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Creating Teachable Moments in a Research Methods Class — Paul Atchley

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Background

Research Methods in Psychology (PSYC 310) is a required course for KU's psychology major and is often required for admission to graduate programs in psychology. It is a junior level course, and in our current curriculum it is taken after statistics. A methods course is typically taught as a lecture course with a lab. The size of the lecture course varies depending upon institutional resources, but lab sections are usually in the 20-30 student range.

When I arrived at KU, there was no research methods course. There were three advanced methods courses available, each with enrollments of 15-20 students maximum, but with 1200 majors, that meant the vast majority of students did not have a methods course when they graduated. The department quickly approved the creation of a methods course when I proposed it, but there was a dilemma: There were not enough resources to use the model of a typical methods course with both lecture and lab sections. Furthermore, there were not enough instructors to offer multiple lecture sections per semester. This meant that the class was going to enroll 200 or more students each semester...

| Implementation

Implementation

My initial goal was to create a “lab in a lecture” type of course. I hoped to recreate the learning moments that occur in a lab within the class itself, so I created a workbook in which students did ten assignments and three reports to give them a more hands-on experience. The hands-on aspect was the critical goal, and the intention was to reinforce points already made through lecture. The reports initially were from a supplementary lab manual that had a CD-ROM with canned experiments for the students to run.

The initial goal of the workbook assignments was to reinforce topics that had been covered in class during lecture. Over time, I found some assignments to be more effective at supporting in-class discussion and teachable moments than others, and I have made changes to the less-effective assignments in order to provide more structure and generate more discussion.

| Student Performance

Student Performance

Student performance was and still is based upon both mastery (two exams) and effort (workbook assignments). Both aspects have equal weight in terms of points. Students must exhibit a level of effort on each to earn a grade. For example, to earn an A, students need 90% of all points, but they must earn at least 80% of the mastery points and do eight of ten workbook assignments and all reports. I typically write very challenging exams to prevent ceiling effects in exam scores. This not only allows students to accurately gauge how much they have retained from the lectures, but also allows effort points to make up for this increased level of difficulty. An analysis of the interaction between effort and mastery grades for 450 recent students indicated that the use of effort and mastery-based points is not inflating or deflating grades to a significant degree, and students are exhibiting high rates of effort.

| Reflections

Reflections

Overall I am happy with the construction of course. Given the limits of the course (i.e., large class size and no labs), the integration of the workbook assignments and the use of other assignments to emphasize and create teachable moments works well. The grading scheme analysis indicates that is it not inflating grades, and the high rate of compliance for effort-based points is getting students to class and offering me an opportunity to teach them.

In future semesters, I would like to do more demonstration-based projects in class as an alternative to lecture. Furthermore, I would like to integrate clickers into the course, to facilitate class quizzes and polling for student learning. While this would require a major overhaul to the course, I have found that students often cannot articulate clear answers to questions that they are initially certain they understand. Thus, I intend to do more in-class performance assignments next semester to foster these skills and capitalize on these teachable moments.

| Summary

Project Summary

A psychology professor addresses the challenges of teaching a large research methods course that doesn’t have a separate lab component. Through the use of a workbook that reinforces course concepts, students are able to apply research methods to novel situations, thus expanding their overall understanding.

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