Student Preceptors and Investigative Laboratories in Introductory Psychology

为了给学生提供一个实验室环境，让他们在心理学的第一门课程中进行科学探索，并激发他们对教学的兴趣，圣奥拉夫学院建议发展1)调查性实验室，作为每年120名学生的入门课程的一部分，2)为对教学感兴趣的学生提供一个在实验室教学的机会，在接下来的学期。心理学入门课程的学生每周将与一名教师一起上课三小时，然后每周额外工作三小时，参加由三名教师和导师主持的轮流实验课程。该实验将包括每组15名学生，每组10个不同的实验环节。它将为学生提供机会，使他们将好奇心理转化为可测试的假设，可研究的问题，设计实验以及收集和分析数据。大多数教育专业的学生都选修这门课程，他们还必须选修一门教育心理学课程。例如，目前参加教师教育项目的80名高年级学生中，有80%选修了心理学入门课程。这些具有心理学背景的学生中有12人正准备教授K-12的实验科学（心理学、生物学、化学或物理学）。在1996-97学年，有150名学生申请了教师教育项目，表明该项目增长强劲。因此，研究性实验室对入门心理学的潜在影响是非常大的。导师将跟随实验室轮转，带领一组学生进行介绍、教学、培养学生的探究能力、在学习过程中帮助学生，并评估他们的工作。该项目的目标是：1)从第一门课程开始，在大学水平上将心理学作为一门调查实验科学来教授；2)鼓励对大学或中学教学感兴趣的学生，将心理学作为一门调查科学来教授；3)鼓励学生在图书馆、实验室和实地作为一个研究社区一起工作；4)设计一个可复制的模式，以促进其他学院和大学的调查实验科学的建设。

To provide a laboratory setting for students to carry out scientific inquiry that originates with them in their first course in psychology, and to stimulate interest in teaching, St. Olaf College proposes to develop 1) investigative laboratories as a part of an introductory course for 120 students a year, and 2) a preceptor program offering students interested in teaching, an opportunity to teach in the laboratories during a subsequent term. Students in introductory psychology will participate with a faculty member in class for three hours per week and will then work an additional three hours per week in rotating laboratory sessions conducted by three faculty and preceptors. The laboratory will involve groups of 15 students in each of ten different laboratory sessions. It will provide opportunities for students to translate the curiosity psychology arouses into testable hypotheses, researchable questions, and to design experiments as well as to collect and analyze data. This course is taken by the majority of education majors, who must also take a course in educational psychology. For example, 80% of the current group of 80 seniors in the teacher education program took introductory psychology. Twelve of these students with a background in psychology are preparing to teach K-12 in the laboratory sciences (psychology, biology, chemistry, or physics). In the 1996-97 academic year, 150 students have applied for admission to the teacher education program, indicating its strong growth. Hence, the potential influence of investigative laboratories in introductory psychology is very high. Preceptors will follow the laboratory rotation with a group of introductory students, teaching, fostering student inquiry, helping students in the learning process, and evaluating their work. The goals of the project are: 1) to teach psychology as an investigative laboratory science on a college level from the very first course, 2) to encourage students, interested in college or secondar y school teaching, to teach psychology as an investigative science, 3) to encourage students to work together as a research community in the library, the laboratory and the field, and 4) to design a replicable model that will facilitate construction of investigative laboratory sciences at other colleges and universities.