Two controversial topics related to the teaching of statistics to psychology students are (a) when to introduce statistical software and (b) which statistical software package to use. The current research looked at the use of statistical software in statistics classes from every university with a psychology program in Canada. Researchers collected…

Background: Recent evidence suggests PechaKucha--a presentation style utilizing simplified visuals, narration, and rigid time constraints--may promote various learning outcomes and instructor goals better than traditional PowerPoint presentations. Objective: The purpose of this study was to test the effectiveness of students' PechaKucha compared…

Improving students' knowledge and application of American Psychological Association (APA) formatting rules typically involves spending class time reviewing or practicing these rules. Screencasts (narrated lectures with real-time screen capture) can reduce the time professors devote to teaching APA format. In addition to imparting rules,…

Research methods and statistics are core courses in the undergraduate psychology major. To assess learning outcomes, it would be useful to have a measure that assesses research methods and statistical literacy beyond course grades. In two studies, we developed and provided initial validation results for a research methods and statistical knowledge…

Microsoft PowerPoint and similar presentation tools have become commonplace in higher education, yet there is very little research on the effectiveness of different PowerPoint formats for implementing this software. This study compared two PowerPoint presentation techniques: a more traditional format employing heavy use of bullet points with text…

Student response systems have received much attention over the past few years. This easy-to-use technology has been marketed as a great way to enhance the student experience in the classroom through increased engagement and improved course performance. This aim of this study was to demonstrate that the simple addition of a student response system…

Instructors often use Microsoft PowerPoint lectures and handouts as support tools to provide students with the main concepts of the lectures. Some instructors and researchers believe that PowerPoint encourages student passivity. We conducted 2 studies to determine whether the use of content-based questions (CBQs) would enhance learning when…

This study examined the costs and benefits of using demonstrations in an upper level psychology course. For 6 topics, half of the class read a chapter that explained the concept and theoretical explanations for the described effects, and the other half participated in a demonstration in addition to the reading. Students overwhelmingly reported…

Microsoft[R] Producer[R] is a powerful yet user-friendly PowerPoint companion tool for creating on-demand multimedia presentations. Instructors can easily distribute these presentations via compact disc or streaming media over the Internet. We describe the features of the software, system requirements, and other required hardware. We also describe…

We evaluated the effectiveness of the use of an electronic personal response system (or "clickers") during an introductory psychology lecture on perceptual constancy. We graphed and projected student responses to questions during the lecture onto a large-screen display in Microsoft PowerPoint. The distributions of answers corresponded…

Reviews an approach for teaching the analysis and interpretation of interaction in an undergraduate psychological statistics course. Presents learning objectives based on this approach, and describes a computer program used both for in-class lecture presentation and for student-guided practice on each objective. (DSK)

Contends that classroom discussions of human memory often involve descriptions of classic memory experiments and the data from them. Presents the computer software program, MindLab, and describes two classroom memory experiments. Finds that students report the experiments enhance their understanding. (CFR)

We describe 3 computer-based neuroscience laboratories. In the first 2 labs, we used commercially available interactive software to enhance the study of functional and comparative neuroanatomy and neurophysiology. In the remaining lab, we used customized software and hardware in 2 psychophysiological experiments. With the use of the computer-based…

I describe and evaluate SuperLab LT (Chase & Abboud, 1990), a software package that enables students to replicate classic experiments in cognitive psychology. I also discuss the package with respect to its uses in teaching an undergraduate course in Experimental Psychology. Although the package has minor flaws, SuperLab LT provides numerous…

Describes a computer tutorial program that teaches the fundamentals of discrimination learning in a college-level psychology course. Asserts that neither homework nor study guides provides the help that the tutorial program does for weaker students. Includes information about obtaining a free copy of the tutorial program. (CFR)