[tips] More sleep Questions
Thanks to everyone who responded to my REM sleep/movement question! I now need help on this one. What is the difference in brain wave patterns for a person who has been knocked unconscious? Do they still go through the five stages of sleep? James Kevin Denson Kempsville High School Social Studies Department Chair AP Psychology/ Psychology Teacher Boys Varsity Soccer Coach First Colonial High School The Human Spirit is more powerful than any drug Oliver Sacks --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=867 or send a blank email to leave-867-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
[tips] Alternating hemispheric REM
michael sylvester wrote, A species of dolphins in India have a unique way of sleeping: they alternate REM in both hem-when one side of the brain is asleep the other side is awake. This could be construed as a survival tragedy to prevent drowning. Actually, unilateral sleep is not at all uncommon. It's been described in cetaceans, pinnipeds, and the sirenidae as well as in birds. Many birds do it. I rember a neat study that found that when birds are sleeping in a row (e.g., ducks on a log or pigeons on a ledge), the birds in the middle of the row exhibit sleep in both hemispheres while those on the ends sleep with only one hemisphere and which hemisphere dends on which end of the row they are on. The idea is that you want to keep vigilance on the side on which you have no neighbor. e.g., See Unilateral Eye Closure and Interhemispheric EEG Asymmetry during Sleep in the Pigeon (Columba livia) Niels C. Rattenborg, Charles J. Amlaner, Steven L. Lima http://content.karger.com/produktedb/produkte.asp?typ=fulltextfile=bbe58323 Ed Edward I. Pollak, Ph.D. Department of Psychology West Chester University of Pennsylvania Husband, father, grandfather, biopsychologist, bluegrass fiddler.. in approximate order of importance. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=868 or send a blank email to leave-868-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re:[tips] Confessions of a Public Speaker
Some subscribers to TIPS and PsychTeacher might be interested in the post Re: Confessions of a Public Speaker [Hake (2010)]. The abstract reads: * ABSTRACT: Presentations at professional meetings are usually soporific. For almost half a century physicists such as K.K. Darrow, Jim Garland, and David Mermin wrote articles which failed to improve the quality of talks at meetings of the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). But hope springs eternal. Perhaps the insightful Scott Berkun, coming out of Carnegie Mellon with a degree in Logic and Computation and a sterling record of publications, can stem the tide of mediocrity with his latest book Confessions of a Public Speaker. * To access the complete 16 kB post please click on http://tinyurl.com/yh3hujm. Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University 24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367 Honorary Member, Curmudgeon Lodge of Deventer, The Netherlands. rrh...@earthlink.net http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/ http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi/ http://HakesEdStuff.blogspot.com/ http://iub.academia.edu/RichardHake REFERENCES [Tiny URL's courtesy http://tinyurl.com/create.php.] Berkun, S. 2009. Confessions of a Public Speaker. O'Reilly Media, publisher's information, including the table of contents and a short video are at http://oreilly.com/catalog/9780596802004. Note the Browse Contents feature. Amazon.com information at http://tinyurl.com/y9z37ag. Note the searchable Look Inside feature. For two free chapters from the book see http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2010/free-chapters-from-confessions/. Hake, R.R. 2010. Re: Confessions of a Public Speaker, online on the OPEN! AERA-L archives at http://tinyurl.com/yh3hujm. Post of 25 Feb 2010 08:29:05-0800 to AERA-L, Phys-L, PhysLrnR, and Net-Gold. The abstract is being sent to various discussion lists and is also online at http://hakesedstuff.blogspot.com/2010/02/re-confessions-of-public-speaker.html with a provision for comments. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=873 or send a blank email to leave-873-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] More sleep Questions
Unconsciousness is not a very useful term since it generally refers to a person being unaware and unresponsive to their environment. But to what degree? Clinicians recognize various levels of consciousness/lack of consciosness from awake to a persistently vegetative state. I don't think there is basically any difference between what I take you to mean by unconscious and a coma. So, if you mean by unconscious that the person is in a state from which they cannot be aroused and where they are unresponsive then this would be the equivalent of a coma. In this case, the person does not have a sleep/wake cycle. --Mike On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 6:47 AM, James K. Denson james.den...@vbschools.com wrote: Thanks to everyone who responded to my REM sleep/movement question! I now need help on this one. What is the difference in brain wave patterns for a person who has been knocked unconscious? Do they still go through the five stages of sleep? James Kevin Denson Kempsville High School Social Studies Department Chair AP Psychology/ Psychology Teacher Boys Varsity Soccer Coach First Colonial High School The Human Spirit is more powerful than any drug Oliver Sacks --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: tipsl...@gmail.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13541.42a7e8017ab9578358f118300f4720fbn=Tl=tipso=867 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-867-13541.42a7e8017ab9578358f118300f472...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=875 or send a blank email to leave-875-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
