Where should the balance be between “scientist” and “practitioner” in Australian undergraduate psychology?

The scientist—practitioner model of training in psychology has been widely influential in the development of undergraduate curricula in Australia. The model had its origins in post‐war America and has formed the basis for accreditation of psychology courses in Australia since the late 1970s. Recently a reconsideration of the model in Australian undergraduate psychology was argued for, suggesting that the absence of significant practical skills development in most curricula is detrimental to the discipline's graduates and their employers. The authors agree that the need for some practical skills development in undergraduate curricula is becoming increasingly important for psychology. Many of the exemplars of curriculum revision provided, however, are impractical and are unlikely to make significant contributions to Australian programs. There is an urgent need to consider the graduate attributes desired for 3‐year and 4‐year trained psychology graduates who will go on to employment without completing postgraduate study. Curriculum innovation to enhance graduates' employability will flow from this development, and will be likely to incorporate information technology solutions, rather than placement experience. This process is entirely compatible with the scientist—practitioner model of training and education in psychology.     

学校心理健康教育教师胜任力培养初探

学校中小学心理健康教育的效果与其教师的胜任力有关。心理健康教育教师胜任力特征可以概括为：职业理念与专业意识、职业人格特质、专业知识与技能等。要提高中小学校心理健康教育教师胜任力,应从胜任力特征分析角度出发,设计相关课程与活动传授心理健康知识与技能,并将内隐心理健康教育理念及其人格特质融合于其中。     

Graduate attributes of the 4‐year Australian undergraduate psychology program

This paper outlines the background, process and outcomes for a project that delineated a set of graduate attributes of the 4‐year Australian undergraduate psychology program. The nature of the current undergraduate psychology program and its quality assurance system is described, followed by a consideration of current issues in psychology education and training. The processes involved in delineating the six graduate attributes (i.e., knowledge and understanding, research methods, critical thinking, values, communication, and application) are then described. Some issues and suggestions related to their implementation are then outlined. Finally, the authors summarise what has been accomplished in delineating the graduate attributes, and what still needs to be achieved.     

Formation à la psychologie dans le contexte de l’université brésilienne

The current article aims to describe the policies and practices related to improving the teaching skills of professionals offering psychology courses in secondary school and higher education in Brazil. We first present an overview of the teacher training process, as it was adopted in this country. We also present quantitative data about professionals’ ongoing teaching activities, as well as data on the number of undergraduate and graduate programs available in various administrative categories, and in various geographic regions in Brazil. In addition, we discuss public and private policies that have had an impact on efforts to improve the quality of psychology teaching in Brazil. We conclude with some comments and suggestions, based on national literature, regarding steps that could be taken in Brazil to make further progress in promoting excellence in the teaching of psychology.     

The relevance of previous knowledge of psychology to training in basic counselling skills

The relative effectiveness of counsellor skills training for trainees with and without traditional undergraduate backgrounds in psychology was assessed during a simulated counselling interview following a five-week training programme based upon micro-skills and a systematic model. Trainees with backgrounds in psychology were significantly superior to trainees without a similar background.     

Men Pursuing an Undergraduate Psychology Degree: What’s Masculinity Got to Do with It?

Using discursive psychology as its theoretical and methodological framework, the present study explored male Canadian undergraduate students’ accounts of their reasons for studying psychology, their experiences of being male undergraduate psychology students, and their anticipated future careers. Ten men (19–29 years-old) who were at least in their second year of study in the psychology major program were interviewed. Contrary to survey research concluding that men who make gender-atypical vocational choices conform less to masculine norms than do men who make typical academic and career choices, our participants produced contradictory accounts. On the one hand, in talking about their experiences as psychology students in the context of the gender gap, they argued that gender does not matter. On the other hand, they showed that gender does matter in brief “boy moments” when they shared tacit gender knowledge with the interviewer and in justifying their academic paths toward futures that involved leaving psychology for a male-concentrated field. Thus, gender-does-not matter was the preferred argument when gender was an explicit topic of conversation, and the doing of gender occurred in unacknowledged ways.

     

Using behavioral skills training with preservice teachers in the university classroom

Preservice and novice teachers often identify behavior management as an area of weakness that they attribute to a lack of sufficient instruction during their teacher preparation. Behavioral skills training (BST) is an evidence‐based teaching methodology based on the principles of applied behavior analysis used to teach new skills. This study investigated the use of BST in the university setting to teach undergraduate preservice teachers enrolled in a field‐based special education course to implement a token economy during small group instruction with children. A single‐case research design was used to assess the effectiveness of using BST by evaluating accuracy of implementation before and after BST. Results showed BST was an effective teaching procedure and social validity measures collected from the preservice teachers indicated BST was acceptable to all participants. Limitations and needs for future research are discussed.     

