Background: Encouraging students to adopt a mastery goal orientation can help increase learning and motivation. However, the effect of mastery goal orientation interventions specifically in upper-division online elective psychology courses has not been studied. Objective: The purpose of this replication study was to examine the effects of a…

Personal statements are an important component of applications for counselor education and psychology doctoral programs. However, a paucity of empirical information exists about what types of content are viewed favorably and how this content influences admissions decisions. In the current study, 97 faculty members from clinical psychology,…

The present discussion outlines the design and initial implementation of a semester-long graduate course in suicide theory, risk assessment, and management. While the structure of the course is adaptable in light of various considerations (e.g., targeted group of students and availability of resources), we review suicide risk assessment core…

Social psychology instructors from five distinct state universities in California examined the effect of incorporating the implicit association test (IAT) in a teaching module on students' perceived knowledge of implicit biases and motivation to control prejudice. Students (N = 258) completed a knowledge survey on prejudice, stereotypes, and…

Refutation-style texts have been considered a viable strategy for changing psychological misconceptions. The current study aims to integrate refutation-style texts into a classroom-based method of learning. Psychology students were administered a true/false misconception survey and then viewed several refutation-style poster presentations…

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of a positive psychology course on student well-being, depressive symptoms, and stress in a repeated measure, nonequivalent control design. As hypothesized, the positive psychology students reported higher overall happiness, life satisfaction, routes to happiness, and lower depressive…

Student evaluations of teaching are among the most accepted and important indicators of college teachers' performance. However, faculty and administrators can overinterpret small variations in mean teaching evaluations. The current research examined the effect of including statistical information on the interpretation of teaching evaluations.…

A 16-item lifelong learning scale (LLS), appropriate for college students and others, was evaluated using a sample of 575 college students. The scale demonstrated excellent reliability and was correlated with college grade point average (GPA), agreeableness, conscientiousness, and intellect/imagination. Scores were higher for those who had studied…

When students chatter in class it can be disruptive, but could that chatter also have some redeeming qualities? We asked students to keep track of their social interactions in a particular class. On days when students had more social interactions than usual, they reported a greater sense of belonging, which was, in turn, related to greater class…

We tracked a sample of primarily Black psychology baccalaureates' advanced degree enrollments and completions and estimated the association of those outcomes with summer research experience by merging three data sets: (a) summer research program participants, (b) a comparison group of alumni, mostly without summer research, and (c) degree…

The New School Psychology Bulletin (NSPB) is a peer-reviewed journal operated by clinical psychology graduate students. Forty-four members of the editorial board and 27 authors were surveyed before and after working with NSPB. Results of the survey demonstrated that experience with the publication process resulted in quantitative decreases in…

As class sizes increase due to stagnating budgets, and as colleges and universities around the nation increase enrollment, more faculty (especially those without graduate students) are turning to undergraduate teaching assistants (UTA) to meet the increasing demands on academia. We surveyed 142 students enrolled in courses that utilized UTAs to…

Minimal research to date has evaluated the impact of Survey-Question-Read-Recite-Review (SQ3R) implementation (i.e., surveying prior to reading, generating questions, reading to answer said questions, reciting, and reviewing information) on content retention and student performance. Existing research is anecdotal or lacks ecological validity. The…

To investigate undergraduate students' perceptions of the role of the textbook in psychology courses, the authors surveyed 311 psychology students. Using an online survey, students answered questions about textbook importance, usage, and preferences and about scenarios that described a textbook as a resource or central course element. If an…

Previous research has examined differences between students and faculty regarding the weight of effort in assigning grades. Here, students and faculty responded to questions regarding the relative weight of performance and effort on final grades and what letter grades faculty should assign across different types of courses. The authors asked these…