Hi Marte-- One option would be require them to pay to take the ETS major field test in psychology for both classes. Julie Osland On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 1:48 PM, Marte Fallshore ma...@cwu.edu wrote: Hi, everybody. In case anyone's missed me, I'm back. Still mostly lurking, but I do have a question. My school, like all the others, is obsessed with assessment (sounds like a poem title by e.e. cummings, doesn't it?). I was wondering if anyone out there does a pre- posttest assessment of psych graduates? My chair is wanting to start something like that b/c we now have a 1-credit introduction to the major class when they declare. We want to give them the pretest in the majors class then a posttest during their senior assessment class. What do they know b/4 the major and what do they know after? Anybody got any tests already written (and maybe normed) we could use? Thanks, Marte Marte Fallshore Department of Psychology Central Washington Univ. 400 E University Way Ellensburg, WA 98926-7575 509/963-3670 509/963-2307 (fax) No one knows what's next, but everybody does it. ~George Carlin When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ~Dom Heider Camara I teach for free; they pay me to grade. (anon) --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: osla...@wju.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13433.c7876d6b0f9d5461fd3e87c0d1e51e12n=Tl=tipso=871 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-871-13433.c7876d6b0f9d5461fd3e87c0d1e51...@fsulist.frostburg.edu -- Dr. Julie A. Osland, M.A., Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Psychology Wheeling Jesuit University 316 Washington Avenue Wheeling, WV 26003 Office: (304) 243-2329 e-mail: osla...@wju.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=876 or send a blank email to leave-876-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
Not knowing what the learning outcomes are for your program makes answering your question more difficult. If you are focused entirely on content and fact retrieval, a pre-post test doesn't pose a very interesting question. You could probably answer it better by using something like the Major Fields test for psychology (ETS) and then look at subtest scores to look at knowledge areas to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. I'm assuming ETS provides these subscores for areas in psychology for the Psychology test. I know they do this for the Business test because the College of Business uses this approach to look at strengths and weaknesses in in the Business curriculum - ETS gives them subscores for finance, economics, accounting, management, etc. If you would really like to have some sort of baseline for content knowledge, you could volunteer to pariticipate in the College Board development of norms for the AP Psychology exam. Students take the AP exam at the end of their introductory psychology course. Not exactly entering the major, but I hope they learn more about the content of psychology in all those other courses they take later! It would be sad if they learned all the relevant content in intro! :-) Many programs have learning outcomes related to critical thinking and analysis skills, information literacy, and quality of writing. If your institution has an assessment for these learning outcomes in the General Education curriculum, you could try to get the average scores for students in Gen Ed entering the psychology major and use those scores as the baseline. Then create a meaningful assessment of these skills with an embedded assignment in the capstone course to determine what changes occur during completion of the major coursework. Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. Director, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Associate Professor, Psychology University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 – 5751 Phone: (850) 857-6355 or 473-7435 csta...@uwf.edu CUTLA Web Site: http://uwf.edu/cutla/ Personal Web Pages: http://uwf.edu/cstanny/website/index.htm On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Marte Fallshore ma...@cwu.edu wrote: Hi, everybody. In case anyone's missed me, I'm back. Still mostly lurking, but I do have a question. My school, like all the others, is obsessed with assessment (sounds like a poem title by e.e. cummings, doesn't it?). I was wondering if anyone out there does a pre- posttest assessment of psych graduates? My chair is wanting to start something like that b/c we now have a 1-credit introduction to the major class when they declare. We want to give them the pretest in the majors class then a posttest during their senior assessment class. What do they know b/4 the major and what do they know after? Anybody got any tests already written (and maybe normed) we could use? Thanks, Marte Marte Fallshore Department of Psychology Central Washington Univ. 400 E University Way Ellensburg, WA 98926-7575 509/963-3670 509/963-2307 (fax) No one knows what's next, but everybody does it. ~George Carlin When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ~Dom Heider Camara I teach for free; they pay me to grade. (anon) --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: csta...@uwf.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13144.1572ed60024e708cf21c4c6f19e7d550n=Tl=tipso=871 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-871-13144.1572ed60024e708cf21c4c6f19e7d...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=878 or send a blank email to leave-878-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
[tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
Hi, everybody. In case anyone's missed me, I'm back. Still mostly lurking, but I do have a question. My school, like all the others, is obsessed with assessment (sounds like a poem title by e.e. cummings, doesn't it?). I was wondering if anyone out there does a pre- posttest assessment of psych graduates? My chair is wanting to start something like that b/c we now have a 1-credit introduction to the major class when they declare. We want to give them the pretest in the majors class then a posttest during their senior assessment class. What do they know b/4 the major and what do they know after? Anybody got any tests already written (and maybe normed) we could use? Thanks, Marte Marte Fallshore Department of Psychology Central Washington Univ. 400 E University Way Ellensburg, WA 98926-7575 509/963-3670 509/963-2307 (fax) No one knows what's next, but everybody does it. ~George Carlin When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ~Dom Heider Camara I teach for free; they pay me to grade. (anon) --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=871 or send a blank email to leave-871-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
Re: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
