Lucy Zinkiewicz

Nick Hammond

Annie Trapp

University of York

A review of selected psychologicalresearch and theory with implications

for teaching practice

Report andEvaluation Series No 2

March 2003

Applying PsychologyDisciplinary Knowledge

to Psychology Teaching and Learning

Report andEvaluation Series No 2

March 2003

Contents

Abstract 4

Introduction 5

Applying Disciplinary Knowledge to Teaching Practice 6

Teaching practice informed by research knowledge 6

The use and disuse of research-informed teaching practice 6

Research-Informed Psychology Teaching 9

The need for a discipline-specific approach 9

Psychology disciplinary knowledge and teaching practice 9

Barriers to research-informed teaching in psychology 10The nature of disciplinary knowledge in psychology 11Operationalising and evaluating psychological theory 11Resistance to change 12

Approaches to research-informed practice in psychology teaching 13The problem-driven approach 13The knowledge-driven approach 13Integrating the two approaches 14

Selected Disciplinary Research with the Potential to Inform Teaching 15

Theories of development 15Piaget’s cognitive development theory (genetic epistemology) 15Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development 15Cognitive development in adults 16Implications for teaching 17

Student diversity 18Intelligence and reasoning 18

Guilford’s structure of intellect theory 18Sternberg’s triarchic theory of successful intelligence 18Gardner’s multiple intelligences 19Student learning styles 19Student approaches to learning 21Need for cognition 22Creativity 22Implications for teaching 23

Personality 23Trait approaches 23Theoretical approaches 24Implications for teaching 26

Cross-cultural differences 26Implications for teaching 27

Learning and thinking 27Behaviouristic approaches 27

The personalised system of instruction 28Implications for teaching 30

Experiential approaches 30Active learning 31

Problem-based learning 32Case studies 32

Implications for teaching 33Cognitive approaches 33

Thinking and reasoning 33Gestalt theory 33

Implications for teaching 34Schema theory 34

Implications for teaching 35General cognitive skills 35

Implications for teaching 36

Biases in cognition 36Implications for teaching 37

Metacognition 37Implications for teaching 38

Memory 38Information-processing theory 38Connectionist models 42Self-referencing 42Implications for teaching 42

Learning 43Subsumption theory 43

Implications for teaching 44Constructivism 44

Situated learning 46Cooperative learning 47Implications for teaching 49

Gagné’s information-processing model of learning 49Implications for teaching 49

Transfer of learning 50Implications for teaching 50

Social learning approaches 51Implications for teaching 52

Motivation 52Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation 52Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 54Herzberg’s two-factor theory 54Expectancy theory 55Self-determination theory 56Attribution theory, locus of control and self-efficacy 57Goal orientation 57Implications for teaching 58

The social context 59Group processes 59

Group development and structure 59Communication within groups 60Group norms and conformity 61Social loafing 62Implications for teaching 62

Intergroup relations 62Stereotyping and prejudice 62Intergroup contact 63Implications for teaching 64

Persuasion and attitude change 64Cognitive dissonance theory 64The elaboration likelihood model 65Implications for teaching 66

Leadership 66Implications for teaching 67

Barriers to and facilitators of learning 68Arousal and emotion 68Anxiety 68Stress 70Psychotherapy 71Resilience 71Implications for teaching 72

Assessing student learning 73Implications for teaching 74

Conclusion 75

References 76

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Abstract

This report explores how psychology research, theory and knowledge can be and has beenapplied to learning and teaching in psychology, with the aim of enabling more effectiveapplication of such disciplinary knowledge to psychological teaching practice. Because of thisfocus it is not a comprehensive overview of every psychological theory or knowledge basewith implications for psychological teaching, but a brief outline of some key theories that haveinspired or fed into psychology teaching or have the potential to do so. Its target audience ispsychology teaching staff within the UK university sector, but it may be of interest toeducators in different disciplines, sectors and countries.

The report begins with a brief discussion of the nature of research-informed teaching practice,and the opportunities it offers, as well as reasons for its disuse (including the tacit nature ofmuch practitioner knowledge, and lack of ownership of innovations). Research-informedteaching in psychology is then focused on, and particular barriers to the application ofpsychology theory and research to teaching are discussed. Problem-driven and knowledge-driven approaches to the application of psychological knowledge to practice are described,and their strengths and weaknesses delineated.

The main body of the report is an overview of a variety of psychological theories and researchfindings with pedagogical applications, highlighting implications of this knowledge andresearch to psychology teaching practice. Selected examples of the application of thisknowledge to practice can be found throughout this section, boxed to make them easier tofind.

The report concludes with a call for evaluation of the effectiveness of research-informedteaching practice, and for psychology practitioners to share their own such teaching practice.A full reference list is also attached.

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Introduction

This research report, based on the findings of the ‘Integrating pedagogic research intoteaching practice in psychology’ project funded by the Learning and Teaching SupportNetwork Development Fund, explores how psychology research, theory and knowledge canbe and has been applied to various aspects of psychology teaching. The aim of the project isto enable more effective application of such knowledge to the learning and teaching ofpsychology.

The present report focuses not on psychological knowledge as course content, but as theconceptual framework supporting innovations in psychological teaching practice. It is abouthow this knowledge can and does inspire new course structures, classroom activities,assessments, feedback mechanisms, web-based activities, and other aspects of teaching inpsychology. In order to do this, it reviews not just the published literature relating to research-informed psychological teaching practice, but also explores some recent examples of thiswithin higher education (HE) in more depth.

Because of its focus on implications of research and theory for teaching, this report does notaim to be a comprehensive overview of every psychological theory or knowledge base withimplications for teaching, but a brief outline of some key theories that have inspired or fed intopsychology teaching. Little prior knowledge of psychology is assumed, to make the report asbroadly accessible as possible. While some readers may choose to read through the reportfrom beginning to end, it is structured in such a way that the reader can dip into it at any point,and hopefully still find it comprehensible and useful.

While this report is primarily aimed at those teaching psychology in HE, it may also be usefulfor educators in psychology in further education, professional training, and secondaryeducation, as well as for educators in other disciplines. Although its intended audience is a UKone, many of the examples of psychology teaching discussed are non-UK ones, and itanticipated that non-UK psychology educators may also find this report to be of some use.

The report is complemented by the project’s website (http://ltsnpsy.york.ac.uk/LTSNPsych/r2p.htm), which features case studies on current research-informed psychologyteaching practice in the UK, reflective tools for educators in psychology, and an onlinedatabase where practitioners can share their own research-informed teaching practice. Wewould like to invite you to explore the website, and to use it to contact LTSN Psychology withany feedback or suggestions you may have concerning the issues raised in this report, theproject as a whole, or the project website.

This report begins, in the next section, with a brief discussion of the nature of research-informed teaching practice, and the particular possibilities and problems it offers in thepsychology teaching arena. This is followed by an overview of a variety of psychologicaltheories and findings with pedagogical applications, highlighting applications of these theoriesto psychology teaching practice, with boxed examples of when such theories have been thusapplied. A full reference list is also attached.

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Applying Disciplinary Knowledgeto Teaching Practice

Teaching practice informed by research knowledge

In the context of discussions about the scholarship of teaching and scholarly teaching,teaching based on research knowledge (both theory and method) is often known as research-led or research-based teaching. However, as McGuinness (1999) discusses, the term‘research-led teaching’ has assumed various meanings, and can refer to:• Teaching about specific research topics which are being studied by an academic at a point

in time;• Teaching which emphasises the cutting edge research/developments in one’s own area of

research;• Teaching more generally in one’s own area of scholarship;• Teaching with an emphasis on research methods/processes or ways of accumulating

knowledge in a particular discipline;• Teaching as ‘inquiry-based’ learning versus more didactic approaches to teaching;• Designing degree programmes which capitalise on current research expertise in a school

or across schools.

However, there is another sense in which teaching practice can be based on researchknowledge, and that is where teaching and curriculum uses evidence derived frompedagogical and other disciplinary theory, research and inquiry – for example, designing anassessment task on the basis of published education research – or utilises researchmethodologies to evaluate the effects of educational interventions. This type of educationalpractice could also be appropriately termed ‘research-informed teaching practice’, todifferentiate it from the former type of practice. It is such research-informed teaching practicethat is focused on in the present project.

The use and disuse of research-informed teaching practice

The interest in research-led and research-informed teaching reflects a trend in HE towardsbuilding upon established research expertise and performance and utilising it in theincreasingly competitive teaching quality market, with an increasing recognition that thescholarly and professional nature of university teaching is an aspect of the disciplinaryexpertise of academics (Barrie, Buntine, Jamie, & Kable, 2001). It also reflects the increasingpressures for teaching quality to be accountable.

Research-informed teaching has the potential to improve teaching and learning in a numberof different ways. When one’s teaching practice is based on theory and research knowledge,this can enhance learning through the use of more effective teaching and learning methods. Itcan also provoke students to consider how course content has been utilised and/ormanifested in the teaching methods used, and models the application of theory to practice(Norton, 2002). Research-informed teaching may also foster enthusiasm in educators,particularly where the research area concerned is a passion of theirs, and/or tied into theirresearch output. Academics who are research-oriented may value teaching that is related totheir research more than other areas of teaching (Coate, Barnett, & Williams, 2001).

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However, until recently it has been unusual for educators to apply research findings to thepractice of their profession (Laurillard, 1993). For example, in the school context, Galton(2000) reported that while 96% of the 302 educators surveyed had seriously considerededucational research findings since first qualifying as educators, 23% of these could notsubsequently give a single example of research that had influenced them, and most of the(largely psychological) research cited was at least ten years old. Though a similar study hasnot been conducted in the HE context, it is likely that similar or worse results could be found.

There are many reasons for this failure to apply research findings to teaching, including:• Separation of the research and teaching cultures, with strong financial and bureaucratic

pressures, in the current climate of UK HE, to treat research and teaching as distinctactivities (Coate et al., 2001; Hattie & Marsh, 1996), with teaching generally less rewarded(Huber, 2002);

• The traditional view of teaching as a ‘private’ activity, not a matter for scholarly enquiry andcommunication, in contrast to research as a ‘community’ activity, where practice is shared(Bass, 1999; Huber, 2002);

• Ignorance of relevant research findings, compounded by academics’ tendency to turn tocolleagues when they encounter problems in their teaching, rather than to the publishedresearch (Huber, 2002);

• Uncertainty about how research findings can be applied to specific teaching practice; and• Suspicion of generic research activities and findings and their application to teaching

practice, particularly if findings are presented in a popularised form that does not givereaders a hold on the research and arguments of the original work (Cross, 1998).

However, even when academics develop research-informed educational innovations, thisdoes not mean that such innovations will be effectively implemented and/or taken up by otheracademics, even within the same department or school. Resistance to change in establishedprocesses is inevitable in any context, and may be greater in teaching cultures, which mayfavour inertia over innovation (Bass, 1999).

It is also important to consider the perceived ownership of innovations – the processes bywhich individuals come to feel that the changes of which they are a part are in a real sense‘their’ changes (Slowey, 1995). For example, Blackwell, Channel and Wilson (2001) describethe same initiative introduced in two contexts: a department with no history of activity in thearea, and one with a more favourable and active environment. The initiative was a success inthe former, and a failure in the latter, contrary to what might have been expected. Blackwell etal. attribute this to staff ownership and positive attitudes, and leadership support, in the formerdepartment, contrasted with a perception of unnecessariness, and leadership attributing theinitiative to ‘external forces’, within the latter.

Blackwell and Preece (2001) suggest that three social processes appear to be central togenerating a sense of ownership:• The way in which the idea is introduced and to whom the participants attribute its genesis;• The extent to which those involved are socially integrated, with common norms of

behaviour and understandings of the world; and• The ways in which leaders influence participants’ attributions of why the innovation is

occurring, and frame issues such that they mobilise support in particular directions.

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The two researchers also suggest that academic staff unwillingness to adopt teaching andlearning approaches or materials developed elsewhere may be due to their first loyalty beingto their discipline, or subdiscipline and subject, with loyalty to department and institutioncoming in second and third. In a context where the growing desire of government to intervenewithin HE has created a feeling that discipline identity, professional autonomy and collegiality(all of which tend to be valued within academia) are threatened, any initiative with a larger-scale feel is viewed with scepticism and suspicion. Working through discipline-basednetworks such as LTSN Psychology, and creating discipline-specific innovations and staffdevelopment, may therefore be the best way to foster the uptake of educational innovations.

Based on work within the school context, McLaughlin and Mitra (2001) set out fiverecommendations for sustaining theory-based educational innovation, which parallel many ofthe points Blackwell and colleagues make:• Long-term resources must be sufficient to sustain changes, and to evaluate their impact;• Educators need to be inducted into the first principles of the reform, as well as the reform’s

activities, materials and strategies, in order to respond to competing pressures or changesin the environment once the ‘special project’ status ends;

• A supportive community of practice must be developed, which may require involvement bythe whole institution;

• Managers/supervisors must have their own reasons for supporting the initiative, as well astheir own clearly delineated roles, and these need to be anticipated and built into thedesign; and

• Governing bodies must again have delineated roles, and be supportive.

Despite difficulties in achieving these goals, however, work has been done more recently onthe application of educational research to teaching practice, particularly in the spheres ofphysical and natural science teaching at primary, secondary, and tertiary levels (e.g., Barrie etal., 2001). This work has tended to focus on the development of teaching demonstrations andother concrete resources. An important conclusion that can be drawn from these studies isthat underlying theory must be contextualised and interpreted within the specifics of theparticular learning situation in which it will be applied. Such an approach to research-informedteaching is also taken in the present report, for reasons that will be explored in the followingsection.

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Research-Informed Psychology Teaching

The need for a discipline-specific approach

The present report, and much of the work of LTSN Psychology, is an example of what isknown as the scholarship of learning and teaching – scholarly research and communicationthat aims not only to improve teaching and learning in one’s own classroom, but also toimprove it beyond one’s local setting by adding knowledge to, and even beyond, one’sdiscipline (Hutchings & Shulman, 1999).

Amongst those working in the area, there is an increasing recognition that much of thisscholarship is most effective if done at a disciplinary level, in part because of the importanceof one’s discipline to academic identity, and in part because teaching is not a generictechnique but a process arising from one’s view of one’s field and what it means to master it(Huber, 2002).

Disciplinary styles influence the pedagogical practices used in a discipline, so it isunsurprising that they also influence the choice of pedagogical problems investigated, and themethods of inquiry used in such investigation. Scholars usually begin by following disciplinarymodels developed for other purposes, when faced with the new task of exploring teaching andlearning in their field (Huber, 2002). For example, Cerbin (1996) uses the analogy of apsychological experiment to describe the action research conducted on his psychologysubject. Evidence for the success of an intervention, and the standard of proof for determiningthat an innovation works, also varies by discipline (Huber, 2002).

In addition, academics are likely to be more receptive to findings obtained through methodspreviously used within that discipline, and disseminated through the discipline’s usual routesof communication. For example, psychologists often communicate the findings of theirteaching- and learning-related research in the form of conference papers presented atpsychology teaching and learning conferences (such as LTSN Psychology’s PsychologyLearning and Teaching Conference), and articles in discipline-specific teaching and learningjournals (e.g., Psychology Learning and Teaching, Psychology Teaching Review, andTeaching of Psychology).

Psychology disciplinary knowledge and teaching practice

In a number of ways psychology is in a special position regarding research into educationalpractice. Many areas of psychological research are potentially relevant to understanding theprocesses of learning and teaching, which themselves are strongly psychological in nature.The question ‘what works in teaching and learning?’ is a particularly engaging one for adiscipline that focuses on cause and effect relationships (Nummedal, Benson, & Chew, 2002).Many psychologists have some familiarity with the kinds of methods used to evaluate theeffects of educational interventions, while psychological research findings can directly informthe design of such evaluations, pinpointing particular questions to be answered (Nummedal etal., 2002). It is not an unreasonable conclusion that bodies of psychological research data andtheory can be applied to aspects of educational practice under defined circumstances.

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However, such application of psychological understanding to improving the teaching ofpsychology is still relatively infrequent (Gale, 1990a, 1990b; Radford, 1992; Watts, 1990),despite an established theory and research literature relevant to teaching, student learningand the teaching environment. As Gale (1990b) puts it:

The typical psychology degree on offer today falls very short of the ideal. A majorproblem, or cause of the problem, is that psychologists have not used psychology itselfto design the degree (p. 8).

Brown (1997) adds:To be experts on the subject matter of learning and assessment but not to apply thatexpertise to the learning and assessment of one’s own students is to send conflicting,perhaps hypocritical, messages to them. And those that then become teachers ofpsychology will probably perpetuate the same approaches (p. 122).

This disuse of psychological knowledge is particularly ironic given psychologists’ tendency toencourage evidence-based practice in government and other agencies (Newstead, 2002).

The only major exception to this lack of application of psychological knowledge to teachingpractice is in the area of learning theory, which serves as the theoretical foundation fornumerous innovations in school (e.g., Brown & Campione, 1996) and tertiary (e.g., Doolittle,1997) education. Other areas of relevant theory and knowledge are much less frequentlyapplied, even by those developing this knowledge, the academic psychology community.

This is not to say that psychology teaching staff are not utilising such knowledge in thedevelopment of teaching innovations, but that this process may be a largely unconscious one.It is well-recognised that experts in a field, such as psychology lecturers, internalise theirknowledge of the field, its rules, values, attitudes, norms, procedures and the knowledge thatrelates to these procedures so deeply that they take them for granted (Polanyi, 1958, 1967).This taken-for-grantedness is described by Jarvis (2002) as the hardest type of knowledge toget at because experts rarely have the self-awareness to recognise what it is, so it must bepainstakingly mined for. As Jarvis puts it:

In the complex classroom situation we do not necessarily make our knowledge aboutteaching and learning explicit to ourselves. However, we need to make our currentteaching practice, and the theories and beliefs underpinning such practice, explicit sothat new approaches can connect with what the individual knows and holds tacitly(p. 130).

It is hoped that the present report will help this process become a more conscious one, andthat this will foster more effective teaching and learning in psychology.

Barriers to research-informed teaching in psychology

It is interesting to speculate why research knowledge appears to be less frequently explicitlyapplied to the development of improved teaching practice in psychology than one wouldexpect, given its relevance to teaching and learning. It is likely that a number of factorsinfluence this, in addition to the factors identified above that inhibit the application of researchto teaching in all disciplines.

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The nature of disciplinary knowledge in psychology

Firstly, psychology is a very large field, which makes it difficult for individuals to have a broadrange of knowledge of relevant theories and research findings. The diversity of theoreticalmodels in psychology can make it still more difficult for educators to make predictionsregarding behaviour in a particular context (Kremer, 1997), let alone predictions that arespecific and accurate enough on which to base practice. Some practitioners may perceivethat much of psychology knowledge, particularly that obtained through laboratoryexperiments, is too theoretical and/or reductionist, and has too little ecological validity, toprovide much guidance for practice (Richardson, 1992b; Tomlinson, 1992).

In relation to cognitive psychology knowledge, Richardson (1992b) argues that the lack ofapplication of this subdiscipline to education, despite its relevance to teaching and learning, isdue to its lack of interest in studying differences between individuals in cognitive developmentand associated cognitive function, and its tendency to assume that the responsible processesand mechanisms are common to all. For psychology educators with a focus on individualdifferences and needs of students, such research may appear to have little relevance. Inaddition, cognitive psychologists have often had little interest in the qualitative and especiallyin the experiential aspects of human cognition, which are difficult to quantify and verify againstobjective behaviour. Yet these aspects of cognition, such as student approaches to learningor their perception of the educational context, may strongly impact upon their processes oflearning.

More important than the nature of psychological knowledge, however, may be the issue ofperceived competence in this knowledge. Even when a psychology educator may be awarethat there are theories of (for example) motivation of relevance to teaching, they may feel thattheir knowledge is insufficient to be acted upon, particularly as psychology training andsocialisation into the profession emphasise the need for a deep knowledge of an area beforeit can be further investigated or applied. This is not merely an issue of exposing oneself topossible negative evaluation, but of lack of psychological ownership of the knowledge, whichis likely to be an important aspect of perceived self-efficacy in its application.

Operationalising and evaluating psychological theory

In addition, while psychologists are methodologically informed and sophisticated, this maysensitise them to the challenges inherent in engaging in and evaluating research-informedpractice and deter them from such. It may be difficult to adequately operationalise somepsychological theories, particularly those developed on the basis of controlled experimentalresearch, making theory testing problematic. Investigations conducted in the classroom rarelypermit the methodological rigour that is traditionally seen as necessary within the discipline torule out alternative explanations and determine what is responsible for any change(Nummedal et al., 2002). It may even be unethical to manipulate or control aspects of theeducational situation or the nature of participants (Huber, 2002). For example, who should orcould make up a control group, and how can students be randomly assigned to conditionswhen timetabling constraints may limit their attendance to particular sessions?

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Even when a theory has been adequately operationalised, and attempts made to control andstandardise the implementation of an innovation, the demands of the educational situationmay require or otherwise lead to inadequate sample size, loss of consistency inimplementation, or other methodological problems, as the case studies associated with thisreport show (http://ltsnpsy.york.ac.uk/LTSNPsych/r2p.htm). Variable(s) of interest mayinteract with other variables in the environment, such as the personal characteristics of a tutor,making it harder to attribute any changed outcomes solely to the focal variables. The morecomplex and large-scale the innovation, the more likely it is that such uncontrolled oruncontrollable factors will impact upon the results.

However, Nummedal et al. (2002) argue that the “lofty standard” (p. 174) of the experimentalmethod may not be the most appropriate approach to investigating the impact of research-informed and other pedagogical innovations in psychology. They argue that those in thediscipline who devalue scholarly work on teaching and learning for not meeting this standardmiss the most fundamental point about the relationship between research problems andresearch methodology – that methods per se do not have intrinsic value. Rather, their value isdetermined by the context of research questions, and should be assessed in terms of theextent to which they serve to provide useful answers to these questions.

On a more metatheoretical level, it could also be argued that a theory that is not applicable toand testable in a real-life context may be an inadequate theory (Tomlinson, 1992). As Jarvis(2002) puts it:

In the contemporary learning society, where education is become more vocationallyoriented… there is still a place for theoretical perspectives but the nature of theory haschanged slightly – it is no longer to be applied to practice but tested out by practitionersin practical situations to see whether it works. Theory can only be legitimated in practicesituations if it is useful to the practitioners who use it and we can rephrase the oldmaxim, ‘There is nothing as practical as good theory’ thus: ‘Theory is only good if it ispractical’ (p. 130).

