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Establishing a base for Lifelong learning in first year psychology majors

Establishing a base for Lifelong learning in first year psychology majors. Bonnie A. Green, Jyh-Hann Chang, Irina Khusid East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania Psychology Department College of Arts and Sciences. Life Long Learning .

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Establishing a base for Lifelong learning in first year psychology majors

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  1. Establishing a base for Lifelong learning in first year psychology majors Bonnie A. Green, Jyh-Hann Chang, Irina Khusid East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania Psychology Department College of Arts and Sciences

  2. Life Long Learning • Goal 10.5 of APA’s guideline for undergraduate majors provides recommendation regarding life long learning. • Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of lifelong learning and personal flexibility to sustain personal and professional development as the nature of work evolves.

  3. APA goals that promote Lifelong Learning • Goal 2: Understanding research design, data analysis, and interpretation • Goal 9.1.b: Insightful awareness • Goal 9.2.d.: Metacognition • http://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/about/psymajor-guidelines.pdf

  4. Goals and Life Long Learning • What do they have in common? • Understanding research design, data analysis, and interpretation • Insightful awareness • Metacognition • Can promote • Quality decision making • Knowledge and understanding • Ability to grow past biases • Require • Essential attitudes for optimization

  5. Achieving the Goals • These goals take years to hone and develop • Not surprising, they are intertwined throughout ESU’s curriculum • Introduced immediately (2nd semester of first year) • Quantitative Psychology (Applied Statistics) • Theories of Personality

  6. Looking at what others say regarding applied statistics • Generally recognized that students • Do possess attitudes and prior experiences that interfere with their ability to learn and thus later apply statistics (e.g., Mills, 2004) • Need to believe they can learn statistics • Have to recognize that statistics can be a useful tool • e.g., SATS (Schau, 1999) http://www.flaguide.org/tools/attitude/attitudes_toward_statistics.php http://www.evaluationandstatistics.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/sats28pre.pdf • However, just teaching applied statistics can actually decrease students belief in their abilities and masks the potential usefulness of statistics (e.g., Pierce, 2006, Shield & Shield, 2008)

  7. Objectives of Quantitative Psychology • Goal 1.1 Students will recognize behaviors and attitudes that will maximize their success in behavioral statistics. • Objective 1.1.a. Students will implement attitudes and behaviors that increase the likelihood of success in a behavioral statistics class (e.g., adopting a growth mindset and helpful behaviors associated with academic success, practicing self testing, and being intellectually engaged in and out of class). • Designed to improve study behaviors by • Increasing metacognition • Increasing adaptive attitudes (e.g., adopting growth mindset) • Recognizing importance of statistics

  8. Example: Metacognition • Present study skills in the context of research • Increase your own meta-cognition • Space out studying and sleep • Increase Depths of Processing • Self Test, Self Test, Self Test • Can be done • While discussing the syllabus • Stand alone presentation • In the context of research examples Details can be found at http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/helping-students-with-study-skills/

  9. Example: Metacognition (cont.) • Follow up with a study skills survey • Have students report • Study skills behaviors • Grade on last exam • Use as example data on hypothesis testing with correlation coefficient

  10. Example: Adopting Adaptive Attitudes • First Day of Class homework: • Reflective Assignments Green & Sandry (2010) Assignments and Exercises for Students for Statistical Concepts for the Behavioral Sciences, 4/E http://www.pearsonhighered.com/product?ISBN=0205626246 • Complete  Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS) (Schau, et al 1995). • Survey can be found at this link • http://www.evaluationandstatistics.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/sats28pre.pdf • Use research on attitudes as examples for illustrating statistics For more detailed information: http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/first-day-of-class-starting-off-right/

  11. Students adopting mindset • No matter who you are, you can significantly improve your understanding of statistics • F ( 2, 68) = 3.16, p < .05

  12. Example: Recognizing the usefulness of statistics • It helps if students can actually see how statistics can be used to answer questions and make decisions in psychology • We want students to go beyond low level memorization to being able to apply statistics • “Commitment Learners” Bains (2004) • Integrating Your Knowledge Activities Kiess and Green (2010) • Assignments that require students to apply information from multiple chapters to answer questions using statistics • Model with examples in class http://statisticalsage.wordpress.com/2011/03/08/more-than-calculations-guiding-students-to-thinking-with-statistics/

  13. Example: Insight in Personality • Students in Theories of Personality are expected to complete a series of reflective activities designed to promote insight into one's personality • Examples Include: •       Speed dating •       Real vs. Idea self •       Parent interview •       Friend interview •       Partner questionnaire •       15 life  events • We want students to go beyond low level memorization to being able to apply information learned in Personality • “Commitment Learners” Bains (2004)

  14. I can be successful without spending a great deal of time thinking about what makes me who I am. • F ( 2, 68) = 3.16, p < .05

  15. Conclusion • By providing first year students with the foundation in • Understanding research design, data analysis, and interpretation • Insightful awareness • Metacognition • Can promote • Quality decision making • Knowledge and understanding • Ability to grow past biases • Essential attitudes for optimization • Thus, assuring the foundation for Lifelong Learning

  16. Future evaluation • ESU’s psychology department conducted an alumni survey 2006 • PASSHE’s 1 year alumni survey is in flux • ESU is implementing for 2011-2012 AY a new alumni survey that can be used at the department level • Survey designed to track Lifelong Learning for all students • We can develop our own questions to further explore our rate of instilling Lifelong Learning in our graduates

  17. References • Note: there are additional references associated with each link. • Mills, J. D. (2004). Students’ attitude towards statistics: Implications for the future. College Student Journal. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FCR/is_3_38/ai_n6249218/?tag=content;col1 • Schau, C., Stevens, J., Dauphinee, T. L.. & Del Vecchio, A. (1995). The development and validation of the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55, 868-875.

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