We have a pre/post test that we give that we developed in-house based on our outcomes. We developed it because our assessment group really wanted something very objective included in the mix of our assessment. Ours is not normed - we have only given it twice and are still working on it. The best thing to do would be to ask everyone who teaches to submit a few MC questions related to their course that would match the objectives they cover in that class. Marte Fallshore wrote: Hi, everybody. In case anyone's missed me, I'm back. Still mostly lurking, but I do have a question. My school, like all the others, is obsessed with assessment (sounds like a poem title by e.e. cummings, doesn't it?). I was wondering if anyone out there does a pre- posttest assessment of psych graduates? My chair is wanting to start something like that b/c we now have a 1-credit introduction to the major class when they declare. We want to give them the pretest in the majors class then a posttest during their senior assessment class. What do they know b/4 the major and what do they know after? Anybody got any tests already written (and maybe normed) we could use? Thanks, Marte Marte Fallshore Department of Psychology Central Washington Univ. 400 E University Way Ellensburg, WA 98926-7575 509/963-3670 509/963-2307 (fax) No one knows what's next, but everybody does it. ~George Carlin When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ~Dom Heider Camara I teach for free; they pay me to grade. (anon) --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: dbri...@valdosta.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13162.50de294b9d4987a3c89b4a5cc4bdea62n=Tl=tipso=871 or send a blank email to leave-871-13162.50de294b9d4987a3c89b4a5cc4bde...@fsulist.frostburg.edu -- Deb Dr. Deborah S. Briihl Dept. of Psychology and Counseling Valdosta State University 229-333-5994 dbri...@valdosta.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=879 or send a blank email to leave-879-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
RE: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
I'm with Julia and Claudia: use the MFAT. It's cheap and thorough. I did want to say that I don't think you need to do a pre-test, though. It's *highly* unlikely you're going to have a substantial number of students who come to your degree program already knowing psych. Even an AP class in high school is not likely to result in a great deal of retained knowledge 4-odd years later. Almost everything they know about psychology as seniors is due to what you've done with them while they were in your program. I'd save the money on the pre-test and have a couple picnics for the psych majors. I just cannot see it being informative. The MFAT is normed, so you can compare your group to other groups; it has six Assessment Indicators that will tell you about strengths and weakness of your program in sufficient detail that you can make curricular changes. m -- Marc Carter, PhD Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology College of Arts Sciences Baker University -- From: Claudia Stanny [mailto:csta...@uwf.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:09 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] assessment question () Not knowing what the learning outcomes are for your program makes answering your question more difficult. If you are focused entirely on content and fact retrieval, a pre-post test doesn't pose a very interesting question. You could probably answer it better by using something like the Major Fields test for psychology (ETS) and then look at subtest scores to look at knowledge areas to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. I'm assuming ETS provides these subscores for areas in psychology for the Psychology test. I know they do this for the Business test because the College of Business uses this approach to look at strengths and weaknesses in in the Business curriculum - ETS gives them subscores for finance, economics, accounting, management, etc. If you would really like to have some sort of baseline for content knowledge, you could volunteer to pariticipate in the College Board development of norms for the AP Psychology exam. Students take the AP exam at the end of their introductory psychology course. Not exactly entering the major, but I hope they learn more about the content of psychology in all those other courses they take later! It would be sad if they learned all the relevant content in intro! :-) Many programs have learning outcomes related to critical thinking and analysis skills, information literacy, and quality of writing. If your institution has an assessment for these learning outcomes in the General Education curriculum, you could try to get the average scores for students in Gen Ed entering the psychology major and use those scores as the baseline. Then create a meaningful assessment of these skills with an embedded assignment in the capstone course to determine what changes occur during completion of the major coursework. Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. Director, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Associate Professor, Psychology University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 - 5751 Phone: (850) 857-6355 or 473-7435 csta...@uwf.edumailto:csta...@uwf.edu CUTLA Web Site: http://uwf.edu/cutla/ Personal Web Pages: http://uwf.edu/cstanny/website/index.htm On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Marte Fallshore ma...@cwu.edumailto:ma...@cwu.edu wrote: Hi, everybody. In case anyone's missed me, I'm back. Still mostly lurking, but I do have a question. My school, like all the others, is obsessed with assessment (sounds like a poem title by e.e. cummings, doesn't it?). I was wondering if anyone out there does a pre- posttest assessment of psych graduates? My chair is wanting to start something like that b/c we now have a 1-credit introduction to the major class when they declare. We want to give them the pretest in the majors class then a posttest during their senior assessment class. What do they know b/4 the major and what do they know after? Anybody got any tests already written (and maybe normed) we could use? Thanks, Marte Marte Fallshore Department of Psychology Central Washington Univ. 400 E University Way Ellensburg, WA 98926-7575 509/963-3670 509/963-2307 (fax) No one knows what's next, but everybody does it. ~George Carlin When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ~Dom Heider Camara I teach for free; they pay me to grade. (anon) --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: csta...@uwf.edumailto:csta...@uwf.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13144.1572ed60024e708cf21c4c6f19e7d550n=Tl=tipso=871 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is
RE: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