McLaughlin and Mitra (2001) argue that to bring about effective implementation of theory-based change in classroom practice, theories need to be reconstructed so that they can adaptto the ways in which educators have to function on a daily basis, complete with competingdemands – i. e., theories need to become context-sensitive. However, context-sensitivetheories may be context-bound, making them difficult to apply in different contexts from thosein which they are developed.

Resistance to change

In addition, as with research-informed innovations in general, students and other staffmembers may show resistance to research-informed change in psychology teaching practice,despite it being based on valued research knowledge. The larger the scale of the change, themore likely some resistance will be encountered.

While much of this resistance may be due to difficulties associated with changing one’s ownestablished practice – for example, learning new skills, rewriting subjects, or obtainingbureaucratic approval or necessary funding – within the psychology context some of theresistance may relate to the nature of one’s self-concept. If a colleague within one’sdepartment does not see his-or her self as a researcher, or as a scientist-practitioner, theymay resist change that is grounded in research and the scientific method.

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Approaches to research-informed practice in psychologyteaching

As already noted, the next section of this report focuses on psychological theories withrelevance to learning and teaching in psychology, and briefly describes teaching innovationswhich have some basis in these theories or bodies of knowledge. These innovations take oneof two main approaches to the application of psychological knowledge to teaching practice:the problem-driven and the knowledge-driven approaches, each of which will now bedescribed.

The problem-driven approach

The problem-driven approach to research-informed practice arises from the need to deal witha particular teaching and/or learning problem that is encountered, including the failure of anintervention based on an aspect of research.

In such a situation, when academics start asking questions that the literature may help themformulate and resolve, they are more likely to turn to the expert research (Cross, 1998;Nummedal et al., 2002). Such an approach has parallels with (but differs from) the use ofproblem-based learning activities in teaching. For example, if lecturers find that students in aparticular subject are unmotivated, they may seek ways to deal with this problem, and as aconsequence explore what the psychological literature may say regarding motivation and howto foster it in general, and motivation to learn in particular, and devise a research-informedintervention. The results of this intervention may then extend, modify, or even contradict priorunderstandings, leading to important new research questions (Nummedal et al., 2002).

This more reactive approach may be a common way of operating in teaching and otherapplied fields, where time is limited and problems urgent. Unfortunately, such an approachmay lead to innovations not being documented in the literature, or perhaps solely in thegeneral or discipline-specific HE teaching and learning literature. Findings with importantimplications for the psychological research/theory from which the solution is taken may not bedisseminated to the mainstream of psychological research, and may therefore not be appliedand built upon. If the methodology used to determine the problem and its solution(s) is that ofaction research (Norton, 2001b), there may be particular difficulties in getting publication inmany mainstream journals with a tradition of publishing experimental and quasi-experimentalresearch. However, innovations taking this approach are likely to be more ecologically valid,and may be more successful, as they are shaped by and for the particular context in which theknowledge is applied.

The knowledge-driven approach

By contrast, the knowledge-driven approach focuses on working from one’s knowledge ofpsychological research and theory to investigate the implications and applications of thistheory in the teaching and learning context, and has parallels to the use of classroomactivities and assessments in which students are required to apply to a new context theory orknowledge that they have been taught. For example, if one were a social psychologistfocusing on intergroup relations, one might explore the implications of research on intergroupcontact to foster better relationships between mature-age and younger students in the

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classroom. Such application may be an unconscious process (i.e., one suddenly realises theimplications of one’s knowledge base), or a more proactive, systematic approach, perhapsrooted in one’s own research, and exploring its extensions into the educational context.

Because of the stronger research/theoretical orientation of those taking on this approach,methods used may be those common in more mainstream experimental or quasi-experimental research (e.g., random assignment to conditions, pre- and post-testing, use ofcontrol conditions, etc.). By being rooted in mainstream psychological research, theory, andmethodology, there is a greater likelihood of it ‘feeding back’ into the mainstream literaturethrough acceptance for publication in traditional psychological journals.

However, if these journals are not also read by the practitioner community, successfulinnovations may not be taken up by those who may be most in need of them. Even if read bypractitioners, the implications of the study to practice may need to be made more transparent,or may not be seen as applicable to other contexts. This may particularly be the case if thestudy is not conducted in a real-life teaching context, but instead puts psychology studentsinto an experimental setting, as is the case for some of the innovations reviewed in the nextsection of this report.

Integrating the two approaches

Both approaches can be equally valid, provided educators attempt to deal with the limitationsof whichever one is chosen. However, in reality few innovations will take entirely oneapproach or the other, but will take both approaches at some point(s) in the process.

For example, some of the case studies collected on the website for this project(see http://ltsnpsy.york.ac.uk/LTSNPsych/r2p.htm) take a mixture of the two approaches.The innovation described in Case Study 2, which focuses on the application of research intoacademic reading and writing, initially arose from the research interests of two of its maindrivers, taking a knowledge-driven approach. Yet there was also an element of beingdissatisfied with the previous situation, so to some extent the innovation was also problem-driven. By contrast, the innovation described in Case Study 1 began by taking a moreproblem-driven approach (motivated by new requirements for explicit assessment criteria),but shifted into a more knowledge-driven approach in order to develop the specificassessment criteria produced.

Additionally, as already mentioned, the results of problem-driven interventions, as well asknowledge-driven ones, can have important consequences for the research and theory onwhich interventions are based, and thereby lead to subsequent knowledge-driveninterventions. Further examples of both approaches, taken from the literature, can be seen inthe next section of this report.

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Selected Disciplinary Research with thePotential to Inform Teaching

As outlined in the previous paragraph, the present section of this report introduces a range ofpsychological theories and findings with implications for psychology teaching. This is notintended to be a comprehensive review of all theories and findings with relevance to teaching,merely an introduction to some theories with clear implications for the teaching of psychology,and a highlighting of such implications. Interspersed among the overviews of teaching-relatedtheories and research are brief overviews of published reports and conference papers inwhich some of the reviewed theories have been applied to psychology teaching. Theseexamples of applications are highlighted in boxes, for easy reference.

Theories of development

Piaget’s cognitive development theory (genetic epistemology)

According to Piaget (1972, 1973), four factors shape cognitive development: maturation (dueto genetic forces), equilibration, active experience, and social interaction. Equilibration is thetendency to balance assimilation (responding in terms of previous learning, assimilating newexperience to one’s cognitive schemata, see page 34) with accommodation (changingbehaviour and/or one’s schemata in response to the environment). Active experience isinteraction with real objects and events, allowing the individual to discover things and toconstruct schemata. Social interaction leads to the elaboration of schemata about things,people and the self.

Piaget described cognitive development as moving from concrete, literal thinking (thesensorimotor, pre-operational, and concrete operations stages of development) to abstract,symbolic thought (the formal operations stage). In the formal operations stage, individuals candeal with abstract, hypothetical subject matter, and there is propositional thinking, completegenerality of thought, and the development of strong idealism. While Piaget felt that formaloperations was reached by ages 11 to 12, some research has shown that only a smallproportion of college students actually are in formal operations, with most still in concreteoperations. Students in this stage of thinking cannot understand symbolism, hypothetical-deductive reasoning, synthesis and evaluation, except in a very concrete and literal way,therefore as an educator it is impossible to use curriculum and pedagogy at a formaloperational level with students who are still in concrete operations.

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development

While the emphasis in Piaget’s theory is on the internally-driven development of the logicalsystems underlying the construction of meaning, Vygotsky’s (1962, 1978) theory emphasisesthe centrality of culture and of social influences in human development, and of the principalinvention and main tool of human culture, language. According to Vygotsky, humans createculture, but cultures have lives of their own and powerfully influence us: we are not onlyculture-producing but culture-produced. They specify what the end product of successfuldevelopment is, determine what we have to learn and the sorts of competencies we need to

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develop. Psychological development may therefore differ in different periods of history andfrom one culture to another. Humans move from elementary human functions to higher mentalfunctions such as problem-solving and thinking largely through the influence of culture, associal processes bring about the learning of language, and language ultimately makesthought possible. Language, according to Vygotsky, is the basis of consciousness, makingthought possible and regulating behaviour. Without language we are limited to elementarymental functions. But with language we can interact socially, and with social interaction comeswhat Vygotsky describes as ‘upbringing and teaching’, which is essential for development.

Vygotsky also came up with the concept of a zone of proximal growth (or development), azone of current capabilities with the potential for development and improvement, where a taskcan be initially done with the help of others but can later be done alone. The task of educatorsis to arrange for educational activities that lie within this zone – neither too difficult nor toosimple and that therefore lead to continued growth. Because this zone varies betweenindividuals, the most effective teaching methods take into consideration individual differencesand therefore need to be varied across a class.Tasks within the ZPD require scaffolding,defined as the many different methods educators use to provide support for students as theylearn – direction, guidance, support – and which they gradually withdraw as the learner beginsto build on previous learning by gradually learning how to learn. Scaffolding is essentiallylearning through gradual increments as a result of an interactive process of collaborationbetween educator and learner. Doolittle (1997) discusses how the ZPD also relates to theinstructional strategy of cooperative learning, pointing out that the ZPD provides a conceptualbasis for explaining the five basic tenets of cooperative learning: positive interdependence,face-to-face interaction, individual accountability, small group and interpersonal skills, andgroup self-evaluation. On the basis of this discussion, Doolittle presents a series of guidelinesor suggestions for using cooperative learning.

Vygotsky also emphasised that as education is intended to develop individuals’ personalities,and therefore is linked with the development of creative potential, education should provideopportunities for this creative development. He also emphasised the importance of activelearning and collaborative learning, with students as true participants in the teaching/learningprocess and educators as guides and directors of activity.

Cognitive development in adults

While Piaget’s model essentially ends at formal operations, positing little change after this isachieved, Basseches (1984) argues that cognitive development continues after adolescence,reflecting the problems faced in adult life. Instead of becoming more logical, thinking becomesmore relative, more attuned to conflict, and more sensitive to moral, ethical, social andpolitical realities – a form of thinking Basseches calls dialectical thinking. Dialectical thinkingstruggles to create meaning and order by resolving conflict, with the dialectical thinker alwaysaware of other possibilities and recognising that no solution is necessarily absolute and final.Labouvie-Vief (1980) agrees, pointing out that formal logic might be inadequate or evenirrelevant for many of the problems that adults face. Mature reasoning requires concretepragmatics, sensitive to a wide range of possibilities, taking into account what will work and isacceptable, and factoring in social and moral realities.

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Knowles (1984a, 1984b) argues that the differing nature of adult thought means that adultlearning (‘andragogy’) requires different learning strategies and teaching techniques from thoseused in traditional pedagogy. It is argued that:• Adults’ earlier learning is substantial, implicit, assumed, and needs to be built upon through

new learning experiences;• Adults are generally self-directed, but also require a climate of trust, collaboration and

openness;• They are biased towards learning through problem-solving and experience (including

mistakes);• They generally internalise their learning only if motivated by intrinsic factors (see page 52);

and• They need to see high practical relevance in order to commit to learning.

Andragogy implies an acceptance of the importance of more focused and individualisedlearning strategies, rather than simply treating everyone homogeneously as a group withcommon needs and experiences. While this does not mean an end to collective learningexperiences that can offer valuable opportunities for shared reflection, it has considerableimplications for the nature of learning activities and teaching styles employed.

Implications for teaching

While different models of cognitive development have been posited, they lead to many of thesame recommendations for psychology teaching in the university context:• Recognise that individual differences in student learning are inevitable;• Focus on the process of students’ thinking, not just its products; only when you appreciate

students’ methods of arriving at particular conclusions will you be in a position to provideappropriate learning experiences;

• Utilise learning materials and activities that involve the appropriate level of mental operationsfor students’ current cognitive capabilities;

• Exploit adult learning advantages – i.e., use active learning techniques, find materials thatreflect student interests, experience and knowledge, build on previous knowledge and skillsdeveloped in real life situations, and involve students in the planning and evaluation of theirinstruction;

• Use learning activities and situations that challenge students and require adaptation;scaffolding can assist students to learn how to deal with tasks;

• Use examples based on familiar situations (e.g., shopping), before moving onto less familiarcontexts (e.g., conducting an experiment);

• Discourage students from simply telling stories as a way to make an argument. For example,many students will try to prove their arguments by giving a case study or example from theirown experiences (which is not representative);

• Provide opportunities for the development of creativity; and• Encourage collaborative learning, and urge students at different levels of performance to

help each other learn.

Student diversity

While general processes of development can help instructors match what they teach to theneeds of the student, each student is an individual, with a unique combination of abilities andcharacteristic styles. These differences are important since they can give educators ideasabout how to adapt learning experiences for each student’s particular needs. The followingsubsection of this report highlights some of these individual differences and how they mayimpact on teaching.

Intelligence and reasoning

Traditionally, it has been assumed that the most important factor in learning is inherited ornatural intelligence, recognising that motivation, persistence, and other similar factors areimportant as well. Recently conceptions of intelligence have changed dramatically, however,reflecting the view that among the important components of intelligent activity are cognitivefunctions that are largely learned, not inherited, and that intelligence is multidimensional anddynamic. This review will now present some general theories of intelligence and theirimplications for teaching in psychology.

Guilford’s structure of intellect theoryGuilford’s (1959) structure of intellect model describes human intellectual functioning in termsof three main aspects: operations, products, and content, with all abilities involving acombination of these three aspects. Because there are five operations, six types of product,and five different kinds of content, there are theoretically 150 distinct human components ofintelligence or abilities. Operations (the major intellectual processes of cognition, memory,convergent thinking, divergent thinking, and evaluation) are applied to content (cognitiveinformation which can be visual, auditory, symbolic, semantic, or behavioural) to yield aproduct (the results of processing information, describable as units, classes, relations,systems, transformations, and implications). Essentially, reasoning skills (convergentthinking), problem-solving skills (divergent thinking), memory operations, decision-makingskills (evaluation operations), and language-related skills (cognitive operations) can besubdivided into 30 different abilities or skills. Guilford researched and developed a widevariety of tests to measure the specific abilities predicted by his theory, which provide anoperational definition of the many abilities proposed by the theory.

Sternberg’s triarchic theory of successful intelligenceSternberg’s (1985, 1996) theory of intelligence describes intelligence as a balance amongselecting, changing and adapting to real contexts, with those who are successful in adaptingto the world and having control over it having successful intelligence as opposed topsychometric intelligence. This view of intelligence is triarchic or threefold in nature, in thatsuccessful intelligence requires analytic abilities, creative abilities, and practical abilities(which often require the use of tacit knowledge, implicit knowledge that cannot easily be putinto words). Intelligence also requires metacognition or ‘executive’ processes, which controlthe strategies and tactics used in intelligent behaviour (see page 37). According to the theory,successful intelligence is defined by the sociocultural context in which it takes place, andinvolves adaptation to the environment, selection of better environments, and shaping of thepresent environment, through a balance of analytical, creative and practical abilities. Theseabilities are each taught and assessed differently.

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Problem: Promoting performance

Context: General psychology

Theory: Sternberg’s triarchic model of intelligence

Sternberg, Torff and Grigorenko (1998) report that secondary school students taught atertiary-level psychology subject triarchically performed better than did those taught withtraditional instruction (primarily memory-based) or critical thinking instruction (primarilyanalytically-based). Triarchically taught students did better not only on performanceassessments (when they were asked to analyse, create, and apply), but also onstandard memory-based multiple-choice items. According to Sternberg and colleagues,teaching triarchically helps students to encode information in multiple ways, making iteasier to retrieve (see page 40), and helps students to capitalise on their strengths andweaknesses. Sternberg, Ferrari, Clinkenbeard, and Grigorenko (1996; Sternberg,Grigorenko, Ferrari, & Clinkenbeard, 1999), again using high school students taughtcollege psychology, found that if students were taught in a way that at least partiallymatched their pattern of abilities, their performance on tests of achievement (multiple-choice memory, analytical, creative, and practical) was better than if there were amismatch between teaching, assessment and ability.

Gardner’s multiple intelligencesGardner (1983, 1993, 1998) suggests that we have not one but at least seven, probably eight,and perhaps even ten largely unrelated kinds of intelligence: logical-mathematical, linguistic,musical, spatial (pictures and images), bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal(self-knowledge) – and probably naturalist, and possibly spiritual and existential intelligences.These intelligences represent not only different content domains but also learning modalities.Gardner also emphasises the cultural context of multiple intelligences, pointing out that eachculture tends to emphasise particular intelligences.While there is no direct empirical supportfor the theory, Gardner (1983) presents suggestive evidence from many domains, includingbiology, anthropology and the creative arts. According to Gardner, students need all theseintelligences to deal with problem-solving, so assessment of abilities should measure all formsof intelligence, not just linguistic and logical-mathematical. Learning and teaching shouldfocus on the particular intelligences of each person, encouraging individuals to use theirpreferred intelligences in learning, and educators should use a variety of instructionalactivities appealing to different forms of intelligence.

Student learning stylesEach person has a personal and unique learning style, their characteristic and consistentapproach to organising and processing information, and preferences for how they like to learnand the pace at which they learn. The purpose of learning styles research is to identifyclusters of people who use similar patterns for perceiving and interpreting situations, and usethis information to adjust educational environments to make them more efficient andsuccessful. In addition, research suggests that learning styles are not fixed and deterministic,but can be modified over time and for different purposes in different classroom contexts.

As a number of authors have noted (e.g., Montgomery & Groat, 1998; Rayner & Riding,1997), a large number of taxonomies of learning styles and instruments used to measurethem have been developed. In an attempt to make some sense of the research, Curry (1987,1990) suggests there are four types of learning style model: personality models (focusing on

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how differences in personality shape orientations towards the world); information-processingmodels (how information-processing preferences affect learning); social interaction models(considering ways in which students in specific contexts will behave in the classroom); andinstructional and environmental preferences.

One of the earliest personality approaches is Witkin’s (1962) field independence-dependenceapproach, which focuses on an individual’s ability to ‘disembed’ their perception from theeffects of context. Field-dependent students prefer interpersonal interactions such as thosefound in social sciences and humanities, while field-independent students prefer areasinvolving analytic skills, suggesting they would learn best where environments favour thesestyles. The Myers-Briggs Type indicator (Myers, 1993; Myers & McCaulley, 1985) is anotherwell-known personality model.

Information-processing models include Kolb’s (1984) approach to experiential learning (seepage 30), in which he maps out four quadrants and shows how they can serve as stages ofholistic learning (individual styles are seen as particular strengths in the process). Honey andMumford (1988) identified the reflector (who reflects on concrete experience and likes a rangeof options), the theorist (who reflects on data and information in a systematic way), thepragmatist (who likes to get results, is independent, and practical), and the activist (whoenjoys active learning, is interactive and experimental), arguing we prefer to learn in one ortwo of these ways. Anderson and Adams (1992) focus on analytical versus relational learners,arguing that analytical learners tend to focus on sequential details rather than the overallstructure, while relational learners tend to relate all of the information to the overall structureand focus on the interactions involved; some evidence exists that white females tend to havea more relational learning style, while white males are more analytical. Other models includeGardner’s (1983, 1993, 1998) theory of multiple intelligences (see page 19), and Pask’s(1976) taxonomy of serialist (who like to progress through learning step by logical step),holistic (who like the big picture before getting to the details) and versatile learners.

Social interaction models include Perry’s (1970) model of intellectual and ethical developmentthrough the college years, and Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger and Tarule’s (1986) women’sways of knowing, which posits that women prefer different strategies to those recognised andrewarded in typical universities. Instructional preference models include that of Dunn andDunn (Dunn, 1984; Dunn, Beaudry, & Klavas, 1989; Dunn, Dunn, & Price, 1985), whichidentifies five dimensions of student learning style preference (environmental, emotional,sociological, physiological, and psychological).

Many university departments and educators are actively using the idea of learning style. Forexample, Smith and Woody (2000) reported an interaction between class format (traditionalversus multimedia) and student learning style, with multimedia particularly benefiting studentswith a high visual orientation. However, the evidence for learning styles is not strong; learningstyle does not appear to account for much variance in students’ performance. In addition,many of the elements focused on are fairly basic psychological processes, suggesting that theconcept of learning styles itself may be somewhat unnecessary.

Student approaches to learningApproaches to learning can refer to the process adopted prior to the outcome of learning, asoriginally proposed by Marton and Saljo (1976), or it can refer to predispositions to adoptparticular processes, how students report they usually go about learning (Biggs, 1987). Ineither meaning, an approach to learning has three components: how one approaches a task,the strategy used, and the motive for approaching it in the first place. There are three commonapproaches to learning – surface, deep and achieving – based on differing conceptions oflearning (Marton, Dall’Alba, & Beaty, 1993; Saljo, 1979), and measured by the Approaches toStudy Inventory (Entwistle & Ramsden, 1983; Newstead, 1992a; Richardson, 1992a) or, morerecently, the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students (Entwistle, Tait, & McCune,2000).

The surface approach has an extrinsic motive, with the task carried out because of eitherpositively – or negatively – reinforcing consequences such as a high mark or failure in asubject. Surface-motivated students focus on what appear to be the most important topics (asdefined by examinations) and reproduce them, with rote learning a typical surface strategy.Because of this focus, they do not see interconnections between elements, or the meaningsand implications of what is learned. The deep approach is motivated by intrinsic motivation orcuriosity, and focuses on the learning process. There is a personal commitment to learning,which means that the student relates the content to personally meaningful contexts or toexisting prior knowledge, depending on the subject concerned. Deep processing involvesprocesses of a higher cognitive level than does rote learning: searching for analogies, relatingto previous knowledge, theorising about what is learned, and deriving extensions andexceptions. The achieving approach, like the surface approach, is focused on the product, theego-boosting effect of obtaining high marks and winning prizes. The general strategy is thusto maximise the chances of obtaining high marks. While this (hopefully) involves optimalengagement in the task (like the deep strategy), such engagement is the means not the end(unlike the deep strategy); the nature of the engagement really depends on what earns themost marks.

While at any given time surface and deep approaches are mutually exclusive, an achievingapproach may be linked to either. Surface achievers, for instance, systematically learnselected details by rote to obtain high marks. Deep achievers, who often are the betterstudents, are organised and they plan their search both for meaning and for high marks.

There are two main influences on the student’s development and choice of a certain learningapproach: personal factors and the teaching context. On the personal side, some factors inthe student’s background or personality seem to be associated with a surface approach(Biggs, 1989) and others with a deep approach (Biggs, 1987). On the teaching side, timepressures, examination stress, and using test items that emphasise low-level cognitiveoutcomes encourage a surface approach (Norton, Tilley, Newstead, & Franklyn-Stokes, 2001;Ramsden, 1985). By contrast, learner activity, student-student interaction, and interactiveteaching, particularly problem-based teaching, encourage a deep approach (Baillie, Porter, &Corrie, 1996; Biggs & Telfer, 1987; Clibbens, 2000). As with student learning style, a student’slearning approach can vary by subject, but can also entirely change. However, such changemay require some metacognitive awareness and reflection (see page 37), as well asawareness-raising (Norton & Crowley, 1995).

