Dissertation Research: The Science of Mind: Exploring the Influence of the Academic Environment on the Development of Research Psychology

这项科学和技术研究论文改进助学金为博士生提供资金收集所需的数据，目的是使学生更接近完成论文。这一奖项将支持学生论文的两个关键章节的档案研究，这些章节是关于心理学在形成的关键时刻的制度塑造。学生将在许多州立大学完成档案研究，包括密歇根大学、内布拉斯加州大学、伊利诺伊州大学、印第安纳州大学和密苏里州大学，以及一些选定的师范学校和师范学院。本论文的主要目的是考察美国实验或研究心理学的发展与美国高等教育体制变革之间的关系。从大约1880年到1910年的几十年里，美国高等教育系统发生了深刻而多方面的重组：从文科学院的理想转向科学研究大学的理想，女子学院成为新学科的重要场所，通过《莫里尔法案》的影响和公立大学的普遍发展，扩大了接受高等教育的机会，并在师范学院和师范学院中纳入了新的教学理念和战略。实验心理学正是在这种转变的背景下产生的。这篇论文的学术价值在于关注教育环境和结构对美国心理学早期发展的影响，这使得我们能够对心理学研究的范围和性质如何被学术环境的社会和文化需求塑造有一个新鲜和原创性的理解。该项目将引起科学史学家、STS学者和教育史学家的兴趣。就其更广泛的影响而言，它也有望引起当代心理学家和更广泛的公众受众的兴趣，他们对当今心理学的预设和力量感到担忧。

This Science and Technology Studies Dissertation Improvement Grant provides the doctoral student with funds to collect needed data with the intent of bringing the student closer to completion of the dissertation. This award will support archival research for two key chapters of the student's dissertation on the institutional shaping of psychology at a crucial moment in its formation. The student will complete archival research at a number of state universities, including the Universities of Michigan, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana, and Missouri, as well as at a selection of normal schools and teachers' colleges. The primary goal of the dissertation is to examine the relationship between the growth of experimental or research psychology in the United States and the transformation of the American higher educational system. The decades from approximately 1880 and 1910 saw a profound and multifaceted restructuring of the American higher educational system: a shift from the ideals of the liberal arts college to those of the scientific research university, the emergence of women's colleges as an important site for new disciplines, the expansion of access to higher education through the effects of the Morrill Act and the general growth of public universities, and the incorporation of new instructional philosophies and strategies in the normal schools and teachers' colleges. It was in the context of this transformation that experimental psychology came in to being. The intellectual merit of this dissertation lies in the focus on the influence of educational settings and structures on the early development of American psychology, which allows for a fresh and original understanding of how the scope and nature of psychological research was shaped by the social and cultural demands of the academic environment. This project will be of interest to historians of science, STS scholars, and educational historians. In terms of its broader impact, it also promises much of interest to contemporary psychologists and to a wider public audience concerned with the presuppositions and power of psychology today.