Dear Tipsters,
If the issue here is student perception of "hard", we have difficulties. Where
does the average new psychology student come from? Natural Sciences?
Humanities? The Arts? What exactly do they expect?
As has been said:
Natural Science students may find psychology easier conceptually but difficult
because of the amount of reading and perhaps the amount of judgment required.
Humanities students may find psychology easier because of the amount of reading
but difficult because of the quantitative aspects.
I think one problem is that many students arrive at university without really
knowing what psychology is about. That is not true for Languages, Literature,
Art, Drama, Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics.
If you would like a personal anecdote, after taking natural sciences and
mathematics to the highest level in high school then mathematics, economics and
a foreign language in the first two years of university, I found the
introductory course to be easier than these. Or, to be brutally frank, I was
reinforced by better marks!
Sincerely,
Stuart
___________________________________________________________________
Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D., Phone: (819)822-9600, Extension 2402
Department of Psychology, Fax: (819)822-9661
Bishop's University,
2600 College Street,
Sherbrooke (Borough of Lennoxville),
Québec J1M 1Z7,
Canada.
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bishop's University Psychology Department Web Page:
http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
___________________________________________________________________________________________ From: Michael Smith [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu 28-Aug-08 7:36 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] why psychology is hard I don't think Psychology is hard (meaning difficult to grasp). For some reason the students that I have had seem to conflate what is hard (conceptually difficult to understand) with what requires work. I don't think there is anything conceptually difficult in psych, but it does require work. One student in my methods class bemoaned the fact that he took psychology because there was no math in it, only to find he had to learn statistics! The only hard part in psych may be statistics depending on how far you want to go with it. But then again, a theoretical mathematician friend told me there was nothing conceptually difficult about statistics, it just required a lot of work! --Mike --- On Wed, 8/27/08, William Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: William Scott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: [tips] why psychology is hard To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" <tips@acsun.frostburg.edu> Date: Wednesday, August 27, 2008, 2:47 PM Mike, I sent the same correction. My source was Thomas Szasz, personal communication, which I later verified as most likely true. I forget how I verified it, but it was pre-Google. Bill Scott >>> "Mike Palij" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 08/27/08 5:44 PM >>> On Wed, 27 Aug 2008 13:15:21 -0700, Marc Carter >According to Gilovich, it's Artemus Ward . > >"It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into >trouble.It's the things we know that just ain't so." Annette Taylor emailed me that it was Ward and with the corrected quote but a quick google search raises some doubts. One of the hits was on Amazon for a book by Ralph Keyes entitled "The Quote Verifier: Who Said What, Where, and When". The quote in question is on page 3 (Amazon allows page views) and it is attributed to Josh Billings aka Henry Wheeler Shaw. Artemus and others are identified but Keyes says that it is likely that Twain paraphrased Billings' quote in one of his works. I wonder if there is anything more definitive. -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: Michael Palij [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 2:46 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Michael Palij Subject: RE: [tips] why psychology is hard On Wed, 27 Aug 2008 11:41:25 -0700, Jim Clark wrote: >Hi > >Are we sure that psychology is hard? Or, to be more precise, harder >than other intro level courses? I don't know what data there is on this point but in addition to the general academic "skills building" in the article, implicit is the notion that people walk into intro psych classes with a "folk psychology" that leads them to think that they (a) know what psychology is about and (b) rely upon their understanding to guide them in interpreting psychological research, theories, and explanations. "Folk biology", "folk physics", and other "commonsense explanations" about the world will tend to get challenged in high school science courses which should make the college intro courses in those areas less susceptible to this form of "proactive interference effect". This led me to think of the following quote: "It's not what we don't know that hurts us, it's what we know that isn't so." It then dawned on me that I didn't really know who the source was for this. I had taught that it was Mark Twain but a check of a couple of Twain quote websites doesn't include it (though there are some websites that quote Twain as saying it). I have also see it attributed to Will Rogers and Milton Erikson as well as to no one in particular (i.e., "the old adage"). So, who is the source? -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] P.S. Apparently there are a couple of versions of this saying, so the one above may not be accurate. --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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