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Problem: Fostering deeper approaches to learning

Context: Learning skills course

Theories: Approaches to learning

Norton and colleagues (Norton & Crowley, 1995; Norton & Dickens, 1995; Norton,Scantlebury, & Dickens, 1999; see Norton, 2001a, for some of the course materials)developed a learning intervention course called Approaches to Learning, which ran inpsychology at Liverpool Hope. This aimed to teach students about approaches tolearning, and to foster deeper approaches to learning. Norton and colleagues reportedthat while there was a problem with student attrition, which might suggest some self-selection of more committed students, when Psychology students attended the wholecourse the intervention had significant beneficial effects on academic performance.

Need for cognitionAn individual difference that may have some relationship to learning style and approach tolearning is need for cognition (NFC; Cacioppo, Petty, Feinstein, & Jarvis, 1996). This is atendency for people to seek, acquire, think about and reflect back on information to makesense of it, rather than to rely on others and use heuristics (cognitive shortcuts). In their meta-analyses, Cacioppo et al. found that ‘cognisers’ (those high in NFC) substantiallyoutperformed ‘cognitive misers’ in recalling information they had studied, were more likely toassess arguments for substantive merit and engage in scrutinising information, were morelikely to be metacognitively aware of cognitive effort spent (see page 37), and in general weremore likely to engage in metacognitive control to correct initial misperceptions or biases. Needfor cognition seems a good candidate for inclusion as a pervasive yet probably tacitdispositional individual difference that affects metacognitively guided studying.

CreativityWhile most educational processes involve honing in on a single correct answer – convergentthinking – Guilford (1950) identified the need for divergent thinking, the ability to find differentanswers or solutions, also known as creativity. Creativity can be seen as the coming togetherof a number of different processes, rather than a single general ability. While Guilford sawcreativity as involving fluency, flexibility, and originality, more recent research such as that ofSternberg (1999; Sternberg & Lubart, 1995) finds that other factors, such as general ability,personality, domain knowledge, thinking style, and motivation, each predict performance oncreative tasks.

Although current research into creativity varies about the nature of creativity (e.g., Finke,Ward, & Smith, 1992; Sternberg, 1988), there is some agreement that the creative processinvolves the application of past experiences or ideas in novel ways. For example, Finke etal.’s (1992) Geneplore model sees creativity as having two key phases. In the generativephase, a range of normal cognitive processes (e.g., retrieval, associations, synthesis) operateand can result in pre-inventive structures such as mental images, combinations of verbalinformation, exemplars and so on. In the exploratory phase such structures are explored andinterpreted to assess their creative possibilities, or the process can be repeated to considermore structures and possibilities. The model also emphasises that the overall processinvolves considering functional constraints on what is needed and the usefulness of what isarrived at.

Such models of creativity imply that students’ creativity can be fostered if they are encouragedto use these types of techniques and processes (e.g., Macaranas, 1982; Pike, 2002). On thebasis of her research into creativity, Amabile (1996) suggests that it may be valuable to trainindividuals in the use of creativity heuristics that guide problem-solving and invention, such asrearranging or juxtaposing elements of a problem; brainstorming; making the familiar strangeand the strange familiar; and generating hypotheses by using analogies, accounting forexceptions, and investigating paradoxes.

Implications for teachingWhile different models of intelligence and learning differences have been posited, they lead tosimilar recommendations for psychology educators:• Assist students in becoming aware of and exploiting their differences in strategies and

styles, as this can empower them;• Consider modifying one’s teaching style to fit a broader range of students, which requires

being self-reflective about one’s pedagogical goals and strengths in teaching. Optionsinclude different social groupings, alternative activities, more complex projects thatincorporate all styles, and the use of communication and information technologies;

• As the reality is that it is impossible to cater for individual differences to a huge extent inHE, remember that not all learning style preferences are always useful in all contexts inhelping learners reach their learning goals;

• Gradually introduce class activities that stretch student capabilities in order to help themaccommodate a greater variety of styles;

• Attempt to foster in students more complex abilities, such as those involved in divergentthinking, evaluating, arriving at implications, and responding practically to the world;

• Make clear the links between required intellectual performance and real world behaviour incontext; and

• Provide explicit instruction in strategies for coping with novel tasks and situations.

Personality

As educators know, student personality can have a substantial impact on behaviour in theeducational context. Some of the research evidence for this is reviewed below.

Trait approachesPersonality theories have the potential to illuminate psychological teaching as well asresearch. Research into academic success reveals significant correlations between a numberof personality traits and academic success. For example, Wolfe and Johnson (1995) foundthat conscientiousness was a significant predictor of college entrant marks, and in generalunstable introverts tend to do better in higher education, possibly because unstable studentsare more motivated to work (Anthony, 1983). Certain personality factors may also correlatewith success in certain subjects, with Entwistle (1972) finding that high performing socialscience students (e.g., psychology students) were intermediate on both extraversion andstability, contrasting with stable introverts (best at natural sciences or history) and unstableintroverts (best at engineering and languages). Such findings suggest that it may be useful toincorporate measures of such traits into academic and vocational counselling.

Another personality trait that has been shown to be of relevance to education is self-monitoring, the extent to which people monitor (observe, regulate, and control) the publicappearances of self they display in social situations and interpersonal relationships (Snyder,

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1974). Self-monitoring is a proposed explanation for why we sometimes do not behave inways that are consistent with our attitudes – those high in self-monitoring may be moreinfluenced by behavioural cues within the social context than by their own attitudes andbeliefs (Snyder & Swann, 1976). This conception of self-monitoring is similar to that of self-consciousness (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975), with high self-monitors high in public self-consciousness and low self-monitors high in private self-consciousness. According to Snyder,self-monitoring is an individual difference, and he therefore constructed and validated a scaleto measure this (Snyder, 1974). However, regardless of level of self-monitoring, Snyder andKendzierski (1982) found that when the relevance of people’s attitudes in a particular situationis highlighted to them, people are more likely to behave in ways that are consistent with theirattitudes than if the relevance of their attitude is not highlighted.

Problem: Increasing responsibility and improving performance within the classroom

Context: Introductory psychology

Theories: Self-monitoring research

Waehler, Kopera-Frye, Wiscott and Yahney (1999), in an introductory psychologycourse, manipulated students’ self-monitoring through the use of journals to enhanceself-awareness, and found that in the self-monitoring condition students achieved highertest scores and engaged in fewer disruptive behaviours – essentially, they were moreresponsible within the classroom, presumably behaving in ways consistent with theirattitudes and values as well as with classroom norms. Similarly, Light, McKeachie andLin (2002) found that, when psychology students’ self-monitoring was enhanced duringan exam by instructing them to self-score the adequacy of their answers, theirperformance was significantly better than that of students in the control condition.

As with student learning style, which in some cases may be personality-related (see page 20),students may benefit from the opportunity to assess themselves on various personality scalesthat have some predictive relationship with academic success and/or preference for particularlearning activities.

Theoretical approachesMore theoretical approaches to personality, such as humanistic or person-centred psychology(e.g., Rogers, 1969; Rogers & Freiberg, 1994), may also be useful in informing teachingpractice in HE. Unlike trait theories of personality, which are relatively rigid, humanisticpsychology enables educators to emphasise the possibilities and processes of change in theway students and educators learn things and behave. According to this approach, peoplehave inbuilt potentialities, which can be realised both through personal therapy and education,so as to promote personal renewal and socialisation. The fully functioning person, who is ableto live fully in and with their feelings and reactions and is open to a range of their own needsand external demands, is constructive and trustworthy. This has implications for education, inthat the learner is actively and naturally promoting their own best development in sociallyharmonious ways. According to Rogers (1969; Rogers & Freiberg, 1994), when the individualis fully themselves, they cannot help but be realistically socialised, as the need to be liked byothers and the tendency to give affection are as strong as the impulses to strike out and seizefor oneself.

A key element of humanistic psychology, facilitation, has permeated through experientialapproaches to learning such as student-centred learning, role modelling, apprenticeship andreflective practice. Facilitators help learners get in touch with their internal capacities to learnand to make sense of their experiences, value such experience and make it the basis on whichother types of learning occur. The principle of holistic education is central to both parties infacilitation, embracing and affirming complexity, inclusion and diversity and resistingreductionism.

Another more theoretical personality approach that has been utilised in HE (Provost & Anchors,1987) is the Myers-Briggs Personality Type, which is based on Jung’s (1971) personality theory.Jung observed that people tend to behave in predictable ways, what he called ‘types’. Each typevaries on a number of personality dimensions, three of which he identified: extroversion-introversion, sensing-intuition and thinking-feeling. His work was expanded by Myers-Briggs andBriggs (Myers, 1993), who added a fourth dimension – judging-perceiving – and developed theMyers-Briggs Type Indicator (Myers & McCaulley, 1985). Within education, the Myers-BriggsType tends to be utilised as a learning style, which can be used to help students determine theirstrengths and weaknesses in learning (see page 20).

Jensen (1987) suggests that lecturers themselves become aware of their personality type, andcontinue predominantly to teach consistently with their type – according to Jensen, Jung referredto teachers falsifying their type as “educational monstrosities” (p. 188) – but to add someflexibility. Thus, introverted lecturers could provide more time for class discussion, intuitive onesinclude more facts (though concentrate on theories and concepts), thinking lecturers praise aswell as challenge, and so on.

Problem: Fostering understanding and application of personality theories,

fostering self-actualisation

Context: Personality psychology

Theories: Jungian Type theory, humanistic psychology

Ware (2001) uses Jungian Type theory (the Myers-Briggs Personality Type) to teach asenior-level personality theory course, employing the theory in every element from thewriting of the syllabus and conduct of the class, to the ways of evaluating learning andstudents’ evaluation of the course. Smith and McIntosh (2001) offered a course inhumanistic and transpersonal psychology, as part of a traditional undergraduatecurriculum, and found that scores on Shostrom’s (1964) Personal Orientation Inventory(which aims to measure values and behaviours of importance in the development of theself-actualising individual) provided evidence that students grew in self-actualisation aftertaking the course.

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Implications for teachingSeveral recommendations for teaching practice emerge from the literature on personality:• Try to enhance students’ self-monitoring through the use of activities such as educational

attitude scales, reflective journals and self-evaluation;• Consider incorporating measures of personality traits or types that are good predictors of

academic performance into academic counselling and student self-assessment activities(e.g., personal development planning); and

• Reflect on the impact of your own personality on your teaching and your relationship withstudents.

Cross-cultural differences

While the same basic principles of learning, motivation and effective instruction apply to alllearners, variations in language, ethnicity and race can all influence learning. Research into cross-cultural psychology (whether focusing on differences between cultures, and/or between adominant culture and subcultures in the same community) has the capacity to have a great impacton psychology teaching in HE. For example, research shows that for Hmong tribespeople from themountains of Laos, who are used to working cooperatively and to looking to their educators fordirection and guidance, ways of working that emphasise self-directedness and internal locus ofcontrol will be experienced, initially at least, as dissonant and anxiety-producing (Podeschi, 1990).However, their liking for materials focusing on personal concrete experience fits well withexperiential approaches to learning. Other research (e.g., Earley, 1989) shows that social loafingwithin small groups is not as likely or as a great a problem in more collectivist cultures as opposedto individualistic ones such as the UK. Cross-cultural research reveals that careful attention toethnicity and other factors in the instructional setting enhances the possibilities for designing andimplementing appropriate learning environments.

When learners perceive that their individual differences in abilities, backgrounds, cultures andexperiences are valued, respected and accommodated in learning tasks and contexts, levels ofmotivation and achievement are enhanced. One way of fostering this perception, and therebyenhancing student performance and comfort, is the use of educators drawn from their own ethniccommunities – ‘teaching their own’ is a common theme surfacing in case studies of multiculturallearning (Brookfield, 1986; Podeschi, 1990).Cross-cultural issues in psychology teaching arefocused on in Collingridge (1999), who discusses teaching international students, and suggestssome solutions for overcoming various barriers; Gloria, Rieckmann and Rush (2000), who presentpedagogical concerns and strategies for lecturers teaching ethnic- or culture-based courses inpsychology; and Hill (2000), who discusses ways to incorporate a cross-cultural perspective intopsychology curricula. The challenges of teaching in another country, and strategies for adaptinginstruction to address the pedagogical obstacles, are specifically addressed in Sommer andSommer (1991), Miserandino (1996), and Shatz (2000).

Problem: Fostering diversity

Context: General psychology

Theories: Cross-cultural psychology, social learning theory

Wheeler, Ayers, Fracasso, Galupo and Rabin (1999) discuss the challenges faced indevising and teaching a curriculum based on cross-cultural psychology, and provide specificstrategies for creating and sustaining a diversity-sensitive classroom climate. They present atechnique based on modelling appropriate diversity-sensitive behaviours that involves theuse of language and course content to model respect for several forms of diversity.

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Implications for teachingResearch into cross-cultural psychology leads to a number of recommendations for teaching,including:• Try to accommodate cross-cultural diversity in learning tasks and assessment practice,

and model respect for and valuing of such diversity in interactions with students;• Question your theories and assumptions regarding the universality of learning and other

theories, and if possible explore this practice with people from non-dominant ethnic groups;and

• Encourage your department or school to employ staff drawn from major ethnic subculturesin your community.

Learning and thinkingOne of the most relevant bodies of psychological research to teaching is that of learning andthinking, with a number of theoretical approaches taken to these topics over time. Thefollowing subsection of this report explores some key approaches, and their implications forteaching practice.

Behaviouristic approaches

Thorndike’s (1906, 1932) connectionist or trial-and-error learning theory assigns an importantrole to both practice and rewards in bringing about learning. In the absence of previouslearning, behaviour will take the form of trial-and-error, with attempted responses affected byreadiness (due to maturation, previous learning and motivation), set or attitude (i.e., pre-existing tendencies to react in given ways, which can be affected by culture), experience withanalogous settings, classical conditioning, or significant elements in the situation. Thosebehaviours that lead to a satisfying state of affairs will be strengthened and become morelikely to reoccur in that situation – they have been ‘learned’. Such connections becomestrengthened with practice and weakened when practice is discontinued. Teaching istherefore a matter of shaping the responses of the learner through using instructionalprocedures such as modelling, demonstration and reinforcement of closer approximations tothe targeted response. Transfer of such learning depends upon the presence of identicalelements in the original and new learning contexts – i.e., transfer is always specific, nevergeneral.

In comparison with Thorndike’s form of behaviourism, reinforcement is the key element inSkinner’s (1953, 1954) operant conditioning theory – not just the type of reinforcement, butalso the schedules of reinforcement and their effects on establishing and maintainingbehaviour to be learned. According to Skinner, behaviour that is positively reinforced willreoccur (e. g., Tuckman, 1996b), with intermittent reinforcement such as the use ofunannounced quizzes particularly effective (Connor-Greene, 2000; Graham, 1999; Ruscio,2001; Thorne, 2000). Information should be presented in small, gradual steps, in the form ofquestion and answer frames, so that responses can be reinforced (shaping). Educators shouldrequire that the learner make a response for every frame, and ensure they receive immediatefeedback and that good performance in the lesson is paired with secondary reinforcers such asverbal praise, prizes and good marks (Skinner, 1968). If possible, the difficulty of the questionsshould be arranged so that the response is always correct and hence gains positivereinforcement.

In many cases the most effective reinforcer of a behaviour is the pleasure inherent inengaging in it – the subject has enough intrinsic incentive value to motivate learning. Intrinsic

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reinforcers of this type can be distinguished from extrinsic reinforcers, reinforcement given tomotivate people to engage in behaviour in which they might not otherwise engage. There issome evidence that reinforcing people for behaviours that they would have done withoutreward, where rewards are provided regardless of standard of performance, can underminelong-term intrinsic motivation. However, for most tasks there is little basis for concern that useof extrinsic reinforcers will undermine intrinsic motivation.

Problem: Promoting learning

Context: Undergraduate psychology

Theories: Conditioning theory

Heckler, Fuqua and Pennypacker (1975) investigated the role of fading in collegestudent learning. They compared the use of fading (gradually changing one stimuluscontrolling performance to another stimulus, in this case by reducing the amount ofdirection) for teaching complex verbal statements, with learning by a non-fadingmethod, and with learning through trial-and-error (the control condition). Learning underthe fading procedure was significantly better than in the other conditions. Using acomputer programme, Renkl, Atkinson and Maier (2000, Experiment 2) utilised a similartechnique (successively introducing more and more elements of problem-solving into aseries of example problems, until learners were solving whole problems on their own).They found that fading fostered learning when compared to an example problemcondition (where learners were exposed to worked examples followed by similarproblems to be solved). This effect appeared to be due to a lower number of errors insolution steps in the fading condition than in the example problem condition.

The instructional model that best reflects the tenets of behaviourism is referred to as directinstruction. The hallmark of direct instruction is the active and directive role assumed by theeducator, who maintains control of the pace, sequence and content of the lesson (Baumann,1988). In direct instruction, academic tasks are analysed to determine their component parts,and the curriculum is carefully sequenced to ensure that students acquire the necessaryprerequisite skills before the introduction of more advanced material, with students providedwith much feedback, distributed practice and review. Examples of direct instruction includeteaching machines, programmed instruction (individualised instruction methods in whichstudents work on self-instructional materials at their own levels and rates) and simplecomputer-based teaching methods such as drill-and-practice programmes.

The personalised system of instructionThe personalised system of instruction (PSI, also known as the Keller Method; Keller, 1968,1974, 1985) is an instructional approach based on behavioural analysis principles. It wasdesigned to utilise what was known about the functional relations between behaviour and theenvironment, and is based upon what was known about student behaviour as it is maintainedby contingencies of reinforcement. The basic features of PSI include:• The go-at-your-own-pace feature, which permits students to move through the course at a

speed suitable for their ability and time demands (Carroll, 1963);• The unit perfection requirement for advancement, which lets the student advance to new

material only after demonstrating mastery (similar to Bloom’s (1968, 1971) masterylearning);

• The use of lectures and demonstrations as vehicles of motivation rather than as sources ofcritical information;

• The related stress upon the written word in educator-student communications; and• The use of proctors (teaching assistants), to give quizzes and tests, which permits

repeated testing (which can be of any form, not just true/false or multiple-choice),immediate scoring, almost unavoidable tutoring, and, it was claimed, an enhancement ofthe personal-social aspect of the educational process.

Unlike in traditional instruction, students work through a series of modules at their own pace,focusing on the textbook and individual work-through study guides (including objectives, studyprocedures and questions), rather than a lecture (which is generally not given). As studentscomplete a module they are tested, and immediate and personalised feedback provided bythe proctor, with an opportunity to review and retest. Lectures are limited, providing forinteraction and motivation more than content-dispensing. Although PSI was devised in the1960s, educational technologies allow similar systems to be designed and efficiently deliveredtoday, with computer-based or internet-based modules allowing richer resources to beprovided.

PSI has been reviewed in a number of contexts, including Reboy and Semb (1991), andBuskist, Cush and DeGrandpre (1991). Kulik, Kulik and Cohen (1979, 1990) conclude, basedon meta-analysis of data from more than 300 studies, that PSI is an effective form ofinstruction if used in a form similar to that devised by Keller. The research regarding directinstruction suggests that while it is an effective means of teaching factual content, there is lessevidence that this instruction transfers to higher-order cognitive skills such as reasoning orproblem-solving. Meta-analysis (Guskey & Pigott, 1988; Kulik, Kulik, & Bangert-Downs,1990), as well as less systematic reviews (Slavin, 1987), reveals that, by itself, masterylearning is reasonably effective.

Enthusiasm for PSI has diminished for a number of reasons, including the greatly increasedworkload; the change in required lecturers’ behaviour from didactic educator to manager ofstudent learning; the different use and meaning of marks, which may confuse administratorsand lead to inflation of marks; the impact on subsequent units or modules; and increasedenrolments. However, the major problem encountered, as PSI was popularised, was poorlydesigned and often pre-packaged materials being labelled PSI. PSI materials should beconstructed by those with a full understanding of the basic principles of operant conditioning.However, many teaching machines were not designed in this way, but were poorlyconstructed. In addition, the acquisition of higher-order thinking skills was not explicitly a partof the model, which focused on lower-order knowledge acquisition.

Problem: Accommodation to individual needs

Context: Introductory psychology

Theories: Behavioural theory

Brothen, Wambach and Hansen (2002) describe a PSI system for an introductorypsychology course, incorporating computers, that makes accommodation to students’individual needs, including those of students with disabilities.

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Implications for teachingResearch into behaviourism leads to a number of recommendations for psychology educators:• Carefully consider students’ pre-existing attitudes and readiness before beginning to teach

them;• Teach for generalisation of learning by stressing connections among ideas, reinforcing

desired outcomes, and encouraging practice;• Decide what behaviours are wanted and reinforce these and only these;• Tell students what behaviour is wanted, and why these desired behaviours are being

reinforced; and• Reinforce appropriate behaviour as soon as possible after it occurs, as delayed

reinforcement is less effective than immediate reinforcement.

Experiential approaches

Experiential methods of teaching and learning have existed from ancient times. What is new isnot so much the methods, but their acceptance in mainstream contemporary education. Themodern philosophical base that gave rise to experiential learning practice in HE since the 1970shas its origin in Dewey’s (1938) progressive education, education of the whole person throughexperience, involving the education of equals, changes in self-concept, readiness to learn, anda problem-centred orientation to learning. With the humanistic approach to psychology,experiential learning was rediscovered and formalised by Rogers (1969), who was alsoinfluenced by his experiences as a psychotherapist.

The assumptions underlying experiential learning that Rogers (1969; Rogers & Freiberg, 1994)identified, on the basis of humanistic learning theory, are that:• Human beings have a natural potentiality for learning;• Significant learning takes place when the subject matter is perceived to be relevant by the

student;• Much significant learning is acquired through doing;• Learning is facilitated when the student participates responsibly in the learning process;• Self-initiated learning, involving the whole person of the learner, feelings as well as intellect,

is the most pervasive and lasting;• Creativity in learning is best facilitated when self-criticism and self-evaluation are the primary

means of assessing progress or success, and evaluation by others is of secondaryimportance;

• Learning proceeds faster when threat to the self is low; and• The most socially useful learning in the modern world is learning the process of learning, a

continuing openness to experience and incorporation into oneself of the process of change.

