Researchers have found that students from different academic disciplines tend to value different qualities in their teachers, and cultural differences play a role in which qualities students appreciate in their professors. The present/current study employed the Teacher Behavior Checklist as an operationalization of teaching qualities in a…

The movement to prepare graduate students to teach is relatively new in the history of the academy. During the past several decades, many graduate departments of psychology, like many academic departments, have gone from providing essentially no training to graduate students to teach to developing extensive training programs consisting of course…

The perceived relation between assigned student grades and instructor evaluations of teaching has been the subject of much debate, though few laboratory studies have been conducted with adequate controls. Marsh and Roche suggested that experimental field studies may be a particularly promising avenue for further analyses of this relation. The…

Keeley, Smith, and Buskist (2006) investigated the psychometric properties of the Teacher Behavior Checklist (TBC), but did not provide evidence that the measure could differentiate among teachers. This study required students at 2 schools to rate their best professor, worst professor, and most recent professor on the TBC. We found highly similar…

Stephen F. Davis is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Emporia State University. He served as the 2002-2003 Knapp Distinguished Professor of Arts and Sciences at the University of San Diego. Currently, he is Distinguished Guest Professor at Morningside College and Visiting Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Texas Wesleyan University. Since…

This article provides ideas for engaging in the scholarship of teaching in psychology. Topics covered include contributing to the Society for the Teaching of Psychology's Office of Teaching Resources in Psychology and "Teaching of Psychology". Writing and editing books also constitute scholarly work. Finally, teaching with intentionality…

We surveyed the editorial board of "Teaching of Psychology" regarding their perspectives on the distinction between the scholarships of teaching and pedagogy. Respondents provided wide-ranging and divergent answers to our queries, suggesting that scholarship, its attendant activities, and distinctions among related terms are complex issues in need…

Presents the results of a survey to determine the prevalence and content of courses on teaching of psychology for graduate teaching assistants. Finds that 67 percent of psychology departments have a formal course on the teaching of psychology. (CMK)

Offers an example of determining what the experts of psychology deem as essential concepts in their subfield by investigating the current principles in operant conditioning through surveys of the board of editors of the "Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior." Recommends concepts that are appropriate for up-to-date coverage of operant…

Describes a course entitled "Preparing for Graduate Study in Psychology" that is a two-credit seminar developed to prepare undergraduate students for graduate study in psychology. Requires students to actually create application materials. Contends that the course provides students with a structured approach to learning about the graduate…

Argues that a problem for teachers of large sections of introductory psychology is developing high levels of student interest. Describes a method for creating and maintaining such interest that involves using students' written responses to a question about changing their lives as material for classroom discussion of relevant topics. (DSK)

Presents an interview with Peter Harzem, the Hudson Professor of Psychology at Auburn University (Alabama). Addresses such issues as teaching students about behavior analysis, the differences between classical and operant conditioning, reinforcement and behaviorism, and how one can become a better teacher. (CMK)

The Society for the Teaching of Psychology formed a task force in 2000 on Uniting Scholarship and Teaching to develop suggestions for how the Society might facilitate Boyer's (1990) and Halpern et al.'s (1998) expanded views of traditional scholarship with respect to the teaching of psychology. This article represents a partial fulfillment of that…