Students often have little understanding of the role psychological science plays in informing us about the impact of human behavior when addressing climate change. We designed an assignment for a social psychology course based on Frantz and Mayer's use of the decision tree model of helping behavior to identify the psychological barriers that…

Teaching the general psychology course provides instructors with the opportunity to invite students to explore the dynamics of behavior and mental processes through the lens of theory and research. Three innovative writing assignments were developed to teach students to think like a psychologist, operationalized as enhancing critical thinking,…

Two studies explored properties of psychology assignments from an atypical perspective: students' own perceptions of what they learned and their emotional reactions to the assignments, specifically feelings of pride in their work. Study 1 showed that assignments vary in their likelihood of generating prideful accomplishment and identified three…

There is no comprehensive guide for teaching psychological writing, and little is known about how often instructors teach the topic. We present a best practices guide for teaching psychological writing beyond just American Psychological Association style, discuss psychology-specific writing assignments, and examine psychological writing…

University career courses have become a more standard offering at many colleges and universities over the past few decades. Similarly, there has been an increase in the number of psychology departments offering a careers course for psychology majors or an introduction to the psychology major course. This study examines the outcomes of a course…

Describes a collaborative writing project in which students must identify key variables, search and read relevant literature, and reason through a research idea by working closely with a partner. The end result is a polished laboratory report in the APA style. The class includes a peer review workshop prior to final editing. (MJP)