These educational principles come alive with the use of Kolb’s experiential learning cycle (Kolb,1984; Kolb, Rubin, & McIntyre, 1971). This is a useful shorthand to describe the experientiallearning process. It describes a sequence of four stages (concrete experience; reflectiveobservation; abstract conceptualisation; and active experimentation; leading back again toconcrete experience and so forth), arguing that we make sense of concrete experiences byreflecting on them, developing our ideas, and then acting on the basis of our new learning.According to Rogers, the role of the educator is to facilitate such learning, by setting a positiveclimate for learning, clarifying the purpose of the learning, organising and making availablelearning resources, balancing intellectual and emotional components of learning, and sharingfeelings and thoughts with learners, but not by dominating.

Currently, experiential learning tends to be used as an umbrella term for a range of relatedapproaches to learning: active learning, learning-by-doing, action learning, humanisticlearning, holistic learning and so on. The focus on individual learners rather than on thelearning material itself emphasises the holistic nature of learning, and while different learningcycles are identified in various perspectives, each emphasises the central notion thatexperience is the key to learning and personal control. However, its ubiquitous nature beliesits underlying complexity; despite considerable academic research and practical inquiry, it isan area of learning that remains little understood (Markee, 1997). Yet as with any otherlearning approach, if it is to be effective it needs to be well-organised and purposeful,grounded in an understanding of learning processes.

Active learningResearch into memory (see page 39) shows that information that is deeply processed,elaborated, organised and connected to pre-existing knowledge is better recalled. Byfostering such processing of information, active learning – in which students work things outfor themselves and participate in discussions, activities and projects that requireunderstanding of and application of course material – has been shown in a number ofpsychology teaching studies to improve learning, memory and performance (e.g., Baillie,Porter, & Corrie, 1996; Butler, Phillmann, & Smart, 2001; Clibbens, 2000; DeNeve & Heppner,1997; Dolinsky, 2001; Falchikov, 1995; Hinkle et al., 2001; Kellum, Carr, & Dozier, 2001;Kreiner, 1997; Kremer, 1997; Perry, Huss, McAuliff, & Galas, 1996). For example, Birchmeierand Bakker (2002) found that, in comparison to students enrolled in a traditional section of apsychology course, students in the active learning section perceived material to be morevaluable and reported marginally higher levels of motivation, with levels of active engagementpredicting motivation and perceived learning outcomes.

Problem: Promoting learning

Context: Social psychology

Theories: Active learning principles

Integrating internet technology and the principles of active learning, Sherman (1998)suggested that students in advanced courses should develop web-based learningmodules to be used in the instruction of beginning students, and that these beginningstudents should review the modules in progress, providing online and face-to-facefeedback to the advanced students and active learning for both beginning andadvanced students. Sherman and colleagues (Hinkle et al., 2001; Wolfe, Crider, Mayer,McBride, & Sherman, 1998) implemented this process with advanced and beginningsocial psychology students, Hinkle et al. requiring students in advanced socialpsychology courses to produce modules on various topics in social psychology. Thesemodules were presented to beginning social psychology students as an instructionaltool. Results indicated that beginning students devoted significant time andconsideration to the internet materials, and evaluated them and the learning processfavourably, with a majority indicating that their understanding of the internet materialwas better than or comparable to that gained by studying a textbook. The students alsomanifested significantly increased learning. These findings were not qualified bystudents’ gender, class standing, computer use experience, or attitudes towardscomputer use.

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However, despite the clear evidence for the effectiveness of active learning, Gale (1990a)points out that the standard approach to teaching psychology at discipline level – which even10 years on is still dominated by lectures and other didactic teaching techniques – is likely toproduce students who are largely passive learners, at least at undergraduate level.

Problem-based learningProblem-based learning (PBL) is one specific active learning technique that has often beenused in psychology, and can be quite effective (Vernon & Blake, 1993), with a growing body ofresearch demonstrating that PBL can enhance transfer of concepts to new problems (Norman& Schmidt, 1992). It challenges students to ‘learn to learn’, working cooperatively in groupswith guidance from the instructor to seek solutions to real-world problems. These problemsare used to engage students’ curiosity and initiate learning of the subject matter. PBLprepares students to think critically and analytically, and to find and use appropriate learningresources. PBL has strong links to constructivism (see page 44), and is frequently consideredto be a constructivist learning technique (e.g., Savery & Duffy, 1995).

Problem: Fostering transfer of knowledge

Context: Educational psychology

Theories: Active learning principles, problem-based learning theory

Cerbin (1996, 2000a, 2000b) describes his experience converting an educationalpsychology course to a PBL format. The course is built around complex, open-endedproblems instead of being built sequentially around a series of topics. The problems arecreated to focus on domains of subject matter in the course, and to invite transfer ofknowledge by drawing on the same subject matter in different contexts. Rather thanbeing in control of the information and telling students everything in advance, Cerbinprovides students with some reading and writing assignments in preparation for workingon the problem, then responds to students’ attempts to interpret and solve the problem,providing information that is necessary to elaborate or clarify material read. As he putsit, he does “a good deal of just-in-time teaching” (p. 14, Cerbin, 2000a). When eachproblem is solved, Cerbin collects the work and analyses it, looking for evidence thatunderstanding of the course material is there, and to what extent, by investigating thequality of explanations given. Unfortunately Cerbin does not report any concrete resultsof the intervention, so its success cannot be evaluated. The course portfolio for hiscourse is available at Cerbin (1998). Other PBL case studies in psychology can befound in Bernstein (2002) and Hmelo-Silver (2000).

Case studiesCase studies are another commonly used active learning technique. Analysing case studymaterial promotes analytic inference and critical thinking (McDade, 1995), broadens students’perspectives on psychological issues, fosters independent learning and facilitates in-depthunderstanding of material. Within psychology and other disciplines, its use correlates withpositive learning outcomes such as increased student engagement, problem-solving abilities,writing skills and decision-making skills (e.g., Cabe, Walker, & Williams, 1999; Fisher &Kuther, 1997; Perkins, 1991; Witte, 1998). Leonard, Mitchell, Meyers and Love (2002) provideguidelines for implementing this technique within introductory psychology, recommendinginstructors determine the goals for the exercise before selecting a topic; narrow the topic areato address it appropriately in the case study; use/develop a well-written, multilayered but not

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overly complex story that contains important details so that students can engagesubstantively with the problem; and add an inquiry section containing a logical sequence ofquestions to allow students to apply their knowledge to the case.

Implications for teachingThe experiential learning approach leads to a number of recommendations for teachingpractice:• Support students during experiential learning by demonstrating good thinking, asking open

questions, clarifying ideas, providing more information and giving feedback;• Provide students with practice in exercising and managing basic cognitive skills

(metacognition), such as recognising important information, organising that information,connecting the information with what they already know, and being aware of whetherinformation has been recognised, organised and connected;

• Demonstrate a new skill yourself, before asking students to practise it;• Before a learning activity, point out what you want students to notice;• Provide structure for students to discover things on their own, by setting clearly defined

learning tasks, guidance and practice in solving many different forms of problem;• Use tasks that are just challenging enough, as tasks that are too easy do not lead to

learning, and those that are too hard are frustrating; and• Ensure students have the requisite background knowledge necessary for active learning

by requiring them to do some initial reading, screening a video, or getting in a guestspeaker.

Cognitive approaches

With increased interest in human information-processing in complex cognitive activity, thecognitive perspective on learning has assumed prominence. However, there are manycognitive approaches to learning, which are summarised in rough chronological order.

Thinking and reasoning

Gestalt theoryGestalt theory (Ellis, 1938; Wertheimer, 1982), which emphasised higher-order cognitiveprocesses in the midst of the behaviourist dominance, focuses on the idea of grouping – i.e.,that characteristics of stimuli cause us to structure or interpret a problem in a certain way. Theprimary factors that determine grouping are proximity and similarity (elements tend to begrouped together if they are close or in some way similar), closure (items are groupedtogether if they tend to complete some entity), and simplicity (items tend to be organised intosimple figures according to symmetry, regularity and smoothness). Because of this groupingtendency, we expect to be able to see things as wholes, and violation of this expectation(such as encountering gaps, incongruities, or disturbances) requires problem-solvingbehaviour, an attempt to understand the overall structure of a problem. Such holistic initialimpressions of objects may then impact on the interpretation of subsequent experiences withand information about the object (Asch, 1946; Kelley, 1950), and may become more resistantto change with time, essentially serving as schemata (see page 34).

Implications for teachingGestalt theory leads to several recommendations for psychology teaching practice:• Aim to make initial impressions of a subject or teaching experience as positive as possible,

to facilitate further positive interpretations of the situation;• Encourage students to discover the underlying nature of a topic or problem (i.e., the

relationship among elements) for themselves;• Highlight gaps, incongruities, and inconsistencies; and• Base your teaching on the laws of organisation: proximity, closure, similarity and simplicity.

Schema theorySchemata (also known as mental models) are complex networks of organised, interconnectedinformation about a domain or topic, that change as we learn and gain experience in theworld, and are generally considered to be the fundamental elements upon which allinformation-processing depends (Bobrow & Collins, 1975). Schemata are also linked to eachother, reflecting connections between domains, as well as to heuristics or problem-solvingshortcuts. People have remarkably similar schemata for common things and events, such aseating at a restaurant. However, schemata can vary in complexity and organisation, withexperts’ schemata complex, hierarchical and highly organised, with specific informationgrouped under more general ideas, and novices’ schemata more simple and disorganised,even when they contain the same information as do experts’ (Alexander, 1992; Bransford &Johnson, 1972). Experts also know when to use a schema.

Schemata affect information-processing in a number of ways. They make learning andmemory more efficient, because information is organised (Broadbent, 1975). They set upexpectations, including to what stimuli to attend, facilitate understanding, and allow inferencesto be drawn from pre-existing knowledge. New information can be more effectively stored if itcan be related to prior information, which facilitates subsequent recall by providing cues tomemory. When connected to heuristics, schemata serve as a guide to action (Schank &Abelson, 1977). However, schemata can also interfere with thinking, by leading to less deepprocessing of information, biasing encoding, or interfering with recall of memories; schema-consistent information is much more likely to be recalled than is schema-inconsistentinformation (Reisberg, 2001). When initial experiences lead to the formation of a negativeschema (such as a negative experience in an introductory psychology class), this mayinfluence uptake and interpretation of subsequent experiences (such as later psychologycourses).

Problem: Assessment of students’ knowledge

Context: General psychology

Theories: Schema theory

Jacobs-Lawson and Hershey (2002) describe the concept map, a graphic, hierarchicallyarranged knowledge representation that reflects the content of an individual’sschemata. They describe the basic mapping technique, a number of variations on thetechnique, and how teaching staff can use concept maps as an adjunct to traditionalassessment in psychology and as a means of evaluating students’ knowledge bothqualitatively and quantitatively. Based on the results of a comparison between students’concept maps completed at the beginning and the end of semester, they conclude thatthe technique is effective at evaluating such knowledge.

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When students have trouble understanding, schema theory suggests four possible problems:• The student does not have a (good enough) schema for the topic;• The student has an appropriate schema, but the teaching/text does not provide the right

cues to bring the schema to mind;• The student has retrieved a different schema from that intended by the educator; and/or• The material challenges the student’s schema, and they may need to expand the schema.

Adult learners can be resistant to changing well-established schemata and may prefer notto believe or process challenging new information.

Implications for teachingSchema theory and research leads to a number of recommendations for psychology teaching:• Encourage students to engage actively in learning, since understanding depends on

schemata, and it is their schemata that will lead to understanding, not yours;• Be aware that students growing up in different cultures and contexts will have different

schemata;• Identify and activate students’ prior knowledge and schemata before you teach, and try to

integrate new facts and knowledge into pre-existing schemata;• When students know little or nothing about the topic, provide a schema for new material in

the form of a concrete, familiar and specific advance organiser (see page 43);• Limit the number of different schemata students have to use at one time. Begin with a

simple schema, then add to it;• Model your own use of schemata, for example by drawing on the board/OHT to show how

new information fits into an existing schema;• Begin a lesson with a mental map of the topic generated by the class. At the end of the

class, add on what students have learnt, and reorganise the diagram (grouping items andconcepts) if needed;

• Alternatively, ask each student to draw a mental map before and after learning about a topic, as a way of testing what has been learnt and promoting reflective learning; and

• Teach students about different sorts of expository prose (e.g., research reports, essays,textbooks), as many students have a model for narratives such as stories, but not for manytypes of academic writing (Cook & Mayer, 1988).

General cognitive skillsEysenck and Keane (1995) argue that a great deal of cognition depends upon cognitiveconcepts being activated and linked together in some meaningful way, and consider that thisrequires some key cognitive or thinking skills. There has long been a debate about whethersuch cognitive skills are general or specific (Cromley, 2000), with many current researchersfeeling that there are very few, if any, general cognitive skills. Eysenck and Keane (1995), forexample, argue that the key operations include reasoning (deductive and inductive), inferenceand decision-making.

Many theorists also argue that such general skills cannot be taught directly, because generalstrategies are too general for most students to apply (Bransford, Sherwood, Vye, & Rieser,1986). Instead, the teaching of cognitive skills is most effective in the context of real problem-solving in a specific field – what is known as situated cognition (Brown, Collins, & Duguid,1989). In support of this, research into general cognitive skills programmes shows that they donot significantly improve students’ standardised test scores overall, but only performance onthe type of problems learnt in the programme (McMillan, 1987; Perkins & Salomon, 1989).

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However, cognitive and other transferable skills training is rarely done in psychology degreecourses, despite the argument that psychology courses may provide unique vehicles for suchtraining (Arnold, Newstead, Donaldson, Reid, & Dennis, 1987; Newstead, 1990), with theacquisition of knowledge, facts and theories instead emphasised.

Implications for teachingResearch into general cognitive skills leads to the following recommendations for educators:• Teach students how to solve the type of problems found in the field, within the context of

that field, as well as factual knowledge about the field; and• Inform students about the specific cognitive skills they are acquiring in the course of an

activity.

Biases in cognitionA substantial body of research in cognitive psychology and decision-making is based on thepremise that fundamental human cognitive limitations cause people not just to rely onschemata, but to employ various simplifying strategies and heuristics to ease the burden ofmentally processing information to make judgements and decisions. These simple rules ofthumb are often useful in helping us deal with complexity and ambiguity. Under manycircumstances, however, they lead to predictably faulty judgments known as cognitive biases(Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Within the educational context, biases in evaluation ofevidence may have a particular impact. These biases include:• The availability bias (a tendency to remember and prefer more familiar material or

answers, and to overestimate the prevalence of more familiar events);• The vividness bias (where information that is vivid, concrete and personal has a greater

impact on thinking than does pallid, abstract information that may actually havesubstantially greater value as evidence);

• The belief bias (coming to a favoured conclusion without looking at the evidence, whichmore often occurs with emotionally charged issues); and

• The confirmation bias (a preference for information that confirms one’s own theories andjudgements).

These biases are surprisingly resistant, remaining to some extent even if individuals areinformed of their existence and instructed in principles of reasoning (Evans, Newstead, Allen,& Pollard, 1994), and impressions based on such biases tend to persist even after theevidence that created those impressions has been fully discredited (Ross, Lepper, &Hubbard, 1975). Such faulty reasoning is also more likely on unfamiliar or emotionallycharged topics (Reisberg, 2001).

However, as mentioned, there is some evidence to suggest that pointing out students’ biasedthinking can have an impact on it, perhaps at least partly due to processes of cognitivedissonance (see page 64). Sheldon (1999) suggests that educators see the confrontation ofpresumptions and personal biases as a secondary agenda in classroom activity. Shedescribes a technique in which students are presented with class discussion stimulicontaining ambiguous information regarding gender or sexual orientation, and thenmonitoring the assumptions students make with regard to such background variables duringdiscussion.

Implications for teachingRecommendations for teaching derived from research into cognitive biases include:• Provide students with practice in constructing arguments (e.g., providing evidence, making

logical conclusions) and getting feedback on these;• Ask students to challenge the evidence – for example, by asking what kind of information

could disprove what they believe; and• Ask students to take different points of view in a class discussion or exercise, particularly

ones counter to their own beliefs.

MetacognitionAs we learn about things, so we also learn about learning. Knowledge about our owncognitive processes is known as metacognition, which has two main components: beingaware of our thinking (cognitive monitoring), and controlling our thinking and learningstrategies in order to change our thinking and learning (cognitive regulation) (Hacker, 1998).The skills of metacognition allow us to direct, monitor, evaluate and modify our own ongoinglearning and thinking. Biggs (1985) found that while some students were not skilled atmetacognition, students who were capable of metacognitive thought had high general abilitiesthat presumably enabled them to develop and use these skills. However, these skills do notspontaneously develop for most learners, but need to be taught. Educators can foster better,more critical and more creative thinking by fostering learners’ awareness of themselves asknowers and information processors and by teaching them specific cognitive strategies toimprove thinking and learning and enable independent learning. According to Vygotsky(1978), we learn to think by incorporating what we hear from others, so giving studentsfeedback while they think out loud may be a very powerful tool to help do this.

More than 150 thinking and learning strategies have been identified, and a large number ofprogrammes have been designed specifically to develop metacognition. Such programmesutilise a variety of approaches to teaching, including group learning, individual instruction,modelling of strategies and reflective learning. The literature is replete with experiments thatdemonstrate gains when students are trained to use a study tactic and compared to peerswho study ‘normally’, suggesting that students may be very undereducated about studytactics and strategies and may therefore benefit from direct instruction or supportivescaffolding (Winne & Hadwin, 1998). Three general reading strategies show good results,based on a large number of studies (Cromley, 2000): discussing what is already known aboutthe topic; asking and answering questions as one reads; and summarising what one has read.These strategies work best when they are taught in a structured way using real readingmaterials, probably because they have students engage actively with reading and reallyprocess what is read (Davidson & Sternberg, 1998). While these strategies can take sometime to teach, they can be very powerful.

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Problem: Improving examination performance

Context: Introductory psychology

Theories: Metacognition

Fleming (2002) investigated whether the use of learning strategies would improvestudents’ exam performance. Students in one section of an introductory psychologysubject were introduced to learning strategies, set individual learning goals, andrecorded their learning-related behaviour during the first two units. Students in thecontrol section engaged in non-academic tasks. All students received a lesson onlearning at the end of the second unit. Students who had utilised learning strategiesobtained significantly greater scores than did control students on the first two and fourthexams; on the third exam differences were not significant.

Implications for teachingResearch on metacognition leads to a number of recommendations for teaching:• As reflecting on learning can be most effective when a student is new to the institution or

class, consider using discussion and writing about thinking and learning early in the term orsemester;

• Teach only one learning strategy at a time, as each strategy may take many hours to teachand learn;

• Tell students what a particular learning strategy is and why it will improve learning, anddemonstrate how and when to use the strategy;

• Teach strategies slowly and with many opportunities for students to practise and receivesupport and feedback, then teach them how to monitor whether or not the strategy isworking for them; and

• Consider asking students to think out loud as they solve a problem, and suggest otherstudents ask open-ended questions and give feedback on their thinking processes.

Memory

Information-processing theoryBased on research into human cognition and memory, Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) putforward information-processing theory, the dominant theory of learning and memory since themid-1970s, which describes the processing, storage and retrieval of knowledge in the mind,and has a number of implications for teaching and learning (Bjork, 1979). In this model,information that is to be retained must first reach a person’s senses, then be attended to andtransferred from the sensory register to the working memory, then be processed again fortransfer to long-term memory.

Memory itself seems to be made up of at least two parts: working memory (short-termmemory), where information is utilised during thinking, and long-term memory, whereinformation is stored permanently. Working memory is small, and stores information quickly,but information is also quickly forgotten, while long-term memory can store huge amounts ofinformation but this is stored and retrieved much more slowly. Theorists generally divide long-term memory into at least three parts: episodic memory (memory of events and experiences),semantic memory (facts, concepts, scripts, problem-solving skills and learning strategies,organised into schemata; see page 34) and procedural memory (knowledge of how to do

things), with recent brain functional imaging studies confirming that these are differentprocesses (Blakemore & Frith, 2000).

Long-term memory and working memory interact continuously, with information constantlymoving back and forth between the two (Baddeley, 1998) and knowledge such as wordmeanings being retrieved from long-term memory when needed by working memory.However, because information must be put into working memory before it can be stored inlong-term memory, one can only learn as many things at one time as can fit in workingmemory – it is the gatekeeper for learning. Other information cannot make it into workingmemory until one has processed the information that is already there.

Research into working memory reveals that it includes both information and processing(thinking), and can hold a combination of either or both (Just & Carpenter, 1992), with poorreaders requiring more of their working memory to decode new words rather than retainingmore content. However, working memory can only hold about 7±2 items – about sevennumbers, five words, or three nonsense syllables – and it only lasts for 10 to 30 seconds(Miller, 1956). An item can last in working memory for about two seconds without any work,but to keep it there longer requires rehearsal, or transfer into longer-term memory, perhaps bymaking connections between new information and what is already known. By organising or‘chunking’ new information (for example, by reorganising a list into categories), or by linking itto what is already known, more information can be stored in working memory, though thisdepends on what is already known. Writing information down also frees up working memory.

The research into long-term memory shows that encoding of information into long-termmemory involves the processes of rehearsal (elaborative rehearsal, connecting theinformation to what is already known, rather than simple repetition or maintenance rehearsal),elaboration and organisation. As Craik and Lockhart (1972; Craik & Tulving, 1975; Lockhart &Craik, 1990) put it in their levels of processing theory (an alternative information-processingmodel that elaborates on some aspects of the Atkinson-Shiffrin model), memory forinformation reflects the level to which it has been processed. This suggests that coursematerial that is repeatedly processed due to continuous assessment may be better retainedthan course material assessed through a final examination, as Conway, Cohen and Stanhope(1992) indeed found.

More detailed information is easier to remember, being more distinctive, though detailed butirrelevant information can also interfere with the retention of more important ideas. Materialthat is meaningful, especially if it is personally relevant to the individual and/or related to theirown life, is also more likely to be deeply encoded (Baddeley, 1998).

Problem: Poor retention of course material

Context: Introductory psychology, cognitive psychology

Theories: Information-processing theory

Davis and Hult (1997) found that summary writing during pauses in lectures – a form ofgenerative learning which requires more detailed processing of lecture material –resulted in more durable learning than did reviewing lecture notes during pauses, ortaking notes without pauses.

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In addition, according to Paivio’s dual-code theory of memory (Paivio, 1971; Clark & Paivio,1991), information is also better remembered when it is represented in memory both visuallyand verbally, corresponding to episodic and semantic memory respectively. Essentially, whenmore paths are used to get information into memory, so there are more ways to retrieve theinformation when it is needed.

