Background: Animations of scientific concepts may improve comprehension by explaining and visualizing the steps of complex processes, but unless they engage student interest in meaningful ways, their effectiveness as teaching tools is limited. We achieve this through a novel approach to animation design that includes the target audience…

The current set of three studies further evaluates the validity and application of the Psychological Research Inventory of Concepts (PRIC). In Study 1, we administered the PRIC to a sample of introductory psychology students and online (Mechanical Turk) participants along with measures assessing theoretically related concepts. We found evidence of…

Science is constantly changing. If one hopes to keep pace with advances in science, one cannot simply repeat what one has done in the past, whether deciding how to invest limited research funds, searching to replace a retiring colleague, or teaching introductory psychology. Psychological science in the 21st century is more central and integrated…

Studies of psychological misconceptions have often used tests with methodological shortcomings, unknown psychometric properties, and ad hoc methods for identifying misconceptions, creating problems for estimating frequencies of specific misconceptions. To address these problems, we developed a new test, the Test of Psychological Knowledge and…

Three groups of undergraduates (42 senior graduating psychology majors, 27 first-year premajors taking introductory psychology, and 24 first-year, high-performing nonmajors taking introductory psychology) completed the Psychology Major Field Test (MFT) and a short-answer (SA) essay test on reasoning about core knowledge in psychology. Graduating…

The present study examined the possibility that the language and response format used in self-report questionnaires influences how readily people endorse misconceptions. Four versions of a 40-item misconception test were administered to European ("n" = 281) and North American ("n" = 123) psychology and nonpsychology…

One difficulty in teaching service courses such as psychology of adolescence is maintaining the interest of nonmajors without sacrificing course-relevant content. Described is a project that overcomes this problem by requiring students to observe some type of media (e.g., television) and determine the extent to which particular themes occur.…

Surveys entry-level psychology majors and non-majors before and after taking an introductory psychology course to determine their interest in topics covered in the course. Shows that students are interested in topics relating to their immediate individual needs. Discusses implications for course content and organization. (Author/LS)

We compared male and female psychology majors to psychology minors and nonmajors to understand the trends in a growing major in which women outnumber men. A total of 451 psychology majors, minors, and nonmajors from 4 institutions completed a questionnaire measuring empathy, career goals, and perceptions of the importance of empathy for therapy.…