I agree with Marc's point about the pre-test and I would also say that it probably wouldn't be a good idea if everyone started using the MFT in this way because that would tend to really skew the normative sample for seniors (unless ETS provides a way for you to take the test while excluding your data from the norms). Rick Rick Froman rfro...@jbu.edumailto:rfro...@jbu.edu From: Marc Carter [mailto:marc.car...@bakeru.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:39 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] assessment question () I'm with Julia and Claudia: use the MFAT. It's cheap and thorough. I did want to say that I don't think you need to do a pre-test, though. It's *highly* unlikely you're going to have a substantial number of students who come to your degree program already knowing psych. Even an AP class in high school is not likely to result in a great deal of retained knowledge 4-odd years later. Almost everything they know about psychology as seniors is due to what you've done with them while they were in your program. I'd save the money on the pre-test and have a couple picnics for the psych majors. I just cannot see it being informative. The MFAT is normed, so you can compare your group to other groups; it has six Assessment Indicators that will tell you about strengths and weakness of your program in sufficient detail that you can make curricular changes. m -- Marc Carter, PhD Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology College of Arts Sciences Baker University -- From: Claudia Stanny [mailto:csta...@uwf.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:09 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] assessment question () Not knowing what the learning outcomes are for your program makes answering your question more difficult. If you are focused entirely on content and fact retrieval, a pre-post test doesn't pose a very interesting question. You could probably answer it better by using something like the Major Fields test for psychology (ETS) and then look at subtest scores to look at knowledge areas to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. I'm assuming ETS provides these subscores for areas in psychology for the Psychology test. I know they do this for the Business test because the College of Business uses this approach to look at strengths and weaknesses in in the Business curriculum - ETS gives them subscores for finance, economics, accounting, management, etc. If you would really like to have some sort of baseline for content knowledge, you could volunteer to pariticipate in the College Board development of norms for the AP Psychology exam. Students take the AP exam at the end of their introductory psychology course. Not exactly entering the major, but I hope they learn more about the content of psychology in all those other courses they take later! It would be sad if they learned all the relevant content in intro! :-) Many programs have learning outcomes related to critical thinking and analysis skills, information literacy, and quality of writing. If your institution has an assessment for these learning outcomes in the General Education curriculum, you could try to get the average scores for students in Gen Ed entering the psychology major and use those scores as the baseline. Then create a meaningful assessment of these skills with an embedded assignment in the capstone course to determine what changes occur during completion of the major coursework. Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. Director, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Associate Professor, Psychology University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 - 5751 Phone: (850) 857-6355 or 473-7435 csta...@uwf.edumailto:csta...@uwf.edu CUTLA Web Site: http://uwf.edu/cutla/ Personal Web Pages: http://uwf.edu/cstanny/website/index.htm On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Marte Fallshore ma...@cwu.edumailto:ma...@cwu.edu wrote: Hi, everybody. In case anyone's missed me, I'm back. Still mostly lurking, but I do have a question. My school, like all the others, is obsessed with assessment (sounds like a poem title by e.e. cummings, doesn't it?). I was wondering if anyone out there does a pre- posttest assessment of psych graduates? My chair is wanting to start something like that b/c we now have a 1-credit introduction to the major class when they declare. We want to give them the pretest in the majors class then a posttest during their senior assessment class. What do they know b/4 the major and what do they know after? Anybody got any tests already written (and maybe normed) we could use? Thanks, Marte Marte Fallshore Department of Psychology Central Washington Univ. 400 E University Way Ellensburg, WA 98926-7575 509/963-3670 509/963-2307 (fax)
RE: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
We have used the MFAT for two years. We'll keep using it but a major problem is that we do not teach our students to take multiple-choice tests so the format of the MFAT assessment does not map all that well to the skills we emphasize in our upper level courses. However, we do use it to observe curricular strengths and weaknesses in the content coverage across the 6 subareas and to get a sense of the national norms for content knowledge. Our primary source of assessment information for the major is the senior thesis. We are in the process of developing a pretest-posttest that will focus just on the information literacy skills that we expect our majors to develop. We will give it in Intro Psych and in the thesis class probably. This test will be in addition to the ETS iSkills test that the college at large is about to being using and is intended to be discipline -specific (if you have one please share!). Nathalie Cote Belmont Abbey College, NC From: Marc Carter [mailto:marc.car...@bakeru.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 3:39 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] assessment question () I'm with Julia and Claudia: use the MFAT. It's cheap and thorough. I did want to say that I don't think you need to do a pre-test, though. It's *highly* unlikely you're going to have a substantial number of students who come to your degree program already knowing psych. Even an AP class in high school is not likely to result in a great deal of retained knowledge 4-odd years later. Almost everything they know about psychology as seniors is due to what you've done with them while they were in your program. I'd save the money on the pre-test and have a couple picnics for the psych majors. I just cannot see it being informative. The MFAT is normed, so you can compare your group to other groups; it has six Assessment Indicators that will tell you about strengths and weakness of your program in sufficient detail that you can make curricular changes. m -- Marc Carter, PhD Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology College of Arts Sciences Baker University -- From: Claudia Stanny [mailto:csta...@uwf.