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Introducing students to scientific journal articles in Introduction to Psychology

Adeetee Bhide and Natasha Tokowicz

+Developing critical thinking and dispositional skills

In addition to teaching discipline-specific skills, classes should develop broader skills critical thinking public speaking interest in topic

Difficult in large, introductory classes

Goal of transformation: develop these higher level skills in Introduction to Psychology

+Description of Transformation

Read psychology popular press article empirical article cited within it

During recitation give group presentation summarizing both articles critiquing how accurately the popular press article presented the

findings of the research

+Description of Transformation

Several articles chosen for each of 6 different topics

Students rank topics that interest them and are grouped accordingly

Each group selects one article for their topic

Presentations are spread throughout the semester; are near when that topic is covered in class

+Scaffolding

Reading empirical articles Very difficult for students Required in upper-level classes

Scaffold reading of the empirical articles Instructors give example presentation during class Popular press articles summarize empirical articles Groups

+ Goals of Transformation

Develop self-efficacy in terms of reading empirical articles Students can develop these skills in scaffolded manner

Interest in psychology Students select articles they are interested in Articles are written in engaging manner Hear other students’ presentations

+Goals of Transformation

Critical thinking skills Find flaws; skeptical consumers

Improve presentation skills

Understand the value of empirical articles Upper-level students often rely too heavily on review articles

and non-peer reviewed sources Critiquing shows students why it’s important to read

empirical articles

+Measuring Effectiveness of Transformation: Critiquing skills

Pre-test Read excerpts from popular press and empirical article and identify problems with

popular press articles

Midway post-test (after half the groups have presented) Read excerpts from popular press and empirical article and identify problems with

popular press articles Expect to see most improvement from groups who have already presented Sub-optimal because groups who have not presented yet have still benefitted from

listening to presentations

Another psychology class will take the same pre-test/midway post-test Sub-optimal because they have a different instructor

+ Measuring Effectiveness of Transformation: Self-efficacy, interest, value of empirical articles Pre-test

Answer questions about self-efficacy How confident do you feel in your abilities to read and understand an

experimental research article? Answer questions about interest

Do you ever read books or articles about Psychology for fun? After this class is over, are you interested in taking any upper level

Psychology classes?

+Measuring Effectiveness of Transformation: Self-efficacy, interest, value of empirical articles Final post-test

Answer questions about self-efficacy How confident do you feel in your abilities to read and understand an

experimental research article? Answer questions about interest

For your project, you read a popular press research article/book chapter. Did you find it interesting?

Are you likely to read more popular press Psychology articles for fun? After this class is over, are you interested in taking any upper level Psychology

classes? Answer questions about value of empirical articles

One of the goals of this project was to show you the importance of reading original research articles, rather than summaries of research. Do you feel that you got valuable information from the research article that was not in the popular press article?

If you were to write a paper for a class in the future, are you more likely to read original research articles while doing research for the paper now that you have done this project and see the value in reading original research articles?

+Conclusion

If project is shown to be effective, may become a permanent feature of Psychology recitations

Students develop an interest in Psychology and the necessary skills to read psychology articles in the introductory class

+Optional

Sample presentation

Pre-test

Questions?