Open Access8: Transforming Introductory Psychology: Trading Ownership for Student Success
Author(s) -
Osborne Randall E.,
Browne William F.,
Shapiro Susan J.,
Wagor Walter F.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
to improve the academy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-4822
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-4822.2000.tb00366.x
Subject(s) - consistency (knowledge bases) , perception , psychology , mathematics education , medical education , order (exchange) , pedagogy , computer science , medicine , business , finance , neuroscience , artificial intelligence
As colleges struggle to maintain enrollments, many have shifted from a primary focus on recruitment of new students to an increased focus on retaining students once they begin attending the college or university. An examination of introductory courses on our campus, however, revealed significant differences between faculty perceptions of student skills and the actual skills students brought into the classroom. This prompted shifts in the manner in which we teach introductory psychology on our campus in order to enhance the skills necessary for success in survey courses and to provide a foundation of learning and thinking skills that would translate to other courses. These changes have resulted in enhanced consistency between sections of the course, increased cooperation between faculty teaching the course, and enhanced performance on the success measures we outlined for this project. This systematic transformation of the course and immediate and long‐term outcome data are fully explored in this paper.