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:09 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] assessment question () Not knowing what the learning outcomes are for your program makes answering your question more difficult. If you are focused entirely on content and fact retrieval, a pre-post test doesn't pose a very interesting question. You could probably answer it better by using something like the Major Fields test for psychology (ETS) and then look at subtest scores to look at knowledge areas to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. I'm assuming ETS provides these subscores for areas in psychology for the Psychology test. I know they do this for the Business test because the College of Business uses this approach to look at strengths and weaknesses in in the Business curriculum - ETS gives them subscores for finance, economics, accounting, management, etc. If you would really like to have some sort of baseline for content knowledge, you could volunteer to pariticipate in the College Board development of norms for the AP Psychology exam. Students take the AP exam at the end of their introductory psychology course. Not exactly entering the major, but I hope they learn more about the content of psychology in all those other courses they take later! It would be sad if they learned all the relevant content in intro! :-) Many programs have learning outcomes related to critical thinking and analysis skills, information literacy, and quality of writing. If your institution has an assessment for these learning outcomes in the General Education curriculum, you could try to get the average scores for students in Gen Ed entering the psychology major and use those scores as the baseline. Then create a meaningful assessment of these skills with an embedded assignment in the capstone course to determine what changes occur during completion of the major coursework. Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. Director, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Associate Professor, Psychology University of West Florida 11000 University Parkway Pensacola, FL 32514 - 5751 Phone: (850) 857-6355 or 473-7435 csta...@uwf.edu CUTLA Web Site: http://uwf.edu/cutla/ Personal Web Pages: http://uwf.edu/cstanny/website/index.htm On Thu, Feb 25, 2010 at 12:48 PM, Marte Fallshore ma...@cwu.edu wrote: Hi, everybody. In case anyone's
Re: [tips] So what's broke?
Hi Mike- Just a couple of thoughts to add to Jim's excellent response. The Canadian Correctional Service has, over the years, helped to develop a number of instruments to help parole boards make better decisions. Bob Hare's Psychopathy Checklist (revised) is just one example. As far as exiling these people to a remote island, well that is a bad idea from a logistical point of view. Islands are actually hard to control as they offer a potentially infinite number of escape routes. I was a prison psychologist for about ten years and I can tell you that dealing with cases like this was the most difficult thing (emotionally) that I have ever done. While we didn't always get it right we all gave it our best effort. -Don. - Original Message - From: Michael Smith tipsl...@gmail.com Date: Thursday, February 25, 2010 11:13 am Subject: Re: [tips] So what's broke? To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu Yes there are many variables and there is always an emotional component (with me at least) with regard to child abuse/homicide. I was also asking as an intro psych student might, since the story is a current event, and it seems at least that psychology has failed to make much headway in providing the tools/understanding that the criminal justice system might need to do a better job. As everyone knows parole boards routinely let out people that should not be and that they can't see the obvious that anyone on the street can see. Thanks for the links...I knew someone would come through :) --Mike On Wed, Feb 24, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Jim Clark j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca wrote: Hi There are others who post here more capable than I am of addressing this question, but Michael's (natural) response appears to be driven by emotion rather than the psychological literature on sex offenders. A couple of observations: 1. With respect to the 90 registered offenders who were interviewed, sex offender tends to be a very broad term, so the 90 registered offenders needs to be viewed cautiously. One would also want some idea of the base population within that 5 mile radius ... 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 or 2. I know nothing about this particular case, but is it in fact true (as implied perhaps by Michael) that the perpetrator was a previously released offender? If so, then one would wonder whether it would have been possible to identify this person as someone who would re-offend (see #3). If not previously arrested, then harsh penalties (exile!) would only be relevant if harsh penalties were known to reduce levels of offending in others. How well has 3 strikes you're out worked in the USA (other than contributing to the bankruptcy of California, of course)? 3. As with so many decisions, surely there must be some balance between (a) keeping incarcerated those who will re- offend, and (b) not keeping incarcerated those who will not re- offend. Here are some statistics on recidivism in sex offenders from Canada Corrections, an organization that is I think well respected for its research orientation (e.g., to development of instruments for predicting recidivism). http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/pblct/forum/e082/e082g-eng.shtml The gist of the statistics are that even after 5 years, a substantial portion of sex offenders have not re-offended (or more precisely have not been caught re-offending). 4. As to what is broke about modern western society, we need to be careful about drawing inferences about societies on the basis of such cases. To get some appreciation of the extent of such violence, see: http://www.jimhopper.com/abstats/#unrpt For example, the report indicates almost 53,000 child homicides worldwide in 2002. None of the above denies the validity of Michael's essential point, that one would hope that more could be done to prevent these horrific events. Take care Jim James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax j.cl...@uwinnipeg.ca Department of Psychology University of Winnipeg Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9 CANADA Michael Smith tipsl...@gmail.com 24-Feb-10 2:52 PM Having followed the recent heartbreaking news stories about 7 year old Somer Thompson it really makes me wonder what's broke about modern western society. Is it the justice system? As a society we (meaning those in positions of authority to change things) don't want to keep sexual predators away from society? Is it the psychiatric/psychological assessment process where these people are let out again? Or is it just that this society is incapable of fixing this problem, but we don't want to admit it? I mean the last news story I read said that the investigators had just finished interviewing the last of the ninety (yes ninety) registered sexual predators within a 5 mile radius of the Thompson home.