“Okokuqala ngokuya ndandiqala kwakungekho easy”: Feeling empowered to take collective action through community engagement

Community engagement (CE) at Rhodes University (RU) and community psychology draw on similar principles: using an asset-based community development approach; recognising and drawing on the skills, capabilities, and knowledge of all parties, which they contribute to a partnership. Working from a strategic model of engagement, mutuality is foreground in all CE activities, where both student volunteers and community partners jointly benefit from the engagement. This paper examines CE at RU and how CE principles are translated into practise, using Siyakhana@Makana (S@M) as a case study. In S@M, a 19-week-long volunteer programme, community partners and student volunteers are jointly involved in planning, executing, and evaluating CE activities together. This paper illustrates how being involved in such CE activities has enabled community partners to mobilise for effective change in their communities. Community partners reflect on how they have been empowered to taken on leadership roles, addressing local challenges in collaborative ways, while drawing on the skills and knowledge that they have gained through their engagements in S@M. This resonates with the social action model of community psychology, a participatory approach that seeks to mobilise people to bring about change in the contexts in which they live.     

Influences on Career Choice Among Psychology Undergraduate Students: Role of Social Agents

The study explored factors that mediate the choice of psychology as a major subject by undergraduate students. Participants were a convenience sample of 368 students from two higher education institutions in Southern Africa (males =186, females =182, mean age = 22.35 years, SD=2.84 years). Data were collected using a survey that investigated social agents that are considered important in students' career choices. The data were analysed to explore differences by family and peer influences. The findings suggest that the students in the sample regarded social influences important in their choice of psychology as a major subject.     

Vicissitudes of Student Group Psychotherapists

Abstract

This article describes the main processes and themes in consciousness-raising gender conflict groups for undergraduate students who study in parallel a course on gender and psychology. The main theme of the course is that gender is a classification system that influences individuals, interactions between individuals, and social institutions. The aim of the groups is to provide students with a safe environment to discuss their thoughts and feelings following the encounter of these ideas. Group leading is based on a combination of principles derived from consciousness-raising groups from the 1970s and a model for working with groups in conflict.     

An evaluation of a required computer-applications course for psychology majors

This study describes and evaluates a psychology course specifically focused on computer skills for undergraduate psychology majors. Learning by 136 undergraduates was evaluated on a 57-item objective test. Mean posttest scores were significantly higher than the mean pretest scores in all classes across all topic areas.     

School Psychology: Training Individuals for One of the Best Kept Secrets in Professional Psychology

Abstract

School psychology training at the doctoral level is discussed. Given the increasing diversity in the schools as well as the varied education and mental health needs of the population, school psychology training is necessarily broad, involving traditional skills such as assessment, intervention, consultation, and counseling, all of which are taught within a context of a changing school population with changing needs. Because there is compulsory education, school psychologists’ interface with a broad cross-section of individual children, their parents, and their teachers. Moreover, school psychological practice is not limited to schools, as doctoral school psychologists are health service providers; many of these individuals work in other settings for which they are trained to provide services. The complexities and challenges of training school psychologists within this broad agenda effectively across domains are discussed.     

Towards cultural competence: Australian Indigenous content in undergraduate psychology

This paper discusses the development and preliminary analysis of psychology undergraduate courses on cultural competence in relation to Indigenous Australians. The paper summarises the process that led to the formation of draft curriculum guidelines for psychology academics, including the need to critically examine the assumptions and history of Western psychology in relation to Indigenous peoples, the inclusion of non‐conventional teaching and learning methods, staff and institutional support, and appropriate staff development. The paper then discusses the responses of students to one of the courses developed from these guidelines. The courses were well received by students and although they do not in themselves teach professional psychological skills in working effectively with Indigenous people, they provide a solid basis for the development of such skills. Because this is a relatively new area, it is likely that there will be much refinement of these courses in coming years.     

Psychology and its role in information technology

This paper discusses a role for psychology in the development of information technology. Because of the popularity of psychology as an undergraduate major, psychology’s expertise in measurement, and the assertion of some that cognitive science provides the scientific basis for advancements in information technologies, psychology has a responsibility as a discipline to advance information technology and to educate students about this technology. Studies suggest that higher education in psychology can facilitate reasoning about general issues. A process-oriented course in psychology and computers is suggested as a way of incorporating computer literacy into the psychology curriculum. The role of the Society for Computers in Psychology is also discussed.     