Bransford’s transfer-appropriate processing theory (1979) also shows that the strength anddurability of memory depends not only on the depth of processing, but on the similaritybetween the conditions under which the material was learnt and those under which it isretrieved – essentially, memory is context-dependent. This finding helps to explain why manystudents can recall and apply rules on a multiple-choice test but are unable to recall or applythe same skills in their own writing. According to Blakemore and Frith (2000), such materialrecently acquired through experience is consolidated and stored during rapid eye movement(REM) sleep; periods of learning are associated with increased REM sleep, while REM sleepdeprivation impairs memory for previously learned material.

Problem: Poor retention of course material

Context: Developmental psychology, psychological statistics, abnormal psychology

Theories: Paivio’s dual-code theory of memory

In Erwin and Rieppi (1999), instructors taught human development, psychologicalstatistics and abnormal psychology in either a multimedia or traditional classroom.Results showed that, although students in multimedia and traditional classes did notdiffer on scholastic abilities prior to enrolment, students in the multimedia classaveraged higher examination scores than did those in traditional classrooms.

Studies also reveal that material learnt via distributed learning – distributed across severalstudy sessions, rather than concentrated in one session (massed learning or practice) – isbetter remembered than that learnt through massed practice, as it is more likely to be well-integrated into long-term memory (Dempster, 1988, 1989; Melton, 1970; Underwood, 1974).This is especially true of factual learning. Dempster (1988) argues that even educators areunder-educated about this spacing effect, and suggests that students who do notmetacognitively monitor their spacing of study sessions (see page 37) may well learn less.They may also draw invalid conclusions about the utility of some study tactics bymisattributing weak effects to otherwise effective tactics because they did not engage inspaced study sessions. However, unannounced quizzes are among a number of strategiesthat academics can use to enhance distribution of studying (Ruscio, 2001; Solomon, 1979).

Research shows that information is stored in memory in an organised way, in complexnetworks of associations. Schemata, cognitive representations of concepts, and theircharacteristic and defining features (see page 34), are an efficient way to store information.When a schema is activated – for instance, through priming, exposure to a schema-relatedidea or item – other information related to the schema is also activated, and learnt more readily(Bransford & Johnson, 1972; Collins & Loftus, 1975). In relation to teaching, this means thatstudents will understand better when they have a pre-reading discussion or read about familiartopics, because information is already activated in their memories. Giving students an outlinebefore they read (an advance organiser; see Ausubel, 1963, and page 43) also facilitatesrecall. However, such advance organisers only work well for topics with an organisedstructure, and where students already know something about the topic (Mayer, 1979).

Students can also have problems when they cannot retrieve stored information from memory.Information that is strongly encoded (deeply processed) is easier to retrieve than that which isless strongly encoded (Bjork & Bjork, 1996). In addition, retrieving information from long-termmemory makes the memory stronger and easier to retrieve later on. To retrieve information, ithelps to have a cue: a prompt for memory, such as a question or reminder. When material isstrongly encoded, both strong cues (e.g., questions that are the same as in the learningsituation, or recognition questions) and weak cues (e.g., application questions, or open-endedessay questions) can help retrieve the information. However, with weak encoding only strongcues are effective. Cues that closely match the type of recall in question are most effective.This implies that if students are required to remember the meanings of words, then cues thatemphasise meanings are best.

Theories of forgetting (see Schacter, Norman, & Koutstaal, 1998) also have a number ofimplications for teaching. Fading theory, which suggests that information may be forgottenbecause it has faded or decayed through disuse, suggests that educators should providestudents with a variety of opportunities to practise and rehearse what they have learnt.Distortion theory, which focuses on the fact that memories which do not entirely fade are oftendistorted or confused with other memories, suggests that educators should emphasise themost important and distinct (memorable) aspects of material, as highly distinct material will bemore easily and more accurately remembered. Research into retroactive and proactiveinhibition, which states that interference from previous (similar) or subsequent learning is animportant cause of forgetting, suggests that teaching for generalisation (transfer) may reducethe effects of interference. In addition, people remember best what they hear at the beginningand end of an experience or list (primacy and recency effects), rather than what was in themiddle of the experience (Glanzer & Cunitz, 1966).

Research from brain injuries and other contexts show that memory skills can be improved bytraining – for example, in organising items by putting them into categories; relating newinformation to what is already known; or by remembering lists, rules or instructions usingmnemonics (memory devices) such as rhymes, acronyms, key words, drawings, orvisualisation (Levin & Levin, 1990). Mnemonics are often best for learning random informationthat really must be memorised, but can also facilitate more than just rote memorisation offacts (Carney & Levin, 1998; Carney, Levin, & Levin, 1994).

Problem: Poor retention of course material

Context: Introductory psychology, psychological measurement

Theories: Mnemonics

Carney and Levin (1998) provide a set of mnemonic keyword materials developed forterminology related to neuropsychology. When they compared two versions of theirkeyword approach to a simple repetition condition, the two mnemonic approacheselicited better results on an immediate definition memory test, as well as on a taskrequiring application of the material learned. Similarly, VanVoorhis (2002) investigatedthe effect of using music as a mnemonic device to remember statistical facts. Studentsin one section of the class learned and sang statistical jingles, whereas students inanother section read definitions of the statistical concepts aloud. Results showed thatstudents who learned the jingles scored significantly higher on a short-answer testrelated to the material, and ratings of jingle knowledge were significantly correlated withtest scores.

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Connectionist modelsA major recent alternative to the information-processing model of memory is that ofconnectionism (Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986), which proposes that knowledge is stored inthe brain in a network of connections, not in a system of rules or as individual bits ofinformation. In this view, experience leads to learning by strengthening certain connectionsthat are functional, and weakening those that are not. Such models are consistent with currentresearch on the brain, which has established that information is distributed in many locationsand connected by intricate neural pathways (Blakemore & Frith, 2000; Hendry & King, 1994).However, the implications of connectionism for teaching and learning are not clear, except tosuggest that educators emphasise experience-based teaching.

Self-referencingAs already described, research shows that the more elaborately material is processed, thebetter it is retrieved. The most elaborate cognitive framework is what people know aboutthemselves, and this schema increases in size and complexity with age. Because how muchis already known affects how easily and well a person can master new material, self-referencing can be particularly effective in learning (Symons & Johnson, 1987), presumablybecause the more accessible and differentiated network permits deeper processing ofinformation encoded with a self-referencing strategy.

Problem: Improving recall of course content

Context: Introductory psychology

Theories: Self-referencing research

Forsyth and Wibberly (1993), and Hartlep and Forsyth (2000), instructed psychologystudents in the use of self-referencing in encoding written material, and found that incomparison to students left to utilise their own study method, immediate and delayedrecall of text material was superior. Similarly, Foos (2001) compared students whocompleted a self-referenced exercise on life expectancy with those who did not, andfound significantly better performance, on a later test relating to life expectancy, in theself-reference group, even though no prior performance difference existed.

Implications for teachingMemory research leads to a number of recommendations for psychology teaching, including:• Teach the most important information at the beginning of a class to take advantage of

better learning. Use the rest of the class for students to practise, apply and reinforce. Endthe class with a summary to take advantage of better learning at the end;

• Do not overload students with too much information before they have a chance to thinkabout it or write it down;

• Teach students to organise or chunk information, by utilising mnemonics, taking notes ormaking a summary;

• Encourage students to connect new information with what is already known, through notes,discussions and in-class practice. Material that can be related to students’ life experiencesand self-concept is particularly well-remembered;

• Encourage students to write things down to free up working memory, especially whenworking on a complicated problem that requires working memory for reasoning;

• Encourage students to improve their knowledge base – for instance, through increasingtheir vocabulary;

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• Teach for understanding, using methods that require students to go over material anumber of times, form linkages between new and already well-known material, andorganise it in various ways. Reward students who show that they want to learn forunderstanding (e.g., if they are on the right track), and stress that mistakes are part oflearning. Consider teaching in more depth and less breadth;

• Try to engage all of students’ senses when you teach a topic, and preferably have them dosomething rather than just see or hear. Many experiential and applied learning techniques(e.g., problem-based learning) foster such processing;

• Give students practice recalling what they know;• Activate what students know about a topic before they read, by using advance organisers;• Think about how students will need to remember what they are learning – recognise facts,

recall a list, compare and contrast? Their learning strategy should match how they willhave to remember the information;

• Try not to teach similar and confusing concepts too closely in time, in order to reduceretroactive inhibition, and teach the first concept thoroughly before the next is introducedand/or use different methods to teach similar concepts;

• Keep necessary administrative tasks until the end of a class; and• Encourage students to distribute learning across numerous study sessions, separated by

some good nights’ sleep.

Learning

Subsumption theoryAusubel’s (1963, 1978; Ausubel, Novak, & Hanesian, 1978) theory is concerned with howindividuals learn large amounts of meaningful material from verbal/textual presentations in aneducational setting. He argued that most meaningful verbal learning occurs mainly in thecourse of expository teaching, reception learning. Reception learning subsumes new materialto existing cognitive structure on a substantive, non-verbatim basis, which can take the formof deriving material from pre-existing structure and/or involving material that is an extension ofwhat is already known. He distinguishes reception learning from rote learning (which does notinvolve meaningful material or subsumption) and discovery learning (where the learner mustdiscover information through problem-solving, see page 44). Ausubel argued that learnersshould be provided with organised information, with instruction proceeding from the mostgeneral and inclusive idea towards details of specific instances. This, he believed, is mosteffectively done through expository teaching. According to Ausubel, forgetting occursbecause certain details get integrated into schemata and lose their individual identity.

Ausubel’s theory has commonalities with gestalt theory (see page 33) and schema theory(see page 34). While there are some similarities with constructivist theory (see page 44),Ausubel emphasises that subsumption involves reorganisation of existing cognitivestructures, not the development of new structures.

A major instructional mechanism proposed by Ausubel is the use of advance organisers –highly generic concepts presented before the lesson, presented at a higher level ofabstraction, generality and inclusiveness, and designed to bring to mind relevant knowledgeand to clarify the relationships between new and old learning. Organisers act as a subsumingbridge between new material and existing related ideas. In this way they are different fromoverviews and summaries, which simply emphasise key ideas and are presented at the same

level of abstraction and generality as the rest of the material.Although there has been a fairamount of controversy over advance organisers, and a large number of studies have beenconducted on the effects of advance organisers in learning, there seems to be agreement thatthey work well if students do not know about the new topic, if the information lends itself to aclear organisation, and if they are concrete, familiar and specific (see Ausubel, 1968, 1978). Inaddition, such methods designed to activate prior knowledge can be counterproductive if theprior knowledge is weak or lacking.

Implications for teachingAusubel would recommend that educators:• Present the most general ideas of a subject first, then progressively differentiate them in

terms of detail and specificity; and• Utilise instructional materials that attempt to integrate new material with previously

presented information through comparisons and cross-referencing of new and old ideas.

ConstructivismIn the last two decades education, especially science education, has been greatly influencedby the constructivist approach to learning and teaching (Fensham, Gunstone, & White, 1994;Forman & Pufall, 1988). As outlined by Bruner (1960), constructivism is a general frameworkfor instruction based upon the study of cognitive growth and learning. While there are anumber of variants of constructivism, with slight variability in emphasis, most tend to bederived from the work of Vygotsky (1978) and to a lesser extent Piaget (1973). Constructivismreflects both theorists’ beliefs that through continual active experience and social interaction,we construct our own ideas about the world. Learners actively ‘construct’ knowledge andmeaning from their interpretation of what is happening around them, based on their ownexperiences and understandings, through the processes of assimilation and accommodation(see page 15). Learning (sometimes known as generative learning) is regarded as aninterpretative process that entails challenging and enriching one’s own thinking, integratingnew ideas to pre-existing schemata. Learning is also intrinsically social, with cooperative workexposing students to others’ thinking processes and successful problem-solving techniques.In his more recent work, Bruner (1986, 1990) has expanded his theoretical framework toencompass the social and cultural aspects of learning.

According to Bruner (1961), the best way of learning is discovery learning, the learning thattakes place when students are not presented with subject matter in its final form but rather arerequired to organise it for themselves, in a top-down fashion. Such learning, according toBruner, facilitates transfer and retention and increases problem-solving ability and motivation.The process of discovery, however, must be taught through experience and more directinstructional procedures, and there should be guided discovery through a process of activedialogue, as some things are hard to discover without appropriate scaffolding. Instructorsshould translate information to be learned into a format appropriate to the learner’s currentstate of understanding, with curriculum organised in a ‘spiral’ manner so that students buildupon what they have already learned.

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Problem: Promoting diversified knowledge and critical thinking

Context: Educational psychology

Theories: Constructivism

Tynjälä (1999) compared the same educational psychology course learned in a traditionallearning environment (involving lectures and individual reading) and in a constructivistlearning environment (involving group discussions, writing assignments and a compiledessay), and reported that students in the constructivist learning environment acquired morediversified knowledge. In comparison to the traditional group, who rarely mentioned theseoutcomes, they reported gaining an ability to apply knowledge, developing critical thinkingskills, changed conceptions of the topics studying, and moving from epistemological dualismtowards a more relativistic view.

Similarly, Scheurman (1997) describes a lesson, taken from an undergraduate educationalpsychology course he teaches, which aims to foster critical thinking. Because of theconceptual connections between aspects of critical thinking and key principles ofconstructivist theory (as critical thinking requires the capacity to construct one’s ownknowledge, in the process challenging entrenched assumptions about reality andknowledge), the lesson was designed with constructivist principles in mind, such as thoserecommended by Anderson, Blumenfeld, Pintrich, Clark, Marx and Peterson (1995), andused simulated authentic contexts and techniques such as small group, whole class andpanel discussion, role play and case study work.

One important aspect of constructivist learning and teaching is an interest in students’misconceptions of important concepts. Within psychology pedagogical research, there hasbeen somewhat of a focus on statistical misconceptions that impede students’ acquisition ofstatistical concepts (Garfield & Ahlgren, 1988; Hawkins, Jolliffe, & Glickman, 1992;Shaughnessy, 1992). Such research shows that students can hold confusions andmisconceptions about even seemingly straightforward mathematical concepts such ascorrelation (Batanero, Estepa, & Godino, 1997; Morris, 1997, 1999). Such misconceptions areprevalent, persistent and often resistant to traditional forms of instruction (Cumming &Thomason, 1995). Computer-assisted learning programmes have been developed to providean alternative form of statistical instruction where, for example, linked multiple representationsand simulations can be used to address students’ misconceptions in statistics (Cumming &Thomason, 1995; Thomason, Cumming, & Zangari, 1994). Similarly, Cerbin (2000a)investigated students’ prior knowledge, and found that this impeded new learning in hiseducational psychology classes. This information was then used to devise a problem-basedlearning intervention to encourage students to test and revise their ideas, and stimulate themto move beyond them when challenged to do so in class.

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Problem: Fostering understanding of psychological statistics

Context: Psychological statistics

Theories: Constructivist theory, theories of mathematical understanding

Based on research into students’ misconceptions about statistical concepts (Bataneroet al., 1997; Morris, 1997, 1999), Morris and colleagues (Jones et al., 1999; Morris,1998, 2001; Morris & Scanlon, 2000; Morris, Scanlon, & Joiner, 2000) have designedand evaluated programmes to be utilised by psychology students, focusing on centraltendency and correlation. For example, Morris and Scanlon (2000) report the findingsfrom a qualitative study that investigated students’ learning collaboratively using amultimedia application called ‘ActiveStats’.

Situated learningOne important constructivist educational model is termed situated learning (Brown et al.,1989; Lave, 1988). According to this approach, most learning is a function of the activity,context and culture in which it occurs, and is largely unintentional. This contrasts with mostclassroom learning activities, which involve abstract and out-of-context knowledge anddeliberate learning. In situated learning, learners, through social interaction and collaboration,become involved in a community of practice, which embodies certain beliefs and behavioursto be acquired. As the learner moves from the periphery of this community to its centre, theybecome more engaged in the culture and hence assume the role of expert.

Other researchers have further developed the theory of situated learning. For example, Brownet al. (1989; Collins, Brown, & Newman, 1989) emphasise the idea of cognitiveapprenticeship, where the learner is an apprentice in much the same sense as novices whoare apprenticed to experts to learn new trades and skills. In the cognitive sphere, the expertsare parents, siblings, peers and educators. Educators serve as a combination of model,guide, tutor, mentor and coach, fostering educational growth, rather than directly teaching thelearner.

Cognitive apprenticeship advocates the use of a number of specific techniques designed toclarify the role of educator and learner (apprentice). Modelling involves educators showinglearners how something is done, not so much for learners to simply copy the expert’sperformance (see social learning theory, page 51), but to help them develop conceptualmodels of a task, requiring educators to make steps and procedures involved in the taskhighly explicit and evident. Coaching involves guiding specific aspects of the student’sperformance. Scaffolding (or mediated learning) involves providing support so that studentscan accomplish tasks that would otherwise be too difficult for them. Procedures that can beused in scaffolding include fading (gradual withdrawal of scaffolds as they become lessnecessary, derived from operant conditioning theory, see page 27); articulation (encouraginglearners to put their conclusions, descriptions and principles into words); reflection; andexploration, the generalisation of learning.Three principles guide the sequencing of materialin cognitive apprenticeship: global before local, referring to the idea that learners should beprovided with an overall view of what is to be learned before they begin to work on specifics,enabling advance organisation; material should be presented in order of increasingcomplexity; and knowledge and skills acquired should be applied to an ever-increasingdiversity of situations.

Cooperative learningAs already noted, cooperative learning is a major constructivist learning technique. While a largenumber of educators claim to use cooperative learning, fewer experiences are truly cooperative,where students can work together in a group small enough that everyone can participate on acollective task. The relationship among group members is one of positive interdependence,although individual responsibility for sharing, cooperating and learning is assigned. Vygotsky(1978) suggests a reason that cooperative learning is effective and important – becauselearning is highly dependent on social interaction. It is also dependent on language, andcooperative learning fosters the development and exercise of language skills. In addition,cooperative learning may foster student motivation, and processing and elaboration ofinformation to be learnt (see page 39) (Bennett, Howe, & Truswell, 2002).

Evidence suggests that cooperative learning techniques lead to superior academicachievement, high motivation, participation, enhancement of social skills, reduction in prejudiceand improvement in self-esteem and attitudes towards education (Clibbens, 2000; Johnson etal., 1981; Kremer, 1997; Qin, Johnson, & Johnson; 1995; Rysavy & Sales, 1991). Thesepositive effects may be partly due to the greater curriculum structure required for cooperativelearning, to the language and social skills fostered, and/or to the feeling of common groupmembership.

A number of different cooperative learning techniques have been developed. One well-established one is the jigsaw classroom (Aronson, Blaney, Stephan, Sikes, & Snapp, 1978), inwhich different students across the class are given different parts of a task to complete.Students with the same part complete it together, then collaborate with other students doingdifferent parts of the task to finish the entire task. Perkins and Saris (2001) utilised the jigsawclassroom technique within an undergraduate statistics course, with students given differentparts of a problem worksheet. Students reported that the technique helped them understand astatistical procedure, use class time efficiently and increased the variety of learning experiencesavailable in the course, while Carroll (1986) found an improvement in student academicperformance. Grossman (2002) used case studies within a jigsaw classroom framework to teachstudents in general or abnormal psychology courses about treatments for depression, anddiscusses other uses of cooperative learning focusing on case studies.

Another well-known technique is Slavin’s (1995) Student Team Achievement Division (STAD),in which students are assigned to four-member learning teams that are mixed in performancelevel and/or other group memberships. The educator presents a lesson, and then students workwithin their teams to make sure all team members have mastered the material. Finally, studentstake individual quizzes on the material, at which time they may not assist one another. STAD ismost appropriate for teaching well-defined objectives with single right answers, but can easily beadapted for use with less well-defined objectives by incorporating more open-endedassessments such as essays or performances. Lanzon (2002) describes her use of STAD witheducational psychology students, to increase their understanding and application of groupdynamics, which successfully increased at post-test.

Several decades of empirical research have demonstrated conclusively that collaborativelearning is an effective teaching device in higher education (e.g., Johnson, Johnson, & Smith,1991), provided that two essential conditions are met. First, some kind of recognition or smallreward must be provided to groups that do well so that group members can see that it is in theirinterest to help their groupmates learn. Second, there must be individual accountability forperformance. The effectiveness of cooperative learning can be increased if group members aretaught communication and helping skills and/or metacognitive learning strategies.

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In addition to boosting achievement, cooperative learning methods have positive effects onsuch outcomes as improved intergroup relations, self-esteem and attitudes to study (Slavin,1995). However, despite the evidence, there is still an over-reliance on traditional methodsthat emphasise individual learning. Reasons for this gap include the difficulty of translating theprinciples of collaborative learning into actual practice, and the fact that it can introduce moredifficulties than solutions when done poorly (Bryant, 1978; Giordano & Hammer, 1999).

Meyers (1997) summarised the components of successive collaborative learning tasks in areview of 68 empirical articles. He delineated three critical domains – task structure, studentevaluation and group structure – and offered general guidance for incorporating collaborativelearning tasks into courses. Meyers recommended that:• The structure of CL tasks should be amenable to small group work;• CL tasks should avoid the trap of social loafing (e.g., by using conjunctive tasks that

require joint participation and maximise interdependence);• A variety of evaluative criteria should be used, assessed at both group and individual

level; and• Group structure should promote individual participation.

Problem: Fostering diversity, critical thinking and involvement, learning

Context: General psychology, social psychology,

Theories: Cooperative learning principles, social identity theory

A large number of studies describe how cooperative learning principles have beenutilised in psychology teaching, including George (1994), in multicultural classrooms;Grossman (1994, 2002), as a technique to foster critical thinking; Finkel (1999), toenhance student involvement and comprehension; and Watters (1996), as a way tofoster reasoned discussion and conflict resolution.

For example, Pychyl, Clarke and Abarbanel (1999) used the web to facilitatecollaborative group work in a class of psychology postgraduate students, who usedpersonal web sites for their seminar work. The web environment appeared to facilitategroup work by providing clear demarcations of individual members’ contributions; astructure for group members’ participation; easy access to group members’contributions; individual work space; and commensurable resources for each groupmember.

Carlsmith and Cooper (2002) attempted to put Meyers’ (1997) principles into practice ina course on persuasion, designing it from the beginning to integrate the benefits ofcooperative learning while minimising the difficulties and drawbacks. In their subject,small groups designed, implemented and evaluated a persuasive behaviour changecampaign, with each campaign based on principles of social psychology. In addition,social identity theory (Hogg & Abrams, 1988) was used as the basis for techniques usedto create feelings of cohesion among members of the group. Student self-reportsindicated that the course format was significantly more popular than were traditionalformats, and that students worked significantly harder for and learned more from thecooperative learning components than the traditional lecture- and text-basedcomponents of the subject.