Re: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
Let me add a me too. I agree with the use of the MFT and also agree with the Rick and others that the pre-test may not be the best idea. We did the pretest/posttest once and it was not very good on the pretest end. First was the problem that we gain lose majors along the way, and, many of the pretest takers were not intellectually invested in the major yet, so we had a number who viewed it as a chore. We did it twice with seniors, though, and this was useful as we both spotted a few weaknesses and subsequently noticed a slight improvement after some curricular changes (with the usual caveat that this is non-experimental, etcetera). I know you can identify sub-groups (as we did), though I don't know how ETS would handle requests to not include pretests in subsequent normative data. I remember hearing (but not the source) that some schools stopped using it if they scored low, which would push up the mean of the normative group in later years. It's worth checking when/how the norming is done. I am about to do that as we are doing to use it again this spring on seniors, and have tentatively decided to use it every two years. And yes, I can relate to the AAAUUUGGG but I find the MFT a god reality check if used wisely. == John W. Kulig Professor of Psychology Plymouth State University Plymouth NH 03264 Religion without science is blind; science without religion is lame - A. Einstein - Original Message - From: Rick Froman rfro...@jbu.edu To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 3:45:36 PM Subject: RE: [tips] assessment question () I agree with Marc’s point about the pre-test and I would also say that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea if everyone started using the MFT in this way because that would tend to really skew the normative sample for seniors (unless ETS provides a way for you to take the test while excluding your data from the norms). Rick Rick Froman rfro...@jbu.edu From: Marc Carter [mailto:marc.car...@bakeru.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:39 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] assessment question () I'm with Julia and Claudia: use the MFAT. It's cheap and thorough. I did want to say that I don't think you need to do a pre-test, though. It's *highly* unlikely you're going to have a substantial number of students who come to your degree program already knowing psych. Even an AP class in high school is not likely to result in a great deal of retained knowledge 4-odd years later. Almost everything they know about psychology as seniors is due to what you've done with them while they were in your program. I'd save the money on the pre-test and have a couple picnics for the psych majors. I just cannot see it being informative. The MFAT is normed, so you can compare your group to other groups; it has six Assessment Indicators that will tell you about strengths and weakness of your program in sufficient detail that you can make curricular changes. m -- Marc Carter, PhD Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology College of Arts Sciences Baker University -- From: Claudia Stanny [mailto:csta...@uwf.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:09 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] assessment question () Not knowing what the learning outcomes are for your program makes answering your question more difficult. If you are focused entirely on content and fact retrieval, a pre-post test doesn't pose a very interesting question. You could probably answer it better by using something like the Major Fields test for psychology (ETS) and then look at subtest scores to look at knowledge areas to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. I'm assuming ETS provides these subscores for areas in psychology for the Psychology test. I know they do this for the Business test because the College of Business uses this approach to look at strengths and weaknesses in in the Business curriculum - ETS gives them subscores for finance, economics, accounting, management, etc. If you would really like to have some sort of baseline for content knowledge, you could volunteer to pariticipate in the College Board development of norms for the AP Psychology exam. Students take the AP exam at the end of their introductory psychology course. Not exactly entering the major, but I hope they learn more about the content of psychology in all those other courses they take later! It would be sad if they learned all the relevant content in intro! :-) Many programs have learning outcomes related to critical thinking and analysis
Re: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
We use gain scores because we don't have a normed test. You could if your institution is really committed to assessment have them pay for students to take the ACAT or MFT from ETS at the welcome to the major course point in time and again at graduation time. Otherwise, any homegrown test can use normalized gain scores. This logic comes to me from our friend Richard Hake who sometimes posts to tips. It is MUCH more intuitive and MUCH simpler to calculate than regression residuals, which you can also use. Here is what you do: You calculate for each person their percent correct. Then calculate this score: (posttest score - pretest score)/(100-pretest score) What this does is take into account each person's starting point--how much they could possibly improved from where they started. So take two people: Pretest Postest Net Change Gain Person A 20 4020(40-20)/(100-20)=.25 Person B 60 8020(80-60)/(100-60)=.50 Person B improved 50% of what s/he could have improved by; Person A only improved 25% of what s/he could have improved by to reach your criterion. Now that you have equated your people for their potential gain you can feel safer in making some conclusions about your sample in general in terms of their improvement. Hope this helps. Now, if you could please share your syllabus for the majors course I would be most grateful. I am teaching it for the first time, here, this coming fall. Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 619-260-4006 tay...@sandiego.edu Original message Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 10:48:15 -0800 From: Marte Fallshore ma...