Hi Mike
I believe our paper cites the 1993 ish history of teaching psychology
volume. it does contain a chapter on handbooks that may be helpful. i do not
have a copy on hand but an amazon search should reveal the table of
contents.
blaine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Palij" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<tips@acsun.frostburg.edu>
Cc: "Mike Palij" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2008 12:23 PM
Subject: Re:[tips] Request for a History of Teaching of Experimental
Psychology
On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 07:49:15 -0700, Patrick Dolan
Mike- this sounds like a great topic for a paper. I have several
"lab manuals" dating back to the teens I think (though most are
from the '30s), as well as many Experimental Psych. texts spanning
from ~1912 to the present-- would be interesting to see how the
field evolved.
It would be great if there was some way to have these materials
scanned in and made available in PDF format *hint-hint* :-)
One question that I have about the "lab manuals" is whether they
are commercial publications (e.g., I believe Bob Fried of Hunter
College had a commercially published lab manual back in the
1960s) or home-grown (when I started grad school in the
1970s at SUNY-Stony Brook there was no formal lab manual,
only handouts for specific experiments; over time a more or less
formal lab manual was produced or at least I compiled one
when I did a visiting prof there in the late 1980s).
I think it would be interesting to see how lab manuals changed
over the 20th century. This could produce a paper or, at the
very least, a poster presentation, not to mention an interesting
display that could be coordinated with appropriate equipment
(anyone remember Hunter Klockounters?).
-Mike Palij
New York University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On 10/23/2008 at 10:33 AM, "Mike Palij" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I wanted to thank Chris for identifying some of the texts
that would have been used in the early 20th century for the
experimental psychology lab course. I still have a copy of
Woodworth & Schlossberg (2nd ed) text but have somehow
lost the Kling & Riggs (3rd ed) update. I also remember the
Underwood text though by the time I took exp psych lab,
we were using D'Amato's book.
I also have two questions of secondary concern:
(1) Historically, what was the division in terms of time and
coverage of "human" topics (e.g., psychophysics, verbal
learning, etc.) and "animal" topics (i.e., baseline behavior
frequency measure, shaping, continuous reinforcements,
different schedules of reinforcement, etc.) for the general
experimental psych lab (I realize that there may have been
specialized labs but I assume that these were fewer in number
than the general experimental lab course0 . It's my impression
that in the 1960-1980s it was a 50-50 split but in the 1990s
the animal component dwindled in general experiment psych
course and/or were relegated to specialized animal labs.
Does this sound accurate? Does anyone know what the split
was like before the 1960s? Has anyone examined whether
the animal component is disappearing in recent years?
(2) The development of PC and web-based experiments
seem to be signaling a new phase of teaching the experimental
psych lab. Has anyone examined/researched/written on this?
-Mike Palij
New York University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:55:07 -0400, Christopher D. Green wrote:
Mike Palij wrote:
I was wondering if anyone knew of any articles or writings on the
history of teaching of experimental psychology, particularly as a
laboratory course, over the course of the past century. I'm
interested in what was covered is such courses, the target enrollment
size, and the "mission" of such courses. Any help would be
appreciated. TIA.
Mike,
There have been a number of "classic" textbooks on experimental
psychology over the decades. They will give you some idea of how the
course was taught historically. Of course student numbers, exact
assignments, orientations, etc. would have varied widely from school to
school over the decades. You'd have to dig into the archives at several
places to get a good handle on that.
First (in English) was E. C. Sanford's textbook (first issued in a
series of articles in /Am J Psych/, 1891-1893).
Titchener's "Manuals" were the "gold standard" in the early 20th century
(even among many who rejected Titchener's specific theoretical
perspective).
Henry Garrett (the avowed segregationist, eugenicist, white supremacist,
and -- oh yes! -- APA President) wrote a "Great Experiments" book in the
1930s that was well known.
The experimental psychology text first written in 1938 by R. S.
Woodworth (& H. Schlosberg, in later editions) came to be so widely used
that it was known informally as "The Columbia Bible."
B. J. Underwood's had a popular textbook in the 1950s (orig ed. 1949)
that came to be preferred (as I understand it) by those who thought
Woodworth to be not rigorously behavioristic enough to suit their taste.
And allow me to put in a good word for fellow-TIPSter Stuart McKelvie's
course on human experimental psychology as, perhaps, the single
best-designed and information-rich course I took in my more-than-a
decade as a course-taking psychology student. (Fortunately for me, it
came near the start of my psych student career.)
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