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Implications for teachingA number of recommendations for psychology educators follow from constructivism, situatedlearning and cooperative learning (Anderson et al., 1995):• Seek to understand students’ levels of functioning, and provide educational material at an

optimal level of difficulty;• Investigate students’ conceptions of key concepts, in order to determine misconceptions

that may need to be challenged and changed;• Provide multiple representations of key ideas across learning situations;• Use learning situations that provide enough complexity to seem authentic;• Foster learner-learner interaction, such as through collaborative learning and public

interaction;• Elicit students’ beliefs through comparison with alternative views;• Provide a supportive, learner-driven learning environment, one in which students can

create their own ideas, both individually and collaboratively;• Move from a hierarchic classroom structure to an egalitarian cooperative one, where

students’ ideas and interests drive the learning process, and you serve as a guide to ratherthan the source of knowledge, helping students to take the initiative in their own self-directed explorations; and

• Try to stay as flexible as possible in the classroom, sometimes giving guidance andtraining in a particular task or content area, but more often moving around the classroom,assisting individuals and groups.

Gagné’s information-processing model of learningGagné (1985; Gagné, Briggs, & Wager, 1992; Gagné & Driscoll, 1988) devised aninformation-processing model of learning based on the notion that there are different types orlevels of learning, each of which requires different types of internal and external conditionsand therefore different instruction. According to Gagné, there are five major categories oflearning (verbal information, intellectual skills, cognitive strategies, motor skills and attitudes),but the focus of his theory is on intellectual skills.Gagné suggests that learning tasks forintellectual skills can be organised in a hierarchy according to complexity: stimulusrecognition, response generation, procedure following, use of terminology, discriminations,concept formation, rule application and problem-solving. Because higher-order skills andconcepts depend upon subordinate capabilities, instruction based on this model alwaysbegins by analysing what is to be learned and arranging content into a hierarchy of tasks andsequence of instruction – a process called task analysis. Educators facilitate students’progress through the different tasks, using scaffolding and other techniques. Gagné’s theoryhas been applied to the design of instruction in virtually every context, particularly in relation toinstructional technology in teaching (Gagné, 1987).

Implications for teachingGagné’s theory implies that psychology educators should:• Analyse what is to be learned and break this down into a sequence of tasks, with later

tasks dependent upon successful achievement of earlier ones; and• Then facilitate students’ working through these different tasks by using direct instruction,

scaffolding and other techniques.

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Transfer of learningSpontaneous transfer of learning and skills is rarely found in psychology research (Newstead,1990; Singley & Anderson, 1989), even when the problem is essentially the same but phraseddifferently. Research on expert/novice differences also shows that expertise in one field doesnot transfer to other fields (Glaser & Chi, 1988). Instead, experts, due to their increasedexperience in their field, have broader and better organised knowledge of the field and itsproblems and a broader repertoire of appropriate problem-solving techniques, and knowwhen and how to use these techniques effectively and speedily.

Because spontaneous transfer is rare, Newstead (1990) points out that active steps need tobe taken to ensure transfer, and makes a number of suggestions based on the literature. Themore knowledge or expertise a person has in a subject or skill, and the greater the range andnumber of contexts in which this expertise was acquired, the more likely is the skill to transferto a novel situation. Transfer is also easier when the subject matter and context in which it isto be applied is very similar to the original context (Perkins & Salomon, 1988), and for moregeneral knowledge (McKeough, Lupart, & Marini, 1995; Phye, 1992). Transfer is also morelikely when students are effective learners and do not have a competing mental model orschema, and are metacognitively aware (McKeogh et al., 1995; Newstead, 1990).

Research shows that self-contained thinking skills packages tend not to lead to improvedthinking abilities, perhaps because they do not encourage metacognitive awareness or skillsgeneralisation, or understanding of the principles and cognitive processes underlying a skill(McMillan, 1987). Training in transferable skills is therefore most effective in the context of realpractice in a specific field. Newstead (1990) suggests that transferable skills training shouldbe an integral part of the psychology curriculum, and should be integrated with relevanttheory. Skills training should also be made explicit, and if possible skills should be explicitlyassessed.

Implications for teachingResearch into transfer of knowledge and skills (Brown et al., 1989; Newstead, 1990) leads toa number of recommendations for teaching practice:• Do not assume that a student who is good (or poor) in one subject will be good (or poor) in

another, or that a student who learns a skill in one class or subject will be able to apply it toanother subject;

• Use learning activities that present diverse examples, multiple representations of contentand multiple perspectives – for example, case-based instruction, which emphasisesknowledge construction and not its transmission;

• Use instructional materials that avoid oversimplifying the content domain and supportingcontext-dependent knowledge; and highly interconnected rather than compartmentalisedknowledge sources;

• Make skills training explicit: make students aware of the skills they will be and areacquiring;

• Make sure problems are always in context;• Teach skills in multiple contexts, and enable and encourage students to practise their skills

in a variety of contexts;• Model skill use and transfer, in line with social learning theory (Bandura, 1977; see page 51);• Give students feedback on their performance on desired skills;

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• Teach new facts through patterns or principles, rather than by rote. Using analogousexamples or tasks can also be effective, though students must understand the topic(s) onwhich analogies are based, and are likely to need to be cued about their relevance;

• Teach for understanding, as having a deeper understanding of a topic helps studentstransfer. Help students organise information learnt and integrate it with what they alreadyknow;

• Teach students to solve problems by applying their understanding; and• Help students have more realistic ideas about learning, helping them realise that mistakes

are part of learning, and that learning is about understanding and not just memorisingfacts.

Social learning approaches

Bandura’s (1977, 1986) social learning theory (also known as social cognitive theory) positsthat observational learning (or imitation) is a central process in determining behaviour. Sociallearning through imitation reflects the effects of actual or anticipated direct or vicariousreinforcement, the observer’s awareness of the connection between behaviour andoutcomes, and the observer’s ability to anticipate the consequences of behaviour. Essentially,social learning theory sees human behaviour as a continuous reciprocal interaction betweencognitive, behavioural and environmental influences. Learning through imitation requirespaying attention to the model’s behaviour, retention of it, reproducing it, and being motivatedto learn it. Imitation can have a modelling effect (lead to the acquisition of new behaviours), aninhibitory-disinhibitory effect (inhibit or disinhibit deviant responses, usually due to observationof the model being punished or rewarded for the behaviour), or an eliciting effect (fosteringbehaviour that is not identical to that of the model but related to it, and neither novel nordeviant). In social learning, the educator can control many of the factors important forteaching, and foster attention, retention, reproduction and motivation. An example of this inthe psychology context is found in Wheeler et al. (1999).

Problem: Student fear of the laboratory rat

Context: Introductory psychology

Theory: Social learning theory

Barber (1994) used a participant modelling technique in the classroom to reducestudents’ fear of a laboratory rat. In participant modelling, a clinical procedure used fortreating phobias that is based on social learning theory, participants are exposeddirectly to a phobic object in the presence of a therapist (expert). In Barber’s study,students received a mild level of exposure (holding the rat’s transparent transport box),and saw peer volunteers handling the animal. Pre- and post-testing showed that studentfear (as measured by a validated fear questionnaire) was significantly reduced afterexposure, with the greatest reduction for the peer volunteers.

Implications for teachingSocial learning theory leads to a number of recommendations for teaching practice:• Be aware of the fact that students are more likely to adopt a modelled behaviour if the

model is similar to the student and has admired status. As in many contexts academics aresimilar to their students and are accorded higher status, it is important to realise that yournon-desired behaviour may also be modelled;

• Make the positive outcomes of various learning behaviours explicit, as students are morelikely to adopt a modelled behaviour if it results in outcomes they value;

• Encourage students to analyse and describe behaviour they wish to emulate, becausecoding modelled behaviour into words, labels or images results in better retention thansimply observing it; and

• Have students visualise themselves doing the behaviour before actually doing it, as thehighest level of observational learning is achieved by first organising and rehearsing themodelled behaviour symbolically and then enacting it overtly.

Motivation

Motivation in HE is an issue for both students and staff, though the focus has tended to be onstudent motivation. As with learning, there are many different approaches to motivation,including behavioural approaches, content theories (theories, such as Maslow’s hierarchy ofneeds, that focus on what motivates one) and process theories (ones, such as Vroom’sexpectancy theory, that focus on the dynamics of motivation).

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

Within education, the emphasis in motivation research has been on fostering intrinsically-motivated study behaviour – that is, behaviour that is performed simply for the sake of thepleasure inherent in the activity itself, occurring in the absence of external rewards orreinforcements, and characterised by the experience of interest, enjoyment and curiosity(Deci, 1975). Such intrinsic motivation has been empirically linked to a variety of important,positive educational outcomes (Patrick, Hisley, & Kempler, 2000). Research suggests that anumber of educational variables can promote intrinsic motivation to learn (Patrick et al.,2000): self-determination (through the provision of greater choice and a focus on personallymeaningful material), promotion of perceived competence through both positive feedback andoptimal levels of challenge, interpersonal relatedness and perceived interpersonal cuesregarding the motivation of others towards an activity (e.g., the perception that the educator isintrinsically motivated, perhaps because they are enthusiastic in their teaching).Focusing onthe latter variable, Patrick et al. (2000) surveyed introductory and intermediate levelpsychology students enrolled in a variety of modules and found that perceived educatorenthusiasm was the most powerful unique predictor of students’ intrinsic motivation andfeelings of vitality within the classroom. Autonomy support and knowledge of subject alsoemerged as predictors of intrinsic motivation.

However, motivation to learn in general, and motivation to study particular subjects, may differand be based on different factors, such as the nature of the task to be done in the classroom.Jacobs and Newstead (2000) studied the nature and development of student motivationamong psychology students, in a number of studies. The findings suggested that there aretwo types of students: those motivated by the discipline itself and those motivated by the

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acquisition of more general skills and experiences. The perceived importance of manyaspects of the degree declined over the three years of the degree, seeming especially low inthe second year, but some aspects, notably research methodology, and some skills andexperiences showed marked increases in the final year. The authors conclude that currenttheories of educational motivation need to be extended to account for the difference betweensubject-related and generic motives to learn.

In addition, much of what is to be learned in education is not inherently interesting or useful tostudents in the short-term, so extrinsic motivators (incentives) such as praise, marks,recognition and prizes may be needed. While there is some evidence that reinforcing peoplefor behaviours that they would have done without reward, where rewards are provided forengaging in an activity regardless of standard of performance, can undermine long-termintrinsic motivation, for most tasks there is no basis for concern that use of extrinsicreinforcers will undermine intrinsic motivation (Cameron & Pierce, 1994). In fact, rewardsmore often increase intrinsic motivation, especially when they are contingent on the quality ofperformance and not just on mere participation, when the rewards are seen as recognition ofcompetence, when the task is not very interesting, or when the rewards are social rather thanmaterial (Cameron & Pierce, 1994). Nonetheless, educators should attempt to makeeverything they teach as interesting as possible, and may be able to phase out extrinsicrewards as students come to enjoy and succeed at the activity (Hetrick, 1999).

Problem: Low levels of motivation to learn in students

Context: Psychology students in general, introductory psychology students

Theories: Research into intrinsic motivation

In an experimental study occurring outside the classroom situation, Patrick et al.(2000, Study 2) manipulated level of educator enthusiasm to determine its effectson introductory psychology student motivation. Results revealed that students whoreceived an enthusiastically delivered lecture (as opposed to an unenthusiasticallydelivered one) subsequently reported greater intrinsic motivation regarding the lecturematerial and higher levels of vitality. There was also a trend, though not statisticallysignificant, towards students’ being more likely to read lecture-related material on theirown following an enthusiastically delivered lecture. Patrick et al. note, however, that in areal teaching context having the expectation that students will be motivated to learn canincrease educator enthusiasm.

Based on research showing that the nature of the task to be done impacts on studentmotivation, Hemenover, Caster and Mizumoto (1999) suggest that the ambiguity andlack of control inherent in the process of writing psychological reports and essaysproduces low motivation, which may in turn result in many students completing a paperat the last minute. As a result, students may not adequately process and reflect on whatthey have learned, resulting in less beneficial educational experiences. They suggestthat progressive writing techniques may assist in student motivation. Students in theirintroductory psychology class were provided with a written tutorial that explained a six-step writing process, and provided feedback on their progress at each step. Courseevaluations indicated that students believed that the progressive writing approachhelped them write a high quality paper, and student performance was good, with 44% ofstudents earning more than 90% of the points available. However, student motivationwas lower than was expected.

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Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Of all the content theories of motivation, those based on ‘need’ have been particular influential.Maslow (1943, 1970), in his hierarchy of needs, identified a number of different types of need.He argued that a satisfied need is no longer a motivator, and suggested that lower-order needs(deficiency needs) must be satisfied before higher-order needs (growth needs) can motivatebehaviour. Maslow’s need levels are often shown as a pyramid, going from (at the lowest level)physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness and love needs, and esteem needs(deficiency needs); to the need to know and understand, aesthetic needs, and finally self-actualisation needs, realising one’s full potential, which can take many forms and variesbetween individuals. Maslow’s model assumes that higher-order needs are less likely to besatisfied than lower-order needs, with Maslow estimating that fewer than 1% of adults achievingself-actualisation.Maslow’s model implies that if students’ basic needs are not met (e.g., forfood, sleep), learning will suffer. However, the most important deficiency needs may be those forlove and self-esteem. Students who do not feel they are loved and capable are unlikely to havea strong motivation to achieve the higher-level growth objectives such as the search forknowledge and understanding for their own sake, or the creativity and openness to new ideasthat are characteristic of self-actualising individuals. Educators who can therefore put studentsat ease and make them feel accepted and respected as individuals are more likely to help thembecome eager to learn for the sake of learning and willing to risk being creative and open.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory

Unlike Maslow’s theoretical approach, Herzberg’s (1966) two-factor (or motivation-hygiene)theory was based on empirical research with engineers and accountants, and has had amajor impact on job structuring in organisations. Herzberg found that while certain factorswere associated with job satisfaction (motivators), others were linked with dissatisfaction ifabsent or poor (hygiene factors). They were not, however, simple mirror images of each other;motivators were linked with the job content, were intrinsic to the work (e.g., achievement,recognition, the work itself, responsibility and advancement), while hygiene factors werelinked with the work environment, the job context (salary, supervision, interpersonal relations,policy and administration and working conditions). Removing hygiene factors that are creatingdissatisfaction does not and indeed cannot create job satisfaction because hygiene factorsare incapable of doing so. Herzberg suggested that the redesign of jobs to increasemotivation and performance should concentrate on motivators.

While Herzberg’s theory has met with a number of criticisms (see Robertson, Smith, &Cooper, 1992), Herzberg’s model has been influential, with the job enrichment movementstrongly influenced by it. This movement has fostered strategies such as job rotation, jobenlargement (increasing the range of tasks done by a worker), and job enrichment (jobenlargement accompanied by greater autonomy, responsibility and job control), withHackman and Oldham (1976, 1980) developing a well-known model of job redesign thatexplicitly refers to Herzberg’s work. While the job redesign approach is reasonably commonwithin educational management (see Evans, 1998), it has only recently been applied to thearea of student motivation (see next page).

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Problem: Increasing student motivation and interest

Context: General psychology students

Theories: Hackman and Oldham’s model of job characteristics and redesign

Catanzaro (1997) suggested that Hackman and Oldham’s model could be usefullyapplied to the psychology teaching context, to provide a framework for enriching coursedesign to increase student motivation. In order to test this, Bloom et al. (2000)administered to students the revised Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman & Oldham, 1975;Idaszak & Drasgow, 1987), which was developed on the basis of Hackman andOldham’s model of job redesign (1976, 1980), and found that the degree to whichstudents perceived course material to affect the lives of others was the most salientpredictor of course motivation, satisfaction, performance, absenteeism, interest anddesire to withdraw. However, feedback received by students, perceived autonomy andthe variety of skills developed and used by students also significantly predicted some ofthese outcome measures. Bloom et al. suggest that if educators try to foster these fourdimensions in their teaching practice, they may significantly enhance students’classroom experiences.

Expectancy theory

One of the most influential process theories of motivation is Vroom’s (1964, 1974) expectancytheory, which is based on the assumption that people are motivated by what they regard asthe likely impact of their actions. Individuals rationally (though not necessarily consciously)examine the prospects for different rewards that might arise from different courses of action,and decide to act in the way that is most likely to be successful and produce the greatestreward for them personally. People therefore are most likely to be motivated when they thinkthey will receive rewards if they perform well; they feel they will be fairly rewarded bycomparison with others around them; the attraction of the reward is high; and they feelconfident of achieving a high level of performance.A similar theory is Atkinson’s (1964)expectancy-valence model, where motivation = perceived probability of success x incentivevalue of success (the value placed on success). Atkinson points out that under certaincircumstances an overly high probability of success can reduce motivation; if someone is veryable it may be so easy for them to succeed that they need not do their best. Atkinson arguesthat success in an easy task is not as valued as is success in a difficult task, thereforemotivation should be at a maximum at moderate levels of probability of success. Confirmingthis theory, research shows that a person’s motivation increases as task difficulty increasesup to a point at which the person decides that success is very unlikely or that the goal is notworth the effort (Brehm & Self, 1989).

Self-determination theory

Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory (SDT; see Deci, Eghrari, Patrick, & Leone, 1994; Deci& Ryan, 1985, 2000; Ryan & Deci, 2000) is a well-established and comprehensive theory ofmotivation. Deci and Ryan postulated three innate psychological needs: competence,autonomy, and relatedness. Social contexts that facilitate satisfaction of these needs (byproviding optimal challenge, informational feedback, interpersonal involvement and autonomysupport) promote both intrinsic motivation and self-determined forms of extrinsic motivation.Intrinsic motivation and self-determined extrinsic motivation are positively associated with highquality learning and personal adjustment (Deci, Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991).

SDT makes a distinction between self-determined (or autonomous) and controlled types ofextrinsic motivation, and the impact that this distinction has on the quality of learningexperiences. Controlled extrinsic motivation depends either on explicit or implicit rewards orpunishment, or on people’s internalised beliefs about what is expected of them, and leads tobehaviour that complies with pressures, as it is externally regulated. Such extrinsic motivationdetracts from a feeling of self-determination and leads to a decrease in intrinsic motivation, andlearning under such controlling conditions is likely to be rote, short-lived and poorly integratedinto long-term values and skills (Reeve, 2002). By contrast, autonomous extrinsic motivation canlead to and not undermine intrinsic motivation, as it is self-determined, personally endorsed,reflects what people find interesting and important, and leads to behaviour with a sense ofvolition, agency and choice.

Whether educators are controlling or autonomy supportive is influenced by a number of factors,such as their beliefs about students’ levels of motivation, and whether they are pressured orcontrolled by administrators or the system in general. However, studies show that educators can betaught to be more autonomy supportive, with the result that students increase their levels of self-determination and achievement (Reeve, 2002). Deci et al. (1991) summarise contextual factors thatsupport student autonomy, such as providing a meaningful rationale, acknowledging students’feelings and conveying choice. Project-based learning, for example, allows students numerouschoices around what form their finished product will take (Williams, Saizow, & Ryan, 1999).

Problem: Fostering student motivation

Context: Educational psychology

Theories: Motivational theory

Tuckman (1996a) describes a series of studies assessing the effects of various strategiesdesigned to foster motivation in students in his educational psychology course. In thesestudies, conducted in different class cohorts between 1988 and 1996, Tuckman comparedexperimental groups that received different interventions or were required to use differentstrategies. Intervention strategies, which were based on Tuckman’s own prior researchinto student motivation, included induced student strategies (goal-setting and planning),teaching strategies (participant modelling and text processing), and what he calls strategicclassroom parameters (incentives and grading method). Over this time, student cognitiveengagement (defined as the amount of time spent studying or completing assignments)increased, primarily among students lacking self-efficacy. Student achievement in courseexams also improved. Based on these results, Tuckman proposes a model for enhancingstudent learning and motivation that includes student activities and behaviours requiringself-regulation.

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Attribution theory, locus of control and self-efficacy

Attribution theory (Graham, 1991; Weiner, 1992, 1994) seeks to understand how peopleexplain the causes of their own and others’ successes and failure (important recurring themesin education). According to Weiner (1994), most explanations for success and failure havethree characteristics: whether the cause is internal or external, stable or unstable andcontrollable or not. Attribution theory deals primarily with four explanations for success andfailure in achievement situations: ability (internal and stable), effort (internal and unstable),task difficulty (external and stable) and luck (external and unstable). A central assumption ofattribution theory is that people attempt to maintain a positive self-image (Thompson,Davidson, & Barber, 1995), so are likely to attribute their success to their own efforts orabilities but their failures to factors over which they have no control. However, maintainingsuch attributions may be difficult to maintain, so students may move from an external unstableattribution of luck to one that is more stable, such as claiming that the course is too difficult.Students may even reduce their level of effort so that they can maintain the idea that they cansucceed if they really wanted to (Jagacinski & Nicholls, 1990).

A central concept in attribution theory is locus of control (Rotter, 1954), a personality trait thatconcerns whether people attribute responsibility for their achievement to internal factors(internal locus of control) or external factors (external locus of control). Closely related to themore global internal locus of control, but specific to particular task domains, is self-efficacy(Bandura, 1997), a person’s self-perceived level of competence and capacity to succeed in anarea. Self-efficacy and academic motivation are strongly related, with self-efficacy found to bethe second most important predictor of a student’s academic achievement after ability(Pajares, 1996; Schunk, 1991). Unsurprisingly, those with high self-efficacy in a particulardomain can be expected to work hard, provided they want to succeed, while the belief thatone will fail can lead to poor motivation and therefore be a self-fulfilling prophecy. However,achievement has a strong effect on locus of control and self-efficacy (Weiner, 1992), whichcan make it difficult to study the effects of these variables on achievement. Strategic trainingcan foster both achievement and self-efficacy in a domain; for example, Prieto and colleagues(Prieto & Altmaier, 1994; Prieto & Meyers, 1999) have found that, amongst psychologypostgraduate teaching assistants, formal training and supervision in relation to teachingpractice has a positive, statically significant effect on students’ sense of self-efficacy towardteaching.

Goal orientation

Dweck and colleagues (Dweck, 1986; Dweck & Elliott, 1983; Dweck & Leggett, 1988) proposethat learners possess either performance goals or mastery (also known as learning) goals,which guide their activities, thoughts, feelings and performances (Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000).Goal orientations are based on students’ implicit theories of intelligence, with students withperformance goals implicitly believing that intelligence (or ability) is static and inflexible,fundamentally unchangeable, and those with mastery goals believing it is fundamentallymalleable. Students with performance goals primarily seek to gain positive judgements of theircompetence and avoid negative judgments, and therefore focus on getting good marks, takeeasy courses and avoid challenging situations. When they run into problems they tend to fallinto a pattern of helplessness. By contrast, those with mastery goals see the purpose of

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education as gaining competence in the skills being taught, use metacognitive or self-regulated learning strategies, and are more likely to take difficult courses and seekchallenges. When they face problems they tend to seek assistance to improve their learning,and their motivation and performance may actually increase.

