Ask your graduates if they believe that scientific research is really essential to being a working psychologist? A good exit question. See Friedrich (1996) below for a full scale.
What is that old theme of the tender-minded vs. tough-minded student? You know, the idea of those interested in soft areas and practice or human service versus hard, analytical scientific pursuits? A recent article in Teaching of Psychology seems to revisit this issue. This article (Holmes & Beins, 2009) reiterates earlier findings that while students learn content and results of psychological research, they do not necessarily come to believe that psychology is or should be a science. Students enter the major or even graduate schools generally seeking practitioner interests and values and do not feel they are entering a scientific field with the aim to advance knowledge, but rather to serve or help others. This isn't the case for all students of course. We do have some who are science-oriented types, but do we have many that become science-oriented? Research suggests not. The authors cite research that shows such practitioner interests are present even after graduate school and that such different approaches may be tied to personality orientations. They then describe their own research with undergraduate majors. Their results further support the fact that most students entering psychology do so on the basis of practitioner interests not scientific interests, and that these values remain strong throughout their traversing the psych curriculum. Students did become more scientifically literate but this did not relate to scientific interest or seeing science as a necessary part of psychology. While supporting prior research suggesting that students coming to psychology generally have no scientific interests, and that their orientations may reflect stable personal dispositions, the authors nevertheless go on to discuss the unrealistic scientist-practitioner model and urge teachers to continue to help students understand the relevance of scientific practices in psychology. They suggest trying to integrate research throughout the psych curriculum thus, inadvertently recognizing that there are many psychology programs (graduate and undergraduate) where scientific thinking and investigation are tangential. The recognize this as problematic given the strong stereotypes and non-scientific interests of students and some faculty. So they call for some kind of approach where it presumably becomes incongruous for students to major in psychology when they hate math and science. They do not spell out how this revolution might occur, but suggest activities where students might be led to think like scientists in testing hypotheses about clients, or be led to write counter-attitudinal essays. I found the article thought-provoking, but was surprised the authors simply argue to continue the good fight when the data suggest that psychology programs (graduate and undergrad) are not all equally science or scientist-practitioner oriented, and that many of the students entering psych soon are in shell-shock when faced with requirements for statistics, lab work, research design, etc. They plod on and indeed, may become more scientifically literate but do not end up believing that such things are necessary to become a practicing psychologist, or that scientific work is necessary to learn anything important about what they want to do, or that psychology is necessarily a science. Do students entering Biology, even with applied interests end up with similar disdain for its scientific foundation? I thought the authors ignored the fact that many faculty, classes, schools, and programs are not all equally scientifically oriented. Is the answer the old idea of a dual track curriculum? Or perhaps, this old issue needs more creative exploration? Or, perhaps we just need to re-fresh our efforts to integrate scientific thinking and work throughout our curriculum as these authors suggest? Just some end-of-semester thoughts and questions. Gary Friedrich, J. (1996). Assessing students' perceptions of psychology as a science: Validation of a self-report measure. Teaching of Psychology, 23, 6-11. Holmes, J. D., & Beins, B. C. (2009). Psychology is a science: At least some students think so. Teaching of Psychology, 36(1), 5-11. Gerald L. (Gary) Peterson, Ph.D. Professor, Psychology Saginaw Valley State University University Center, MI 48710 989-964-4491 [email protected] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