@cwu.edu Subject: [tips] assessment question () To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu Hi, everybody. In case anyone's missed me, I'm back. Still mostly lurking, but I do have a question. My school, like all the others, is obsessed with assessment (sounds like a poem title by e.e. cummings, doesn't it?). I was wondering if anyone out there does a pre- posttest assessment of psych graduates? My chair is wanting to start something like that b/c we now have a 1-credit introduction to the major class when they declare. We want to give them the pretest in the majors class then a posttest during their senior assessment class. What do they know b/4 the major and what do they know after? Anybody got any tests already written (and maybe normed) we could use? Thanks, Marte Marte Fallshore Department of Psychology Central Washington Univ. 400 E University Way Ellensburg, WA 98926-7575 509/963-3670 509/963-2307 (fax) No one knows what's next, but everybody does it. ~George Carlin When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ~Dom Heider Camara I teach for free; they pay me to grade. (anon) --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: tay...@sandiego.edu. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a21b0n=Tl=tipso=871 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-871-13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a2...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=885 or send a blank email to leave-885-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
RE: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
All of our students taken an upper division lab course and have to write either a full APA paper or a grant proposal which we ask them to write the body of, and anticipated results and discussion in APA style. I've attached our scoring rubric for anyone who is intersted. I plan to present this at the Assessment Best Practices (if my proposal is accepted) next October. Annette Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology University of San Diego 5998 Alcala Park San Diego, CA 92110 619-260-4006 tay...@sandiego.edu Original message Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:49:42 -0500 From: Nathalie Cote nathaliec...@bac.edu Subject: RE: [tips] assessment question () To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) tips@fsulist.frostburg.edu We have used the MFAT for two years. We'll keep using it but a major problem is that we do not teach our students to take multiple-choice tests so the format of the MFAT assessment does not map all that well to the skills we emphasize in our upper level courses. However, we do use it to observe curricular strengths and weaknesses in the content coverage across the 6 subareas and to get a sense of the national norms for content knowledge. Our primary source of assessment information for the major is the senior thesis. We are in the process of developing a pretest-posttest that will focus just on the information literacy skills that we expect our majors to develop. We will give it in Intro Psych and in the thesis class probably. This test will be in addition to the ETS iSkills test that the college at large is about to being using and is intended to be discipline -specific (if you have one please share!). Nathalie Cote Belmont Abbey College, NC From: Marc Carter [mailto:marc.car...@bakeru.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 3:39 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] assessment question () I'm with Julia and Claudia: use the MFAT. It's cheap and thorough. I did want to say that I don't think you need to do a pre-test, though. It's *highly* unlikely you're going to have a substantial number of students who come to your degree program already knowing psych. Even an AP class in high school is not likely to result in a great deal of retained knowledge 4-odd years later. Almost everything they know about psychology as seniors is due to what you've done with them while they were in your program. I'd save the money on the pre-test and have a couple picnics for the psych majors. I just cannot see it being informative. The MFAT is normed, so you can compare your group to other groups; it has six Assessment Indicators that will tell you about strengths and weakness of your program in sufficient detail that you can make curricular changes. m -- Marc Carter, PhD Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology College of Arts Sciences Baker University -- From: Claudia Stanny [mailto:csta...@uwf.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:09 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] assessment question () Not knowing what the learning outcomes are for your program makes answering your question more difficult. If you are focused entirely on content and fact retrieval, a pre-post test doesn't pose a very interesting question. You could probably answer it better by using something like the Major Fields test for psychology (ETS) and then look at subtest scores to look at knowledge areas to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses. I'm assuming ETS provides these subscores for areas in psychology for the Psychology test. I know they do this for the Business test because the College of Business uses this approach to look at strengths and weaknesses in in the Business curriculum - ETS gives them subscores for finance, economics, accounting, management, etc. If you would really like to have some sort of baseline for content knowledge, you could volunteer to pariticipate in the College Board development of norms for the AP Psychology exam. Students take the AP exam at the end of their introductory psychology course. Not exactly entering the major, but I hope they learn more about the content of psychology in all those other courses they take later! It would be sad if they learned all the relevant content in intro! :-) Many programs have learning outcomes related to critical thinking and analysis skills, information
RE: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
Maybe I should have said this in my e-mail, but we already used the MFAT as an end of major assessment. What we wanted was something that would show that they actually learned something beyond what they came in with. We did talk about having faculty write questions for each class they teach, but I thought instead of reinventing the wheel, maybe someone already had something. I haven't finished reading all the responses, but I thought I would clarify what we're looking for. I could have sworn I had already said all that, but I guess I didn't. Thanks to everybody past, present, and future who are responding to this request, Marte Nathalie Cote 02/25/10 12:51 PM We have used the MFAT for two years. We*ll keep using itbut a major problem is that we do not teach our students to takemultiple-choice tests so the format of the MFAT assessment does not map allthat well to the skills we emphasize in our upper level courses. However, we douse it to observe curricular strengths and weaknesses in the content coverage acrossthe 6 subareas and to get a sense of the national norms for content knowledge. Our primary source of assessment information for the major is thesenior thesis. We are in the process of developing a pretest-posttest that willfocus just on the information literacy skills that we expect our majors todevelop. We will give it in Intro Psych and in the thesis class probably. This testwill be in addition to the ETS iSkills test that the college at large is aboutto being using and is intended to be discipline *specific (if you haveone please share!). Nathalie Cote Belmont Abbey College, NC From: Marc Carter[mailto:marc.car...