Description of Courses Taught

A.            Psy/Soc314: Statistics and SPSS lab

Statistics and the SPSS lab are cross-listed with Sociology and are required for Psychology, Sociology, Social Work, and Child Development majors (see course syllabus).  

B.            Psy242: Child Psychology

Child psychology is offered as an elective course in psychology (see course syllabus) and serves to fulfill the Writing Intensive Requirement for the liberal education program.  Open to 1^st through 4^th year students, this course is designed to introduce students to the theories, research, and issues relevant to the study of all aspects of children's normal development from conception to early adolescence.  Using a topical rather than chronological approach, I focus students' attention on the important theories currently used as frameworks for research.  Material covered includes normal physical, cognitive, language, social, moral, and emotional development as well as some information on abnormalities in each area and a special section on autism at the end. 

C.            Psy244: Adolescent Psychology

Adolescent Psychology is taught as an elective course in psychology and is paired with Kathleen Ralph’s “Children’s Literature” (ED262) course to fulfill the Comparative Knowledge requirement for the liberal education program. The course is designed to acquaint students with the theories, research, and issues relevant to normal adolescent development.  Material covered includes normal physical, cognitive, moral, social, and sexual development, as well as a special section on abnormal development.  

D.            PSY317:  Literature Review

Literature Review Seminar is a required course for the psychology major (see course syllabus) and is recommended in the junior year.  Students learn how to conduct an exhaustive literature search, read and critically analyze empirical (primary source) research articles, and write a 25-page analysis and review of approximately 35-50 recent articles using APA (5^th ed.) style.  Students have presented research from this class at conferences and revised and published their papers in scholarly peer-reviewed journals.      

E.            PSY100:  Introduction to Psychology

Several years ago, the psychology department revised Introduction to Psychology to meet the goal of teaching students “how psychologists think” rather than simply lecturing about the theories and findings in the various areas of psychology.  Adopting this framework, I organize my course around developing good critical thinking skills.  I begin by introducing students to seven “guidelines” for critical thinking presented by Randolph Smith in his book, Challenging Your Preconceptions.   I then relate these guidelines individually to “the scientific method” used by psychologists, demonstrating how each of these seven aspects of thinking critically is used when developing theory, testing hypotheses, and drawing inferences and conclusions and I continued to refer to them throughout the semester when discussing theory or research.  With these guidelines in mind, students complete three short projects in class designed to (1) force students to challenge their own preconceptions about some aspect of psychology, (2) introduce students to the library, (3) introduce students to scholarly research, (4) provide students with an opportunity to examine how others use/don’t use critical thinking, (5) conduct a small research project (designed by professor) to test a theory, (6) compare and contrast theories, and 7) evaluate their own research.   These projects allow students to see what it is like to “think like a psychologist” through the process of developing and testing hypotheses, interpreting findings, and evaluating research.  They also provided me with a context within which to discuss ethical standards of conducting research with human beings, obtaining informed consent, and what it means and doesn’t mean when findings don’t turn out as we expected them to.  Finally, these projects serve to prepare those students who plan to continue in psychology for Experimental Psychology, where they will be required to design and implement their own full-scale research project. 

F.            PSY417:  Research Seminar 

Research Seminar is designed to provide students who plan to pursue graduate study in psychology with an opportunity to conduct supervised independent research.  Students conduct an exhaustive literature search and review, design an original study, design or collect appropriate measures, apply for Human Subjects approval, collect data, enter and analyze data using SPSS, and write up the results of their study in the format of an empirical research article submitted for journal publication using proper APA (5^th Ed.) style.  Students have presented findings from their work at major national conferences and have published their work in scholarly peer-reviewed journals.

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