Ch. 01 Demonstrations & Activities (Psych 5)

	Psychology, 5/e Camille B. Wortman
	Instructor's Manual

Chapter 1: The Science of Psychology

One way to demonstrate the relevance of psychology to your students' daily lives is to collect articles from current newspapers and popular magazines on psychological topics and read them to the class. The items usually have intrinsic interest for most students, and a good selection of articles will help convince them that psychology is considerably more than an academic science. Also, since so much of the media coverage of behavioral science is less than ideal, you can take this opportunity to evaluate the accuracy of the articles in your class. You will have no difficulty finding articles where questionable conclusions are drawn from minimal data, and theoretical speculation is presented as accepted fact. This raises a question for consideration. Are reports of research from other fields as misrepresented as reports about psychological research? If the distortion of information is unique to psychology, why might this be the case?
Most people have formulated their own ideas about the determinants of human behavior long before they have ever entered an introductory psychology course. An interesting exercise to consider during the initial course meeting is to have each student write (anonymously) a brief essay, possibly only a paragraph, outlining his or her own theory of human behavior. After collecting and reading some of the essays, you can ask the class whether or not they think that these theories can be studied using scientific methods.
The introductory psychology course is one of the first college-level courses that many students will take. Although your course cannot be a "skill-building" course, a few minutes at the beginning of the semester outlining some effective study and time management techniques (based upon psychological principles, of course!) can often help students feel more relaxed in college, and help them perform better in your class. One idea is to ask students in the class to describe certain study methods they have found particularly useful, and list them on the board. You might also outline the time-tested "Scan, Question, Read, Recite and Review" (SQ3R) method for textbook study, and mention some time management techniques such as those described in Walter and Siebert (1984). Finally, give the class some pointers on effective note-taking habits, tailored to your style of presentation.
Walter, T., and Siebert, A. (1984). Student success: How to do better in college and still have time for your friends. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
You may wish to give students one of the many "misconceptions about psychology" tests that have been published. A good one may be found in an article by Vaughan (1977). Have students take the test, then go over each question after the class has finished, pointing out that many of the so-called common sense answers to the questions are incorrect. You may wish to ask the students where their knowledge on these issues comes from. This illustrates the importance of examining questions in psychology using scientific techniques rather than relying on accepted wisdom.
Vaughan, E. D. (1977). Misconceptions about psychology among introductory psychology students. Teaching of Psychology, 4, 138-141.

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