Inexpensive techniques to improve education: Applying cognitive psychology to enhance educational practice

The need to improve the educational system has never been greater. People in congress and business argue for expensive technological applications to improve education despite a lack of empirical evidence for their efficacy. We argue that one inexpensive avenue for improving education has been largely ignored. Cognitive and educational psychologists have identified strategies that greatly improve learning and retention of information, and yet these techniques are not generally applied in education nor taught in education schools. In fact, teachers often use instructional practices known to be wrong (i.e., massing rather than interleaving examples to explain a topic). We identify three general principles that are inexpensive to implement and have been shown in both laboratory and field experiments to improve learning: (1) distribution (spacing and interleaving) of practice in learning facts and skills; (2) retrieval practice (via self testing) for durable learning; and (3) explanatory questioning (elaborative interrogation and self-explanation) as a study strategy. We describe each technique, provide supporting evidence, and discuss classroom applications. Each principle can be applied to most subject matters from kindergarten to higher education. Applying findings from cognitive psychology to classroom instruction is no panacea for educational problems, but it represents one helpful and inexpensive strategy.     

THE GOOD TOOTHBRUSHING GAME: A SCHOOL-BASED DENTAL HYGIENE PROGRAM FOR INCREASING THE TOOTHBRUSHING EFFECTIVENESS OF CHILDREN

There has been a serious lack of experimentally verified, effective dental hygiene programs in the schools. In and of themselves, the instruction-alone programs which comprise children's dental education do not produce proper toothbrushing skills. In the present study, a school-based contingency dental hygiene program designed to increase the effectiveness of children's toothbrushing skills at home was implemented with grade one and two classes. Each class was divided into teams and participated in the “Good Toothbrushing Game.” Each day four children from each team had the cleanliness of their teeth assessed according to the Simplified Oral Hygiene Index (Greene & Vermillion, 1964). The team with the lowest mean oral hygiene score was declared the daily winner. Winning teams received stickers and had their names posted. A multiple baseline across classrooms single-subject group design (Hersen & Barlow, 1976, pp. 228–229) established that the good toothbrushing game greatly increased the effectiveness of children's oral hygiene skills. The treatment terminal level for the grade one scores was 2.0 as compared to a baseline terminal level of 5.0, and for the grade two's was 2.3 compared to 5.7 at the end of baseline. A 9-mo follow-up indicated that these results were maintained. The data strongly suggest that proper implementation of behavioral principles is essential to the success of oral hygiene programs.     

The Social Intelligence of Acting Students

American acting students were asked to predict the ratings made by the general population of undergraduate psychology students on an adjective checklist dealing with several professions, one of which was acting. The same task was set for two benchmark comparison groups (psychology graduate students and a sample from the general population of students). Chi-square comparisons of the ratings of the undergraduate psychology students and their predicted ratings by the acting students revealed that the acting students achieved a 70% correct prediction rate. Chi-square analyses of the performance of the psychology graduate students and the general student sample showed that the acting students' predictions were inferior to those of the psychology graduate students but no different from those of the general undergraduate student sample. The acting students were more accurate in predicting the endorsement of negative adjectives (100%) than positive adjectives (55%). The acting students tended to distrust other people's attitudes towards actors, whereas, in fact, the general population of students' feelings about them were mildly positive.     

Qualitative undergraduate project supervision in psychology: current practices and support needs of supervisors across North East England and Scotland

The dissertation is a core component of a psychology undergraduate degree, though very little research has been conducted into supervision processes at undergraduate level. This study examined the accounts of supervisors of qualitative dissertations in order to identify current practices of supervision and possible resources that might support supervision. Seventeen supervisors from psychology departments in North East England and Scotland were interviewed, and three main themes were identified using thematic analysis: the quantitative culture in psychology teaching, supervisors’ expertise, and the supervision process. Supervisors noted that students were typically constrained in their choice of methodology due to limited qualitative methods teaching, lack of training and guidance for supervisors, and concerns about the risks of demanding qualitative projects. Supervisors therefore often reported staying within their comfort zone, electing where possible to supervise only the methods that they themselves use. Recommendations for practical resources are provided to help support students and supervisors in the process of undertaking qualitative psychology dissertations.