Do you have an excess of people wanting to teach Intro Psych? I think you would certainly have fewer interested if they were going to have to pay to take the GRE Psych test (unless they had already taken it for grad school admittance).
You could certainly do this although the main purpose of the subject GRE is to predict performance in grad school (an aptitude test) instead of measuring how much you know about Intro (an achievement test). In fact, the MFT was developed to answer the need for outcomes assessment since some programs (I worked for one) were starting to use the GRE subject test for outcomes assessment. This was problematic for ETS because the GRE was being given to many people who were not interested in going to grad school (the main population of interest). Also, as a grad school entrance test, the Psych GRE is pitched to a much higher difficulty (discriminating very good from excellent) than the Psych MFT which is designed to measure the entire spectrum of performance from poor to excellent. So I wouldn't require it because it isn't designed for that purpose and a person's academic achievements should be better measures of their academic achievement than a test designed to inform grad school admissions decisions. Rick Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of Psychology Box 3055 John Brown University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR 72761 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (479)524-7295 http://tinyurl.com/DrFroman "Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart." - Ulysses Everett McGill -----Original Message----- From: Donnelly, Michael [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 01, 2008 2:11 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Requirements for Intro Psych instructors Hey there TIPsters: I have a question for you all that occurred to me today. First, a bit of context. In our program we will be requiring exiting seniors to take the Major Field Test in psychology (put out by ETS). This is the first time for us, so we're not sure what to expect. But, let's assume that (when we examine the scores of our students) our faculty wonder why the students don't score higher. I have to think that one of the best predictors for how well they do on an exam like this (or perhaps the GRE Psych subject test) would be how well *we* instructors do on the same test. Having thunk that thought, it dawned on me that perhaps some programs out there have, in fact, at some point, tried requiring (say) all the people who want to teach Intro Psych to take the GRE subject test and score at or above some threshold. So, these are my questions to you: 1. Have you or anyone you know ever used the GRE subject test (or similar) as a basic competency screen for your instructors? 2. Have any of you ever considered but then rejected it? Why? 3. If the answer to both 1 and 2 are NO, why not? DISCLAIMER: My posing this question should not be taken as an indication that I or anyone I know is about to propose such a thing in our program. In fact, I have to say that such a proposal would probably be rightly regarded as Kryptonite by most faculty. Really, though, once the thought occurred to me as I was musing about the exit exam, I just had to ask some group of people who might be able to give me an answer. Hence, this email. Thanks in advance, Mike Donnelly, PhD UW-Stout Menomonie, WI --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
