Although conventional approaches to teaching psychology are probably effective to some degree, it is possible that psychology should be a "hands on" science, i.e., students of psychology should learn to apply the concepts and principles of the theoretical regions of psychology and to solve open-ended problems through the application of psychological ideas. Guided Design, as proposed by Wales and Stager, offers a vehicle for this application of psychology because it presents the student with an open-ended problem to be solved in stages which represent successive approximations to the terminal goal Through the use of the instruction-feedback model, the student is first required to work through solutions within the group setting and is then given a suggested solution by the instructor who provides a model for problem solving. A project was constructed for lower-level students of psychology which took them through the stages of goal setting, information gathering, solution generation, constraint specification, preliminary evaluation, analysis, synthesis, and final evaluation to resolve a problem. A tentative evaluation of the project's effectiveness revealed performances on traditional exams to be similar to comparison groups who received lectures. The students significantly increased their interactions with the instructor. (Author)