 measures of structural awareness and 1 statistic selection measure. Results: Trained participants continued to reliably out-perform control participants on 4 measures of structural awareness, though no longer on the 5th. Over the year, decrements in trained participants ’ performanceonthe5structuralawarenessmeasuresweremostlysmall.However,1yearaftertraining,thetrainedparticipants ’ statistic selection advantage had largely disappeared. Conclusion: Brief structural awareness training can have long-term bene fi ts, though selecting an appropriate statistical test for common research scenarios without assistance remains a dif fi cult task. Teaching Implications: Structural awareness can be trained. However, even structurally aware students cannot reliably select appropriate statistics without assistance. Training plus easy access to a decision-makingaidshouldmaximizestatisticselectionaccuracy.Ourevidence-basedtrainingmethodsandmaterials,includingStatHand,canbefreelyusedandadaptedforthesepurposes. Method: A total of 240 programs from a strati fi ed random sample of institutions offering undergraduate psychology programs responded to an online survey, yielding a response rate of 42.5%. Results: Undergraduate psychology programs most often provided assistance in applying to graduate school, while career services provided a wider range of resources. Baccalaureate institutions offer career assistance, via the psychology program or the institutional career center, more fre-quently than associate institutions. Most common forms of assistance consisted of instruction on how to apply for a job, how to fi nd information about career possibilities in psychology sub fi elds, resumé or curriculum vitae preparation, and individual advising. Conclusion: Although career assistance was widely available, there are several ways in which the type and scope of assistance can be improved upon to better support students and increase access. Teaching implications: Undergraduate psychology students could bene fi t from more career assistance content throughout psychology curricula. could be bene fi cial in further developing psychology students ’ overall critical thinking performance. Background: Findings from the testing effect literature suggest several ways to achieve testing effects in an authentic classroom, but few consider instructor workload, equity, and resources that determine feasibility and sustainability of testing effect methods in practice. Objective: To determine elements and procedures from the testing effect literature for practical application, devise a method for feasibly and sustainably implementing testing effect methods in practice, and determine if a simple way to incorporate retrieval practice into an existing introduc-tion to psychology course was suf fi cient to observe testing effects. Method: Quiz scores of Introductory Psychology sections with and without retrieval practice were compared. Sections with retrieval practice also compared the effects of repeated and new questions on quiz performance. Results: Students with retrieval practice performed signi fi cantly better on quizzes than those without. Repeated and new retrieval practice were equally superior. Conclusion: Retrieval practices can successfully be implemented, feasibly and sustainably, in an authentic classroom environment. Retrieval practice questions can be related to delayed practice questions, rather than exact repeats, to achieve a testing effect. Teaching Implications: Distributing low stakes multiple-choice questions throughout lectures is effective for increasing test performance. The current method was neither burdensome to work-load, content, or resources. Conclusions: We offer a novel framework for rede fi ning participation through a collaborative lens, along with a suite of evidence-based suggestions for shifting the thought processes and beha-viors of students toward collaboration. Literature Teaching Implications: We one approach for the of cultural humility through a 6-week Humility Learning Module that on the principles of diver-sity, and bias, cultural humility, fairness, and social justice. Conclusion: the we believe that this approach shows promise of learning. We offer the ways to assess the effectiveness of the module. opportunity concepts. Student understanding of equal employment opportunity was assessed pre-and post-exercise. Results: Overall, the postexercise measures suggested greater student understanding of equal employment opportunity concepts in comparison to their pre-exercise understanding. Conclusion: The exercise described herein is an impactful and effective means of engaging students in content related to equal employment opportunity. Teaching Implications: Instructors can use this active exercise in their courses to aid students in their understanding of equal employment opportunity concepts. As a result, students ’ knowledge of equal employment opportunity may encourage them to combat and prevent occurrences of discrimination in the workplace.