@bakeru.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 3:39 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] assessment question () I'm with Julia and Claudia: use the MFAT. It's cheap andthorough. I did want to say that I don't think you need to do a pre-test,though. It's *highly* unlikely you're going to have a substantial numberof students who come to your degree program already knowing psych. Evenan AP class in high school is not likely to result in a great deal of retainedknowledge 4-odd years later. Almost everything they know about psychologyas seniors is due to what you've done with them while they were in yourprogram. I'd save the money on the pre-test and have a couple picnics forthe psych majors. I just cannot see it being informative. The MFAT is normed, so you can compare your group to other groups;it has six Assessment Indicators that will tell you about strengthsand weakness of your program in sufficient detail that you can make curricularchanges. m -- Marc Carter, PhD Associate Professor and Chair Department of Psychology College of Arts Sciences Baker University -- From: Claudia Stanny [mailto:csta...@uwf.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 2:09 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] assessment question () Not knowing what the learning outcomes are for your programmakes answering your question more difficult. If you are focused entirely on content and fact retrieval, apre-post test doesn't pose a very interesting question. You couldprobably answer it better by using something like the Major Fields test forpsychology (ETS) and then look at subtest scores to look at knowledge areas toidentify areas of strengths and weaknesses. I'm assuming ETSprovides these subscores for areas in psychology for the Psychologytest. I know they do this for the Business test because the Collegeof Business uses this approach to look at strengths and weaknesses in in theBusiness curriculum - ETS gives them subscores for finance, economics,accounting, management, etc. If you would really like to have some sort of baseline forcontent knowledge, you could volunteer to pariticipate in the College Boarddevelopment of norms for the AP Psychology exam. Students take the APexam at the end of their introductory psychology course. Not exactlyentering the major, but I hope they learn more about the content of psychologyin all those other courses they take later! It would be sad if theylearned all the relevant content in intro! :-) Many programs have learning outcomes related to criticalthinking and analysis skills, information literacy, and quality ofwriting. If your institution has an assessment for these learningoutcomes in the General Education curriculum, you could try to get the averagescores for students in Gen Ed entering the psychology major and use thosescores as the baseline. Then create a meaningful assessment of theseskills with an embedded assignment in the capstone course to determine whatchanges occur during completion of the major coursework. Claudia J. Stanny, Ph.D. Director, Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment Associate Professor, Psychology University of West Florida
RE: [tips] assessment question (AAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH)
The ACAT in psychology has been available since 1983 and is in its 8th revision. It can be used as a paired pre-post test at entry to and exit from the major. We've been collecting data on changes in learning across the major for 20 years and can provide gain scores based on a cumulative reference group. Both pre- and post-tests can be taken using pencil and paper or online or any combination. Scores are available within 7 days of return of materials to us and students can access their scores directly using the online version, with department permission. I believe that ETS recommends against using the MFT off book as changes over time are not documented for their instrument. I know this would require that you change your exit exam strategy but I think you'll find that if you do, pre- post-testing combined using the ACAT would cost you not much more than the MFT just as a senior test. I'd be happy to discuss this with you further off list if you'd like. Tony Anthony Golden, Ph.D. PACAT Incorporated / NOMESys 866-680-2228 http://www.collegeoutcomes.com/ www.collegeoutcomes.com _ From: Marte Fallshore [mailto:ma...@cwu.edu] Sent: Thursday, February 25, 2010 12:48 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] assessment question () Hi, everybody. In case anyone's missed me, I'm back. Still mostly lurking, but I do have a question. My school, like all the others, is obsessed with assessment (sounds like a poem title by e.e. cummings, doesn't it?). I was wondering if anyone out there does a pre- posttest assessment of psych graduates? My chair is wanting to start something like that b/c we now have a 1-credit introduction to the major class when they declare. We want to give them the pretest in the majors class then a posttest during their senior assessment class. What do they know b/4 the major and what do they know after? Anybody got any tests already written (and maybe normed) we could use? Thanks, Marte Marte Fallshore Department of Psychology Central Washington Univ. 400 E University Way Ellensburg, WA 98926-7575 509/963-3670 509/963-2307 (fax) No one knows what's next, but everybody does it. ~George Carlin When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ~Dom Heider Camara I teach for free; they pay me to grade. (anon) --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: anthonygol...@gnomewebs.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13089.f916b2ed383e62ec91b915de8ba77e0b http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13089.f916b2ed383e62ec91b915de8ba77e0bn= Tl=tipso=871 n=Tl=tipso=871 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-871-13089.f916b2ed383e62ec91b915de8ba77...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=888 or send a blank email to leave-888-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
[tips] TIPSTER OF THE WEEK
JAMES KEVIN DENSON Michael omnicentric Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5n=Tl=tipso=889 or send a blank email to leave-889-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