While most students do not fall neatly into one goal orientation or the other, generallyeducators want to increase students’ mastery goals and diminish performance goals.However, performance goals can have positive effects in some situations for some students,according to Hidi and Harackiewicz (2000), so such an orientation to learning should not beviewed as necessarily limiting for all adult learners. Research suggests that educators shouldtry to convince students that the purpose of academic work is learning rather than obtaininggood marks, emphasising the interest, value and practical importance of the material studiedand deemphasising marks and other rewards. In particular, use of highly competitive gradingor incentive systems should be avoided, as those who perceive their ability to be low may wellgive up in advance (Ames, 1992). Fortunately, studies indicate that the use of learning tasksthat are challenging, meaningful and related to real-life are more likely to lead to masterygoals than are other tasks (Ames, 1992).

Implications for teaching

Research into motivation leads to the following recommendations for teaching practice:• Attempt to create a learning context that actively supports students’ growing interests and

needs and does not undermine their intrinsic motivation;• Enhance student motivation by using a combination of intrinsically interesting tasks,

responsibility delegated to them, opportunities for recognisable achievement and personalgrowth, and recognition and advancement;

• Try to teach in an enthusiastic style;• Develop educational materials that fit students’ interests and real-world knowledge, and

challenge them;• Provide clear feedback on performance, whether formal or informal; and• Use assessment techniques that measure both understanding and knowledge, while not

fostering high levels of competition.

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The social context

Whilst many psychological theories of relevance to teaching tend to focus on the individualand factors influencing their individual cognitions and behaviours, it is important to recall thateducation is fundamentally a social process, as sociocultural theorists of education explicitlyacknowledge (see page 15).

Group processes

Group work is often encouraged and utilised in psychology teaching (Bennett et al., 2002), inorder to enhance student involvement, learning and comprehension, and considered a keytransferable skill that fosters student employability. In addition, students are encouraged towork in groups because this can result in gains in productivity due to the fact that incomparison to individuals the group as a whole has more knowledge and ideas and a greatercapacity to evaluate opinions and detect errors and problems. However, this productivity gaincan be balanced out by process losses – inefficiencies and problems caused by the fact that agroup of people are involved. Such problems can include low levels of group cohesiveness,poor communication within groups, poor decision-making, and social loafing (unevenparticipation by group members), each of which will be addressed in the following subsectionsof this report.

Group development and structureWhile small groups and teams are frequently used in HE, creating group cohesiveness withinsuch teams, particularly where membership is not self-selected, can be problematic. Whilegroup cohesiveness is not necessary for effective performance, it can foster group motivationand reduce social loafing (Michaelsen, Fink, & Knight, 1997), as well as make groupparticipation more pleasurable. Group cohesiveness is influenced by a number of factors,including salience of group membership, strength of identification with the group, whetherother ingroup members are seen to represent epitomise norms, dependence of membersupon the group, group achievement, and external threat (Hogg, 1992).

Problem: Poor cohesiveness within cooperative groups

Context: General psychology

Theories: Social identity theory

Carlsmith and Cooper (1992) utilised social identity theory research to create cohesionwithin small cooperative groups in the classroom, encouraging groups to generateunique group names, meet in separate areas and in social settings, and sit togetherduring class lectures and discussions.

Research into small group and team development has come up with a number of models ofsmall group development, which generally agree that the route to group cohesion may beboth traumatic and problematic, reflecting the intricacy of the issues involved. In Tuckman’s(1965) well-known model of group development, for example, groups go through four stages:• Forming (characterised by uncertainty and anxiety);• Storming (conflict and internal dissent due to individual differences);

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• Norming (developing cohesion and satisfaction as group members, and establishing newgroup goals, norms, roles and leadership); and

• Performing (focusing on task completion, with interpersonal difficulties resolved.

Tuckman and Jensen (1977) added a further stage, adjourning, where the group is likely todisband because the task has been completed or group members are leaving, precipitatingreflection and preparation for change. Tuckman’s model appears to be verified by research(Tuckman & Jensen, 1977) and seems to explain issues associated with many problematicgroups that fail to work effectively.

Once a group has been established, individuals take on group or team roles. On the basis ofobservations of team working at a (male-dominated) management college, Belbin (1981, 1993)developed a well-known and -used model of group/team role, which builds on the idea of roleand personality matching in team building. Belbin argues that people have an inherent ‘self-perception’ which determines their intuitive way of acting in group situations, and specifies anumber of different ‘team roles’, each of which relates to the particular psychological and socialattributes of team members. Belbin found that a range of distinct ‘team roles’ can be identified,falling into ‘action-oriented’ roles, ‘people-oriented’ roles and ‘cerebral’ roles. Individual rolescan be predicted through psychometric testing, with leaders tending to prefer or adopt one ortwo particular team roles. Combining team roles in particular ways (e.g., if individuals becomemore aware of their best roles and potential strengths or if individuals work to team strengthsrather than allow their weaknesses to interfere) tends to produce more effective teams.Belbin’s observations indicated that the most successful teams were those with members whohad a complementary range of skills and abilities, plus the flexibility to adapt roles andbehaviour to changing circumstances.

Communication within groupsIn relation to communication within groups, Leavitt’s (1951) work points to the leader’s strategicrole in intragroup communication: the nature of the group or network effectively controls howcommunication works. In contrast to centralised networks (e.g., a ‘chain’ network, aunidirectional flow of communication from one person to the next, or a ‘star’ network, where allcommunication goes through a central person), which depend upon individual links orperformance, in decentralised networks (e.g., a ‘circle’ network, where there is sequential butbi-directional communication, or ‘all-channel’ networks, where everyone is in communicationwith everyone else), information flows more freely between all group members. As aconsequence, for simple tasks star and all-channel networks perform well, and circle networksless well. All-channel networks again perform best in complex task situations. Chain networksmay benefit the individuals at the head of the chain, but are generally of limited value to thegroup and are not good at fostering motivation. This research suggests that communicationwithin groups is fostered when everyone is in communication with each other, for examplethrough an email list, with all interactions circulated to all members.

With the advent of such communication and information technologies, researchers’ interest hasturned to computer-mediated communication (CMC). Unlike face-to-face communication, CMCis relatively anonymous due to the many social context cues filtered out. Research shows thatsuch online anonymity has benefits for teaching and learning, including increased equity andhigher participation rates (Berge & Collins, 1995). However, CMC may be associated not onlywith higher levels of self-disclosure but of antisocial behaviour, due to the absence of non-verbal cues, well-established etiquette and face-to-face norms. This is particularly the case inlarge internet lists, where it is easier to remain anonymous (Berge & Collins, 1995).

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Problem: Increasing participation and involvement in the class communityContext: Personality identity and community in cyberspace courseTheories: Computer-mediated communication research

Chester and Gwynne (1998) utilised CMC in an online psychology subject focusing onpersonal identity and community in cyberspace, in a context that they hoped wouldpromote collaborative learning, by making it necessary for the completion of a numberof assessment tasks. They found that CMC increased the proportion of interculturalinteractions and participation of those who would normally rarely participate in class.Students in general reported higher participation rates and greater involvement in theclass community. The process of CMC itself, and its implications for communication,identity and community, was the focus of the class, fostering critical self-reflexivity instudents.

Group norms and conformityAssociated with every group are group norms, expected behaviours and even cognitions, andthe expectation that group members will conform to those norms. As social identity theory(Hogg & Abrams, 1988) explores, if one sees oneself as part of a group and values thatgroup, then ingroup identification will lead one to take on the group’s norms regarding bothone’s own behaviour and that of members of other groups. Going against a group’s norms is achallenge to the identity of the group and its members, and can therefore lead to extremebehaviour such as exclusion of the individual or forced conformity.

In many cases conformity with group norms is beneficial, if the group’s norms are positive(e.g., that group members should focus on the task at hand and not be distracted by thedesire to socialise), but in some cases conformity may lead to lower quality outcomes. Forexample, when the group norm is not to argue about things but to seek unanimity, and there isa dominant group member or tutor, this may lead to groupthink (Janis, 1972, 1982), aphenomenon that can and has led to very poor decisions. In groupthink not all alternatives arecarefully considered, but instead the will of the dominant individual tends to be adopted, andthe group tends to engage in stereotypical thinking and rationalisation of poor decisions. Evenwhen a group’s norms are not detrimental to quality argument, influence processes operatingwithin groups tend to produce group polarisation – the group’s opinions tend to shift in thedirection initially favoured by group members before discussion (Myers & Lamm, 1975).Within a problem-based learning group, for example, this could lead to the group settling on asolution too early, producing a poorer solution than one generated from a more thoroughdiscussion. However, when groups are more heterogeneous they tend to offer more creativesolutions to problems than do homogeneous groups (McLeod, Lobel, & Cox, 1996), perhapsbecause heterogeneity of group members reduces the tendency towards conformity.

Conformity to group norms, such as occurs in group polarisation, is affected by a range ofelements including group size, unanimity of the majority, and group structure, with conformityoften increasing as group size grows. In addition, conformity is greater in decentralised than incentralised networks. Asch’s classic 1950s experimental studies of conformity (e.g., Asch,1951) indicate the potential for individual problems when a new member joins the team, aswell as the importance of ensuring that appropriate norms are established by a group duringthe ‘storming’ and ‘norming’ stages of group development (see page 59).

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Social loafingIt has long been established that as one adds more and more people to a group pulling on arope, the total effort or output produced by the group rises, but the average exerted orproduced by each group member declines, a phenomenon known as social loafing (Latané,Williams, & Harkins, 1979), with various theories such as losses in motivation, evaluationapprehension and coordination, and increased deindividuation, having been posited asresponsible. Michaelsen et al. (1997) examine the research on social loafing in learninggroups and identify several key variables that must be maximised in order to create a groupenvironment that is conducive to broad-based member participation and learning: memberidentifiability; group discussion and interaction; immediate, unambiguous and meaningfulfeedback; and explicit rewards for high levels of group performance. In addition, social loafingis less likely to occur in more novel and challenging tasks and where ingroup identity andgroup cohesiveness are strong (Karau & Williams, 2001).

Implications for teachingResearch into group processes leads to a number of recommendations for teaching practice:• Help students build cohesive groups and teams by encouraging them to develop a shared

goal(s) and unity of purpose; develop complementary roles; foster individual and groupaccountability; provide help and social support to fellow group members; understand andappreciate each other’s roles; regularly communicate with all other team members;monitor, evaluate and adjust goals as needed; listen to others; and show respect;

• Explain to students that teams often go through early stages of conflict, where things areunclear and relationships ambiguous, before they can progress towards more stable,integrated relationships and structures where norms and behaviour are understood by allteam members; and

• Reduce social loafing by fostering member identifiability but also strong group identity andcohesiveness; encouraging group discussion and interaction; providing useful andimmediate feedback and rewards for excellent group performance; and providing groupswith novel and challenging tasks.

Intergroup relations

Stereotyping and prejudiceAs mentioned on the previous page, social identity theory (Hogg & Abrams, 1988) argues thatwhen group members identify with a group, they internalise the norms and beliefs that areprototypical of that group, beliefs about and attitudes towards other groups (outgroupstereotypes and prejudice), and stereotypes of and preference for the ingroup. Thesestereotypes and feelings generally reflect the nature of real social relations between groups –that is, whether groups are of differing status, compete with each other, and so on. As Matlin(1991) discusses, when one’s group identity is made salient (e.g., when class discussionturns to gender differences in housework), these stereotypes and prejudices can impact uponbehaviour towards members of one’s own and other groups, with a number of implications forthe HE context.

However, stereotypes also impact upon expectations regarding how members of the ingroupand outgroups should behave. Such expectancy effects can be very powerful within theeducational context, particularly when held by educators, with strong evidence emerging that

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educator expectancies can serve as self-fulfilling prophecies (Rosenthal & Jacobson, 1992),operating not only through discriminatory educator behaviour but also through the impact ofthat on student self-concept, self-efficacy and motivation (Bandura, 1997).

Even when educator behaviour is in no way discriminatory, student performance can beimpacted upon by the knowledge that such discrimination is possible and occurs in the widersociety. Steele (1997, 1998; Steele & Aronson, 1995) identifies what he calls stereotypethreat, the experience of being in a situation where one recognises that a negative outgroupstereotype could apply to oneself. His research shows that, in situations where one’sperformance and related outcomes are very important, this stereotype threat can bedistracting and upsetting, and impacts upon performance on high stake standardised tests.In addition, stereotype threat can affect behaviours as varied as participating in class, seekinghelp from staff, and contact with students in other groups. If it becomes a chronic feature ofthe educational environment, it can lead to disidentification with that environment, with thepain of stereotype threat relieved by losing identification with the part of life where the painoccurs. This necessarily includes a loss of motivation to succeed in that part of life, which canfurther reduce performance. In addition, stereotype threat most impairs students who mostidentify with achievement, often those who are also the most skilled, motivated and confident– the academic vanguard of the group. Essentially, a person has to care about a domain inorder to be disturbed by the prospect of being stereotyped in it; students who do not identifywith education do not experience any impact on performance due to stereotype threat.

Intergroup contactHowever, the university educational context can have a number of positive effects onintergroup relations. Importantly, contact with members of other student groups can reduceprejudice and stereotyping (e.g., Biernat, 1990; Fichten, Taglakis, & Amsel, 1989; Kay,Jensen-Osinski, Beidler, & Aronson, 1983), provided that such contact is equal status,cooperative, supported by authorities and stereotype disconfirming (Pettigrew, 1991). On thebasis of analysis of a large US cross-institutional data set, Gurin (1999) concludes thatdiversity experiences during university have impressive effects on the extent to whichgraduates live racially or ethnically integrated lives in the post-university world. Students whoexperience the most diversity in classroom settings and in informal interactions with peersshow the most: growth in intellectual engagement, motivation, intellectual and academic skills;engagement with active thinking processes, various forms of citizenship, and people fromdifferent races/cultures; and were the most likely to acknowledge that group differences arecompatible with the interests of the broader community (Astin, 1993; King & Shuford, 1996).Such findings are also consistent with those obtained by Newcomb (Alwin, Cohen, &Newcomb, 1991; Newcomb, 1943; Newcomb, Koenig, Flacks, & Warwick, 1967), whoseclassic longitudinal investigation into how student attitudes and norms changed upon enteringcollege (and were maintained after college) revealed the strong social influence of peers, aswell as how the transition to the more complex social structure of the university environmentchallenges individuals, fostering deep thinking and cognitive growth.

Even where students may not encounter a very diverse student body, participation in subjectssuch as the psychology of racism course described by Khan (1999) can have a positive effecton student attitudes if taught with sensitivity (see Khan for a number of suggestions as to howbest to do this). As Kowalski (2000) points out, the study of diversity conveys informationabout individual differences, psychological processes and scientific biases, and has practicalimplications for students’ current and future behaviour.

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Implications for teachingResearch into intergroup relations leads to a number of recommendations for psychologyeducators:• Be aware of stereotypes of different groups of students within your particular educational

context;• Make contact between groups as equal status, pleasant, stereotype disconfirming and

cooperative as possible, and make it clear that such positive contact is supported byteaching staff and other authorities; and

• Consider the impact of group norms upon student behaviour.

Persuasion and attitude change

The research on persuasion and attitude change has many implications for psychologyteaching. Ultimately, as Fives and Alexander (2001) point out, educators want to persuadetheir students towards learning; persuasion, like teaching, involves convincing others to lookdifferently or more deeply at some concept or subject. A well-crafted message in the form ofclassroom discourse or text becomes a mechanism for fostering discussion and reflection(Hynd, 2001). Murphy (2001) argues that the perception of teaching as persuasion:• Rejects the idea that there can be simple of transmission of knowledge from educator to

student and the assumption that all students will accept whatever information is introducedinto the learning environment fully or in part;

• Accepts learning as a change in students’ knowledge, beliefs and interests;• Acknowledges and values the ideas and feelings that learners bring to the classroom

environment;• Recognises the power of messages in shaping understanding;• Holds that there is no singular view or understanding in relation to complex concepts, and

that these competing views are worthy of exploration;• Assumes that deep-seated changes in students’ understandings come from reaching into

the social/cultural, motivational, as well as cognitive realms; and• Is responsive to the informational demands placed on students in today’s post-industrial

world.

As with most areas of psychology, there are a variety of theories of persuasion and attitudechange, some of which will now be explored.

Cognitive dissonance theoryAccording to cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957), individuals have a tendency toseek consistency among their cognitions (e.g., attitudes, beliefs), and between theircognitions and behaviours. For example, people tend to prefer that their actions areconsistent with their beliefs and attitudes. When an inconsistency occurs, cognitivedissonance, a negative experience, is the result. The strength of the dissonance is affected bythe number of dissonant cognitions, and by the importance attached to each one. Becausedissonance is seen as an intrinsically negative state, the dissonance is resolved in one of anumber of ways: by reducing the importance of the dissonant cognitions; adding moreconsonant cognitions that outweigh the dissonant ones; changing behaviour; or changingcognitions.

In a classic study of cognitive dissonance with particular implications for teaching, Festingerand Carlsmith (1959) showed that if too much justification is given for the performance of an

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unpleasant or otherwise cognitively-inconsistent behaviour (in that study, lying to aconfederate), individuals may resolve any cognitive dissonance experienced not by changingtheir attitude but by justifying their behaviour in terms of the reward (the over-justificationeffect). This finding is not predicted by other theories of persuasion based on behaviouraltheory (e.g., Hovland, Janis, & Kelley, 1953), which would predict attitude change in thedirection of the reinforced behaviour (see page 27). However, it is consistent with much of theresearch into intrinsic motivation (see page 53).

The elaboration likelihood modelIn their well-known and well-supported elaboration likelihood model of persuasion (ELM),Petty and Cacioppo (1986) propose that there are two forms or routes of persuasion. Incentral route processing, people elaborate upon the message arguments, process them moredeeply and tie them to existing knowledge. Learning and persuasion through the central routeis more durable and impactful and more likely to influence subsequent behaviour (though ifthe processed message is rejected it may result in change in the undesired direction, what isknown as the boomerang effect). In peripheral route processing, by comparison, individualsdo not process the message deeply, but instead use cues from the message (e.g., the lengthof the article) or the author, or other heuristics, to make decisions about the importance orvalue of the message and whether it is therefore accepted.

Research in both the attitude change and learning literatures confirms that both learners’characteristics (e.g., background experience) and aspects of the message (e.g., the author’sperceived purpose and credibility, or the argument structure) play important roles in thepersuasion process. In terms of learner characteristics, central route processing of a messageis more likely if the learner has:• The motivation to process the message, generally because it is relevant. For example,

Murphy (1998, cited in Murphy, 2001) found that students’ pre-existing knowledge, beliefsand interest in a particular topic or text played a fundamental role in what those studentscame to learn, while material that has been related to the self is best remembered (Forsyth& Wibberley, 1993; Hartlep & Forsyth, 2000);

• The ability to process the message, which requires both the ability to comprehend it andnot being too distracted or cognitively overloaded to process it. For example, Dole andSinatra (1998) report that those with greater comprehension skills are more apt to usecentral route processing. Repetition of the message can also foster comprehension of it;

• Weak pre-existing beliefs or attitudes, as strong pre-existing beliefs may bias the depthand nature of processing of the message (e.g., Chinn & Brewer, 1993; Fishbein & Ajzen,1975; Guzzetti & Hynd, 1998; Lord, Ross, & Lepper, 1979);

• Accessible and relevant pre-existing beliefs (e.g., Wood & Kallgren, 1988, found that thosemore capable at retrieving relevant beliefs were more likely to process the message); and

• Some relevant knowledge, but not too much, as this may bias or reduce processing, whatis known as biased assimilation (Petty & Cacioppo, 1986).

In relation to message characteristics, the route of persuasion is influenced by:• The strength of the message, with central route processing more likely when arguments

are causal or explanatory in nature (Ford & Smith, 1991);• Other aspects of the message (e.g., its length, its understandability, its capacity to evoke

emotion, its interest, whether it is one- or two-sided, the number of arguments presented,etc). These can serve either as peripheral cues and therefore foster peripheral routeprocessing, or provoke central route processing, depending upon the context and learnercharacteristics; and

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• The expertise and credibility of the message communicator, which can again either fosterperipheral or central route processing, depending upon the context.

Consistent with this literature about the effects of message consistency with one’s pre-existingopinion, Budesheim and Lundquist (1999) investigated the effects of in-class debates onstudents’ attitudes toward the issues they debated, in three different psychology subjects.Results indicated that arguing a position consistent with one’s opinion did produce biasedassimilation, but that arguing for a position inconsistent with one’s opinion reduced thistendency.

Implications for teachingResearch into persuasion leads to a number of recommendations for teaching, including:• Encourage students to voluntarily engage in study behaviours about which they have a

negative attitude (e.g., revising texts or solving problems), in order to foster cognitivedissonance and thereby attitude change;

• Do not provide too many incentives for students to engage in unpleasant behaviours, asthis may deter students from changing their beliefs to become more positive towards suchwork; and

• In order to foster deep processing of study material, activate students’ relevant beliefs andknowledge before providing the message; maximise the comprehensibility of the messageand the strength of the arguments it contains; emphasise the credibility of the source of theinformation; and increase the relevance of the material to the student.

Leadership

The psychological research into leadership has a number of implications for the practice ofteaching psychology. In many ways the lecturer or tutor can be seen as the ‘leader’ of theclass of students, managing their classrooms, and meeting five distinguishing characteristicsof leadership (Adair, 1983): giving direction, offering inspiration, building teamwork, setting anexample, and gaining acceptance of their own leadership. However, educators in HE mayalso seek to foster leadership within students (particularly postgraduates), who may be orbecome leaders in their own areas of endeavour.

Theories of leadership fall into three main types: trait, style, and contingency theories. Traittheories focus on the personality and other characteristics of leaders, and suggest thatleadership cannot be taught, but that one is ‘born’ a leader. More profitable in terms offostering leadership are style theories of leadership, which focus on how the way in whichleaders approach their roles in given situations fosters success or failure.

Lewin, Lippit and White (1939), for example, after examining the leadership styles of youthleaders, came up with a threefold typology: authoritarian leaders, who create a sense of groupdependence on the leader, with work only done when the leader is present; laissez-faireleaders, who foster little work whether they are present or absent; and democratic leaders, whoachieve group cohesion and harmonious working relations whether they are present or not.

