The effects of offering and seizing optional learning opportunities rarely have been investigated. Thus, university instructors have no basis on which to decide whether offering optional learning opportunities to their students would be worth the effort and which students would seize and benefit from them. To target these questions, we designed a…

As stated in APA Learning Outcomes 2 and 3, two central goals of higher education instruction are promoting students' critical thinking skills and connecting student learning to real-life applications. To meet these goals, a community-based service-learning experience was designed using task value, interpersonal accountability, cognitive…

Given the recent proliferation of undergraduate psychology and law courses, there is an increased need to empirically evaluate effective methods of teaching psycholegal material. The current study used a between- and within-subject design across four higher education institutions (N = 291 students) to evaluate the effectiveness of incorporating…

Motivation and game research continue to demonstrate that the implementation of game design characteristics in the classroom can be engaging and intrinsically motivating. The present study assessed the extent to which an industrial organizational psychology course designed learning environment created with meaningful gamification elements can…

This study employed a quasi-experimental design to test the effects of three pedagogies on learning outcomes in a simulated psychology of gender lecture. Results showed that meaning and relational pedagogies, as well as a combination of meaning, relational, and explanatory pedagogies, significantly improved participant learning beyond self-study…

Student beliefs in common psychological misperceptions were assessed at the beginning of an introductory psychology course, the end of the course, and again 1 year later. At the end of the course, students' previously held misperceptions of psychological phenomena shifted toward more accurate perceptions, and 1 year later, students reported that…

The current study is a quasi-experimental examination of the effects of traditional and accelerated course formats on learning retention. The study analyzed data on an end-of-course exam collected from 132 students enrolled in introductory psychology courses across 3 course formats: a traditional 16-week format, a 5-week accelerated format, and an…

There are but a handful of experimental or quasi-experimental studies comparing student outcomes from flipped or inverted classrooms to more traditional lecture formats. In the current study, I present cumulative exam performance and student evaluation data from two sections of a statistics course I recently taught: one a traditional lecture (N =…

Despite the prominence of study abroad programs, few are offered in the field of psychology. The current study sought to investigate the impact of study abroad programs in psychology through a comparison of study abroad and domestic student cultural competencies. Participants included 104 undergraduate students enrolled in either a psychology…

Two studies explored properties of psychology assignments from an atypical perspective: students' own perceptions of what they learned and their emotional reactions to the assignments, specifically feelings of pride in their work. Study 1 showed that assignments vary in their likelihood of generating prideful accomplishment and identified three…

Research shows that a very small percentage of those who suffer from mental illness seek professional help and fear of stigma is a principal factor why individuals are reluctant to obtain assistance. This study evaluated whether using examples of celebrities' experiences with mental illness as a form of "contact" with a mentally ill…

This study examined the prevalence of psychological myths and misconceptions among psychology students and within the general population. In total, 829 participants completed a 249-item questionnaire designed to measure a broad range of psychological myths. Results revealed that psychological myths and misconceptions are numerous and widely held.…

University career courses have become a more standard offering at many colleges and universities over the past few decades. Similarly, there has been an increase in the number of psychology departments offering a careers course for psychology majors or an introduction to the psychology major course. This study examines the outcomes of a course…

Rapport between students and teachers leads to numerous positive student outcomes, including attitudes toward the teacher and course, student motivation, and perceived learning. The recent development of a Professor-Student Rapport scale offers assessment of this construct. However, a Cronbach's [alpha] of 0.96 indicated item redundancy, and the…

Teaching researchers can assess learning outcome effectiveness as a function of students' graded performance or changes in knowledge, skills and behaviors, or attitudes. We meta-analyzed 197 studies to determine the effectiveness of teaching activities in "Teaching of Psychology (ToP)" both overall and also as a function of type of learning…