I do explore/think about this as I am teaching a required class for prospective majors that uses K. Stanovich's text Thinking Straight About Psychology. In his preface he goes over similar problems we all encounter when dealing with students who completed Gen. Psych. They still believe Freud was the father of Psych, and still maintain many popular misconceptions/myths such as memory as tape recording, schizophrenia as multiple personalities, even ten percent myth. Many recall nothing (assuming it was covered) about scientific principles or basic methods. Most still think psychologists are all like Dr. Phil, and that clinical/mental health interests define the field. I personally don't think it's the text really, but the approach and perspective taken by the instructor. Just one view...
G.L. (Gary) Peterson,Ph.D Psychology@SVSU > On Sep 5, 2014, at 1:42 PM, Annette Taylor <tay...@sandiego.edu> wrote: > > Many questions have arisen recently on the other teaching list about intro > textbooks. I have not recommended any to anyone because I am sort of > floundering with my own musings on this topic of what is going on in the > intro textbook domain. I remember my intro textbook I used in college in 1969 > (gasp!) and I still have my high school text book from around 1967... VERY > MUCH of what was in those text books is what is in modern textbooks--and not > a whole lot more beyond the 1970's/1980's in terms of how psychologists THINK > :( > > I am beginning to bothered by the notion that much of what we are teaching in > intro seems to me to be a history of the overview of the field of psychology > rather than a brief overview and into the current state of affairs. In > addition I think that history is a bit revisionist. I mean was Freud EVER a > central figure for PSYCHOLOGISTS? Not psychiatrists or clinicians--and my > impression is that even at that time experimental psychology was a much > larger field than clinical. Yet the way most intro psych texts portray this > it seems that clinical psychology and Freud and psychoanalysis DOMINATED the > 1930's-1950's. See the developmental and personality and therapy chapters! > > But those texts from the late 60's were completely focused on the current > state of affairs of their time. It's very sad for me to think that most > chapters on developmental, in intro have massive amounts of memorizable > factoids on Piaget, Erikson, Freud, but little if nothing on important later > theorists such as Bronfenbrenner and other modern developmental researchers > who are doing good, quality work. The old stuff can now be nicely > compartmentalized for easy memorization of facts but I'm not sure it teaches > students how to think about the field. Same for Personality. That has to be > the worst offender in modern intro textbooks with very little about the > newest work that is being done--and admittedly this is an area with less > "newer" work than some other areas. Even cognitive, my area, is better than > most but still has little to nothing on neural network explanations of > cognitive phenomena. The focus still seems to be on c. 1970's information > processing. > > I wonder if anyone on this list has been thinking about this. > > Annette > > Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. > Professor, Psychological Sciences > University of San Diego > 5998 Alcala Park > San Diego, CA 92110-2492 > tay...@sandiego.edu > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: peter...@svsu.edu. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13445.e3edca0f6e68bfb76eaf26a8eb6dd94b&n=T&l=tips&o=38219 > or send a blank email to > leave-38219-13445.e3edca0f6e68bfb76eaf26a8eb6dd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=38221 or send a blank email to leave-38221-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