Typologies of educator styles paralleling Lewin et al.’s leadership styles have also beendeveloped. For example, McKeachie, Lin, Moffett and Daugherty (1978) contrast directive andfacilitative styles of teaching, while Edwards (1993) differentiates between autocratic(essentially authoritarian), permissive (laissez-faire) and democratic teaching styles.

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Unsurprisingly, these authors, as well as others (e.g., Rohrkemper, 1984), find that ademocratic/facilitative style of teaching is most effective in facilitating learning and motivatingstudents.

While some early studies on leadership style tended to assume such styles were immutable,more recent research (including the educational studies in the previous paragraph) show theusefulness of tailoring one’s style to the situation. For example, Hersey and Blanchard’s(1977) situational leadership theory distinguishes between attention to the task to be achievedand the relationship with ‘followers’ (e.g., students), and identifies four resulting leadershipstyles: delegating (low relationship and low task focus); supporting (high relationship and lowtask focus); coaching (high task and high relationship focus); and directing (high task and lowrelationship focus).

Hersey and Blanchard suggest that the ‘maturity’ level of followers – defined as the capacityto set high but attainable goals, willingness and ability to take responsibility, and educationand/or experience of an individual or group, which can vary across tasks and over time –influences the degree of emphasis which the leader needs to place on task or relationshipbehaviour at any given time. According to Blanchard and Zigarmi (1991), different leadershipstyles are more appropriate with followers of different levels of maturity (operationalised ascompetence and commitment):• With followers of low competence but high commitment, directing is more appropriate;• With followers with some competence and low commitment, coaching is recommended;• With followers of high competence and variable commitment, supporting is best; and• With followers of high competence and high commitment, delegating is recommended.

Contingency theories such as Fiedler’s (1971, 1976) theory argue that successful leadershipis contingent upon the situation as well as upon the people involved, recognising thecomplexity of the relationships between these factors. According to Fiedler, leadershipeffectiveness is influenced by the extent to which the task is structured, the leader’s power,and the nature of the relationship between the leader and followers. Fiedler found that astructuring or task-focused leadership style was especially effective where the situation waseither strongly favourable or unfavourable to the leader; when only moderately favourable,supportive or relationship-focused styles worked best. Handy (1993) extended Fiedler’sapproach by arguing that Fiedler’s factors all depend to some degree on a fourth factor, theenvironment, made up of the organisational setting of the leader, their group, and theimportance of the task.

Implications for teachingTo summarise, research into theories of leadership lead to a number of recommendations forteaching practice:• Recognise that the appropriateness of a particular leadership behaviour will depend upon

the context, which can vary over time;• Pay attention to different aspects of the context, reflect on how student behaviour may

best fit the demands of the context, and attempt to be flexible and responsive to thecontext; and

• Consider changing your leadership style as an educator as students mature and develop incompetence and commitment; fostering autonomy may become increasingly important astheir competence increases.

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Barriers to and facilitators of learning

Although students may be highly able and motivated to learn at university and college, inmany cases their levels of achievement within HE may be negatively impacted upon byvarious unanticipated or underestimated psychological factors, such as stress or anxiety.Some of these factors are addressed in the following subsection of the report, along with othervariables that psychological research suggests may serve as facilitators of studentperformance.

Arousal and emotion

A large body of research shows that physiological arousal, often associated with high levels ofemotion, can impact upon learning and performance. One of the most important findings inrelation to arousal is known as the Yerkes-Dodson law (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908), whichpredicts an inverted U-shaped relationship between arousal and performance. Across a broadrange of performance settings it has been shown that both low and high levels of arousalproduce minimum performance, whereas a moderate level of arousal results in maximumperformance in a task – some mid-level of arousal provides the motivation to perform. Toolittle arousal has a frustrating effect on the learner, while too much has a hyperactive effect.There is an optimal level of arousal for each individual at any given time and depending uponthe task. The optimal level of arousal is lower for more difficult or demanding tasks (learnersneed to concentrate on the material), and higher for tasks requiring endurance andpersistence (learners need more motivation). If the level of arousal drops below the optimallevel, the person will seek stimulation (engage in exploratory behaviour) (Berlyne, 1960).

When arousal is associated with strong emotion, as in the case of emotional events such ascrises and traumas, the relationship between learning and arousal becomes linear, withemotional events (and particularly negative ones) better remembered than non-emotionalevents (Blakemore & Frith, 2000), probably because this type of learning is important forsurvival. Within the educational context, this suggests that educators should attempt tomaximise the enjoyment students obtain from learning activities, to increase theirmemorability.

Anxiety

Moving onto negative emotions, anxiety has received considerable research attention. It isusually triggered by a situation that involves a decision or judgement; tests and examinationsare common precursors of anxiety in educational settings (Everson, Tobias, Hartman, &Gourgey, 1993). While every student feels some anxiety at some time, for certain studentsanxiety seriously inhibits learning or performance. The main source of anxiety in education isthe fear of failure and, with it, the loss of self-esteem. Unsurprisingly, low achievers areparticularly likely to suffer from it, but it is not restricted to them.

Anxiety has been shown to impair performance in a wide range of cognitive functionsincluding attention, memory, concept formation and problem-solving (e.g., Sieber, O’Neil, &Tobias, 1977; Spielberger, 1966). Anxious students may suffer from less thorough acquisitionof the information to be examined; a lack of basic domain-specific skills; interference in theretrieval of prior learning; difficulty using or transferring knowledge they possess; difficultydemonstrating their knowledge on tests; being self-conscious in performance settings,

distracting attention from the task at hand; or some combination of these. However, theimpact of anxiety interacts with task difficulty, with anxiety resulting in poorer performance incomplex tasks but at times improving performance on very simple tasks. This interaction hasbeen explained by drive reduction theory (Hull, 1940), which posits that arousal increases thestrength of responding, but competing responses are activated in complex tasks.

Different sorts of anxiety can operate and impact differentially on academic performance. Adistinction is generally made between state anxiety (increased arousal due to environmentalfactors) and trait anxiety (an individual’s characteristic way of reacting to arousal, correlatedwith self-esteem and defensiveness), with a person’s total level of anxiety a function of bothtypes. In addition, anxiety can be specific to different domains (Everson et al., 1993), such astest anxiety, mathematics anxiety and statistics anxiety (Dillon, 1982).

High test anxiety predicts poor academic performance (Zeidner, 1998), as well as loweracademic self-esteem. A number of scales measuring different aspects of test anxiety havebeen developed, such as the Test Anxiety Inventory (used in Musch & Broder, 1999) and theRevised Test Anxiety Scale (McIlroy, Bunting, & Adamson, 2000). Musch and Broder suggestthat the relative contribution of test anxiety and academic skill may be different for differentdomains and specific subject matters under consideration. Studies of test anxiety inpsychology students confirm that test anxiety is an important predictor of performance in thatdomain. Smith, Arnkoff and Wright (1990), for example, found that both test anxiety andacademic skills were associated with final course mark, with test anxiety relatively moreimportant than other variables in their analysis, while McIlroy et al. (2000) found that cognitiveaspects of test anxiety (worry, and test irrelevant thoughts) were the most substantial negativepredictors of examination performance. As in other studies, personality factors known to berelated to academic performance, such as self-efficacy and academic locus of control, alsoemerged as systematically related to test anxiety.

Many psychology students also experience statistics anxiety and/or mathematics anxiety.Zeidner (1991) investigated statistics anxiety and mathematics anxiety in social sciencestudents (including psychology ones) and found that, as with mathematics anxiety, two factorsunderlay statistics anxiety scores: statistics test anxiety and content anxiety. Statistics anxietycorrelated negatively with high school scores in mathematics as well as with perceptions ofmaths abilities. The data provided support for the idea that aversive prior experiences withmathematics, prior poor achievement in maths and a low sense of maths self-efficacy aremeaningful antecedents of statistics anxiety.

The test anxiety literature suggests a number of possible treatments for the problem, andfavours a multimodal approach in its treatment (Hembree, 1988; Zeidner, 1998). Many of theseare aimed at changing students’ attitudes about their personal competence, aiming to increasethe expectation of success. Where test-anxious students suffer from retrieval problems due toworry and test-irrelevant thoughts, cognitive therapy and relaxation techniques such asrelaxation therapy, systematic desensitisation, thought stopping, meditation and biofeedbackmay be useful. For those with problems in all stages of information-processing, academic andstudy skills training may be useful, such as in time management. It has also been found thatinterventions designed to improve self-efficacy and academic locus of control have helped bothto reduce test anxiety and improve exam performance. Highly anxious students also tend tolearn better with more structured instructional approaches, where student interaction is notexpected or required, and can benefit from increased time for assignments and tests and moreformative feedback. In addition, creating a classroom climate that is accepting, comfortable andnon-competitive helps.

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Stress

Within the HE context, stress can be experienced by both educators and students. As manyhave pointed out, stress of itself is neither good nor bad – its impact is dependent on theenvironment, the person and the person-environment interface. Medical andneuropsychological research evidence suggests that individuals need a certain level of stressto function effectively, and that such optimal levels of stress can foster learning, creativity andinnovation (Blakemore & Frith, 2000). The amount of stress an individual can withstand,however, appears to be highly dependent on individuals themselves, their personalities, thecontext within which they operate and how they perceive stressful situations/life stressors.Research suggests that stress can be seen to arise from the balance between one’sperceived demands and perceived personal resources, with an imbalance leading to aperception of stress. Personal coping strategies can help one deal with the resultingimbalance, including such strategies as getting to know one’s own personal limits andcapabilities, consciously developing personal skills and resources to meet any demands onechooses to take on (rather than have imposed on one); and becoming actively aware ofrelevant life stages, life events and non-work pressures facing one so that one does not overlystretch one’s mental and physical coping skills.

Problem: Emotional impact of postgraduate clinical psychology training

Context: Clinical and counselling psychology

Theories: Stress research

O’Halloran and O’Halloran (2001) apply the stress research in relation to graduate levelpsychology courses, focusing on the importance of anticipating and addressing thesecondary traumatic stress (STS) such students experience in coursework relating totrauma and violence (Stamm, 1995). Because level of therapeutic experience mediatesSTS, it is probable that students new to the field of clinical and counselling psychologyare particularly likely to be distressed in classes on trauma (Seegmiller, 1995). Theauthors use Herman’s (1997) model for treating survivors of trauma (which states that toprogress to recovery, survivors must move through the stages of establishing their ownsafety; remembrance of and mourning over experiences and losses; and reconnectionwith themselves and others) as a framework for recommendations for ameliorating STSin the classroom. They also suggest biobehavioural, affective-cognitive, relational andspiritual strategies for self-care, which can be used outside of the classroom by bothstudents and lecturers.

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Psychotherapy

With the publication of Goleman’s recent books on emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995,1998) has come a resurgence of interest within HE on developing emotional competence orintelligence in students. While such an interest raises questions for some educators about thenature of the boundary between education and psychotherapy, Gregory (2002) argues thatthe boundary is by no means rigid if one adopts a humanistic perspective, and definespsychotherapy as a non-clinical, growth-oriented activity focusing on personal development.Murphy (2000) argues that both professions are considered helping ones, aimed at enhancingthe quality of life; both require the participant’s active engagement to be effective; and bothoccur in a social communicative context characterised by varying levels of informationexchange and emotional/behavioural interaction. On the basis of these similarities, hesuggests that university teaching can be enhanced by the educator’s knowledge andapplication of what research shows to work in therapy.

Bassin (1974) describes an early example of this strategy, in which the principles andstructures of the therapeutic community were adapted to the classroom, which was viewed asa microcosm of an anomic and lonely civilisation. To deal with this, therapeutic communitytechniques were structured into the course design, such as goal-setting and contractnegotiation, rotating of leadership roles, nameplates, the use of an ombudsman, feedbackand evaluation.

According to recent research on what works in therapy, successful change occurs primarily asa result of four interrelated factors (Asay & Lambert, 1999): client factors (personal resources,strengths, beliefs); relationship factors (therapists’ empathy, acceptance, warmth); hopefactors (clients’ and therapists’ expectations for change); and model/technique factors(therapists’ theoretical orientation and intervention techniques and how suited these are to theclient). These factors are interrelated in that the enhancement of one factor strengthens theothers. In education, these are paralleled by student factors (what the student brings to thelearning context, including their unique life experiences); relationship factors (the educators’genuine interest, acceptance and support for the student); hope (students’ and educators’expectations for success and failure); and technique factors (educators’ teaching techniquesand philosophy and how suitable these are for the client).

On the basis of these parallels, Murphy (2000) suggests a number of instructional techniqueswhich can enhance university teaching, including encouraging students to explore how theirlife experiences can contribute to their effectiveness in their discipline; making genuine andongoing efforts to assess students’ response to instruction; and where appropriate activelycollaborating with students on instructional decisions.

Resilience

Paralleling the new focus within psychology as a whole on positive psychology (Seligman,1999), and within clinical psychology on psychological resilience, in recent years educationalresearchers have investigated educational resilience, defined as the heightened likelihood ofeducational success despite personal vulnerabilities and adversities brought about byenvironmental conditions and experiences (Wang, Haertel, & Walberg, 1994). This researchhas generally focused on primary and secondary school students, but has more recentlybegun to be utilised with university students. For example, Morales (2000) explored protective

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factors in the lives of a number of academically resilient university students, and present theconcept of a ‘resilience cycle’ and its practical implications. Based on the results of a largenumber of reviews and meta-analyses, Wang, Haertel and Walberg (1993) identify a range oflearner characteristics and features of the home, classroom and community contexts that maymitigate against negative life circumstances while facilitating development and educationalresilience. These include classroom practices such as educator actions and expectations,effective instructional methods and curriculum, and policies and climate.

Problem: Fostering engagement in course content

Context: Abnormal psychology

Theories: Resilience research

Duffy’s (2000) vision of a new approach to teaching grew out of her expertise as apractising psychologist. Rather than focusing on the problems that people face, Duffyorganised her abnormal psychology course around the topic of resilience. She reportsthat this focus on resilience was not only less overwhelming than a focus on problems,but was more hopeful and hope-giving, and, according to Duffy, engaged students moreeffectively in the course content. It also had strong policy implications, which sheemphasised in her course. In terms of assessment, Duffy attempted to recognise thediversity in her class, opening assessment up to different forms of intelligence and waysof knowing, and focusing on engendering competence rather than on extinguishing it. Asa consequence she utilised a variety of different assessment techniques. One such wasa critical incident group project, where a small group of students analysed a criticalincident from the service learning (learning out in the community, in ‘real life’) of one of itsmembers. In addition, students who were not working in a community setting were askedto create a programme that would engender resilience on a particular problem in someidentified age group, which could involve trips to community groups and settings as wellas more traditional literature searches. In order to foster resilience in her own students,Duffy also required students to map out their use of time for the 24 hours of every day ina week, explaining the task in terms of the need to create a context for success in thecourse by allocating sufficient time to study – if students set themselves up for failure andthen fail and feel badly about themselves, this does not foster resilience.

Implications for teaching

The research into barriers and facilitators of learning leads to a number of recommendationsfor psychology teaching, including:• Try to ensure that learning activities are not extremely arousing or stressful, to reduce

student discomfort and the negative impact of such processes on learning. However, makesure activities are sufficiently interesting to produce a moderate level of arousal;

• Where learning activities are intrinsically stressful (e.g., postgraduate clinical psychologytraining), give students the opportunity, in class time and outside it (e.g., by usingcommunication and information technologies), for debriefing, social support and one-on-one supervision and counselling;

• Make classroom climates as accepting, comfortable and non-competitive as possible. Tryto demonstrate genuine interest in and support for the students as individuals, and attemptto foster student autonomy;

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• Design class activities to facilitate the improvement of academic self-efficacy and locus ofcontrol, by allowing students opportunities to succeed and achieve, and providingunambiguous feedback to ensure that they are clear about their good performance;

• In statistics and other subjects where students suffer from anxiety, consider the use ofmore structured educational approaches, increased time for assignments and tests, andmore formative feedback; and

• Encourage students with high levels of test and other forms of anxiety, and/or high levels ofstress, to seek assistance in dealing with these through cognitive therapy and relaxationtechniques, and academic and study skills training focusing on time and stressmanagement and coping skills.

Assessing student learning

The importance of assessment has been a common theme throughout this report. The vastresearch literature on psychometrics (psychological measurement) and assessment hasmany implications for the practice of psychology teaching (Newstead, 1992b, 1996).Psychometric theory provides a general collection of techniques for evaluating thedevelopment and use, in assessment, of psychological and educational tests.

In classical test theory (Lord & Novick, 1968), a relatively simple model for mental testingwhich has a strong emphasis on reliabilility, the test score is a combination of a true score andmeasurement error. This measurement error can be defined in several ways depending onthe way one would like to generalise to other testing situations. Generalisability theory (e.g.,Cronbach, Linn, Brennan, & Haertel, 1997) focuses on this problem, giving a framework inwhich the various aspects of observed test scores can be dealt with, allowing thedecomposition of scores into components representing the impact of systematic factors, suchas raters or test conditions, on scores. In item response theory (Birnbaum, 1968; Lord, 1980),the unit of analysis is the item rather than the test. In IRT models the variance ofmeasurement errors is a function of the level or ability of the respondent, an importantcharacteristic which is somewhat neglected by classical test theory (Hambleton & Jones,1993). Other important theoretical approaches are multidimensional item response theory,structural equation modelling, and scaling theory (see Murphy & Davidshofer, 2001).

However, despite the psychological expertise that has been built up over the years,psychologists are patchy in applying their expertise to assessing the performance of their ownstudents. In relation to item and test construction, for example, the theoretical literature ismore often applied. For example, in test banks for introductory psychology textbooks, Mentzer(1982) unearthed many multiple-choice items in which length of response cued students tothe correct response choice, while Scialfa, Legare, Wenger and Dingley (2001) foundinconsistent item difficulty and discriminability across chapter topics. Research-basedrecommendations relating to good practice in item and test construction are provided in Berk(1998), Scialfa et al. (2001), Stirling (1996) and Stalder (2001).

However, the very assessment technique chosen, regardless of how well an individualexample of it is constructed, may not meet the most basic principles of assessment –reliability, validity, fairness, standardisation, and unfakeability (Newstead, 2002). AsNewstead (1992b) points out, the most common assessment technique used by psychologyacademics is still the examination, and research evidence suggests that some psychologyexaminations may be inadequate in relation to reliability of markers (Caryl, 1999; Dracup,

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1997; Laming, 1990; Newstead & Dennis, 1994), lack of agreed criteria against which testperformance can be compared, poor predictive validity of degree and other examinations(Kornbrot, 1989), freedom from bias caused by knowledge of the student or other factors(Hartley, 1992; Newstead & Dennis, 1990), and lack of standardisation (at least acrossdepartments; Connolly & Smith, 1986; Larrington & Lindsay, 2002; Smith, 1990). In addition,tests and examinations can often reinforce more surface approaches to learning rather thandeeper understandings (Connor-Greene, 2000; Jones, 1988; Newstead & Findlay, 1997).

Although there has been a move in recent years away from assessing students throughformal examinations towards assessing them with coursework, and especially courseworkessays, coursework may not be a wholly adequate substitute for examinations. Evidencesuggests that coursework encourages surface approaches to learning (Newstead, 2002), aswell as student cheating (Newstead, Franklyn-Stokes, & Armstead, 1996). Markerconsistency and bias may also be problematic (Bradley, 1984, 1994; Dennis & Newstead,1994; Dennis, Newstead, & Wright, 1996; Johnson, 1985; Newstead & Dennis, 1990).

Problem: Promoting student learning

Context: Abnormal psychology, women and psychology

Theory: Assessment

Connor-Greene (2000) discusses the fact that while many teaching methods have beenmodified to encourage higher-level thinking, approaches to testing often remainunchanged, reinforcing memorising rather than critical thinking. She describes the useof daily essay quizzes to encourage thorough preparation for class and higher-levelthinking. Students in her women and psychology subject received daily quizzes, whilestudents in abnormal psychology had four scheduled tests over the course of thesemester. Teaching evaluations supported the perceived value of the daily testingmethod in enhancing student learning. However, the predictable tests resulted ingreater last-minute preparation and student perceptions of less learning.

Given all these difficulties, Newstead (2002) concludes that in general assessment has anegative effect on students, rather than being the driver of conceptual understanding and adeep approach to learning. However, given the need to assess students, he suggestsinvestigating the advantages and disadvantages of differing types of assessment beforedeciding which one to use in any particular subject.

Implications for teachingBased on research into assessment and measurement, it is recommended that psychologyeducators:• Consider both the reliability and validity of assessment measures, when developing and

selecting them;• Be aware of the literature relating to good test item construction; and• Wherever possible, use assessment measures that foster a deep approach to learning

within students (e.g., that require active learning, and critical thinking).

75

Conclusion

The present research report explores how psychology research, theory and knowledge canbe and has been applied to teaching practice in psychology, in the hope that this will lead toimproved psychology teaching and learning, through mechanisms such as new coursestructures, classroom activities, assessments, forms of feedback, and web-based activities.

However, simply because an innovation is research-informed does not guarantee that it willhave a positive or indeed any impact. As with all educational change, research-informedinnovations should be evaluated in terms of their impact on student learning, staff teaching,and departmental resourcing, both in the short-term and the long-term (e.g., after the subjectconcludes, and students move on to other subjects). Evaluation should also seek anddocument unintended consequences of the innovation – as the project case studies (seehttp://ltsnpsy.york.ac.uk/LTSNPsych/r2p.htm) show, these can have quite a major impact onthe overall success of the innovation. Action research can provide a useful, theoretically-grounded methodology for such evaluations, as well as for pedagogical research inpsychology in general – see Norton (2001b), and her LTSN Psychology website area(http://ltsnpsy.york.ac.uk/LTSNPsych/Specialist/sp005.htm) for guidance on this.

To conclude, we hope readers of this report have been encouraged to consider applying theirown psychology disciplinary knowledge to their psychology teaching practice, if they are notalready doing so. It is also hoped that this report may lead to replication and extension ofsome of the studies described in this document, to determine to what extent methodologiesand results can be generalised beyond the original study context. Such replicability is a keystrength of psychology research in general, and one that should be fostered in psychologypedagogical research.

We would urge anyone engaging in such research-informed innovations to share theirexperiences with other members of the UK (and international) psychology community byposting a brief report on their work, and its outcomes, on the online database of practiceassociated with this project (http://ltsnpsy.york.ac.uk/LTSNPsych/r2p.htm). We hope thisdatabase will not only assist the academics concerned, but foster a sense of intellectualexcitement about the field. Keep checking the database for more inspiration!

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