1 / 26

Uses and abuses of science journalism: introducing psychology students to empiricism

Uses and abuses of science journalism: introducing psychology students to empiricism . Ian Wells University of East London School of Psychology LONDON, E15 4LZ i.r.wells @uel.ac.uk Twitter: @PY1105. What influences students’ problems with the transition to HE ?.

yoshi
Download Presentation

Uses and abuses of science journalism: introducing psychology students to empiricism

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Uses and abuses of science journalism: introducing psychology students to empiricism Ian Wells University of East LondonSchool of PsychologyLONDON, E15 4LZ i.r.wells@uel.ac.uk Twitter: @PY1105

  2. What influences students’ problems with the transition to HE ?

  3. (Harvey, Drew & Smith, 2006; Gorard, Smith, May, Thomas, Adnett & Slack, 2006) • social and academic integration • The mismatch between student expectations and their experiences • A lack of appropriate academic study skills

  4. ‘A lack of appropriate academic study skills’ • The ‘official’ approach • A ‘Study Skills’ Module • A prescribed ‘Skills’ Curriculum BUT

  5. Study Skills that have already served students well may have to be ‘unlearnt’ (Chew, 2008) • Was the ‘Skills’ module delivering everything we wanted ? • Higher order Cognitive skills • ‘Critical Thinking’ • Empiricism or ‘Scientific Thinking’

  6. The Problem of Transfer • Does training transfer from one domain to another ? (Barnett & Ceci, 2002) • Some evidence for particular teaching methods being successful (Nisbett, Fong, Lehmann & Cheng, 1987)

  7. A new Level 1, 1st Semester Module • ‘Thinking Like a Psychologist’ • Separate from ‘Research Methods/Stats’ • Separate from the ‘official’ Skills module • Using examples of Science reporting from the popular press to illustrate the cognitive skills we want students to develop

  8. Simple Examples

  9. The Daily Mail

  10. Reading original sources • Just because it’s in a journal doesn’t mean it’s right • Need to constantly engage critical faculties

  11. More complex Ideas • Experimental Control • The case of ‘Clever Hans’ • The story of Rom Houben

  12. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8375326.stm

  13. Involving the students

  14. Results • The problem of assessment • Anecdotal • In-class assessment – Do they recognise similar issues ? • http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Maggie-the-Dog-Does-Math

  15. Performance on Cognitive Reflection Test (Frederick,2005) • Those taking the module v control group • t(86)=2.95, p=.01, alpha =.43

  16. Performance on other modules • Those taking the module v control group • t(86)=2.25, p=01, alpha=.37

  17. Summary • It appears to be working • This years 3rd year cohort will be the first to graduate having done the module • Developing an on-line database of examples • Twitter: @PY1105 • We need a measure of ‘scientific’ thinking

  18. Thank you

More Related