Background: Prior research suggests that the teaching of abstract concepts can be enhanced by the use of concrete examples, but there are few controlled studies. Objective: To replicate key findings from experiment one from Rawson et al. (2015). Method: Experiment participants studied definitions of abstract concepts from psychology, either with…

It is a common, if controversial, practice to recruit undergraduate psychology students as research participants. There is substantial research concerning putative educational benefits for students, but as students increasingly have freedom to choose between studies to meet participation requirements, factors underlying student choice of…

Deception detection is a topic covered in many psychology and communication courses. We designed and implemented an engaging class activity to facilitate the students' learning of several key concepts related to sender and receiver variability in lie detection. The pedagogical effectiveness of the activity was measured. In line with previous…

This article reviews PsyToolkit, a free web-based service designed for setting up, running, and analyzing online questionnaires and reaction-time (RT) experiments. It comes with extensive documentation, videos, lessons, and libraries of free-to-use psychological scales and RT experiments. It provides an elaborate interactive environment to use (or…

Given the many older criticisms of Milgram's obedience study and the more damning recent criticisms based on analyses of materials available in the Milgram archives at Yale, this study has become a contentious classic. Yet, current social psychology textbooks present it as an uncontentious classic, with no coverage of the recent criticisms and…

Data collection can be a frustrating experience for student researchers due to difficulty in scheduling appointments with participants. To increase the efficiency of research project data collection, we organized a Research Participation Night in which volunteers were incentivized to participate in as many experiments as time allowed. By offering…

This article presents an innovative technique for teaching the principles of experimental design in a way that is entertaining and engaging for students. Following a lecture on experimental design, students participate in an experiment in which the teacher uses a funny segment from a movie to test the influence of implicit social norms. Randomly…

Zimbardo's 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE), one of the most famous studies in psychology, is discussed in most introductory textbooks. The present study is concerned with the nature of this coverage, given that there have been myriad criticisms, especially recently, of the SPE. These criticisms concern both Zimbardo's situationist…

Recently, the testing effect has received a great deal of attention from researchers and educators who are intrigued by its potential to enhance student learning in the classroom. However, effective incorporation of testing (as a learning tool) merits a close examination of the conditions under which testing can enhance student learning in an…

We explored size-distance scaling with a demonstration based on the classic Holway-Boring experiment. Undergraduate psychology majors estimated the sizes of two glowing paper circles under two conditions. In the first condition, the environment was dark and, with no depth cues available, participants ranked the circles according to their angular…

Previous literature has focused on students' perceptions of participation in experiments, but has not measured the effect of participation on learning. In Study 1, students rated their perceptions of learning about psychology; they compared the classroom experience to experiment participation, reading about psychology, or summarizing a journal…

To determine whether a classroom experiment improved the learning of experimental method, at the start of the semester 2 introductory psychology classes took a 10-question multiple-choice pretest on experimental method. Two days later, before the instructor covered the relevant material in the course, 1 class took part in a classroom experiment on…

The guided experimentation method requires that students learn how a database works by generating and testing hypotheses about it (i.e., become skilled at strategies of experimentation). These strategies are essential to learning by inquiry, which is linked to argumentation. We conducted a quasi-experimental field study to show that students who…

To increase the number of students who read the text before class and to promote student interaction centering on text material, I developed an online discussion assignment as a required component of a cognitive psychology course. Across 2 studies, this assignment had a limited effect on examination performance, but students completing online…

Internal validity is important in assessing teaching demonstrations both for one's knowledge and for quality assessment demanded by outside sources. We describe a method to improve the internal validity of assessments of teaching demonstrations: a 1-group pretest-posttest design with alternative forms. This design is often more practical and…