Integrating Statistics and Methodology Instruction Through a Problem-Based Learning Laboratory

即使院系将师生研究合作作为标准做法，完成统计研究方法序列的心理学本科专业学生在实验室中往往表现出较弱的科学技能。造成这种缺陷的一个原因可能是过分强调讲座-实验室的形式。该项目旨在通过在本科训练实验室中应用创新的基于问题的学习（PBL）技术来提高学生的科学技能。通过新颖的、探究式的教学和科学仪器的训练来改变本科心理学课程和教育体验是本项目的长期目标。为了实现这一目标，传统的教学技术正在与四个PBL项目相结合，这些项目是由在四个研究领域具有专业知识的教师开发的。在教师和研究生导师的指导下，学生小组正在研究这四个领域的实验心理学中的复杂问题。学生的先验知识不足以深入理解这些问题。因此，学生团体必须利用实验室内外的资源来理解每个问题，并制定有效的解决方案。PBL项目鼓励学生在实践环境中整合心理学研究的主要统计和方法组成部分。一系列的笔试被用来检验学生在需要语义和程序知识的研究任务中的表现。此外，一些已建立的PBL评估技术正在被用于评估学生和导师不断变化的学习经验。特别令人感兴趣的是PBL是否对传统学生和归国学生都有效。这个项目的预期成果是一系列的课程计划，包括每件科学设备的互动教程，这些课程计划将用于向其他校园传播PBL。从拟议的PBL实施中获得的初步发现将用于鼓励PBL在其他社会科学学科中作为一种灵活的多学科学习方法的持续发展。

Psychology (73)Even when departments have implemented student-faculty research collaborations as standard practice, undergraduate psychology majors completing a statistics-research methodology sequence often exhibit weak scientific skills in the laboratory. One cause of this weakness may be overemphasis of lecture-laboratory formats. This project is seeking to improve students' scientific skills by applying innovative problem-based learning (PBL) techniques within an undergraduate training laboratory. Transforming undergraduate psychology curricula and education experiences through novel, inquiry-based instruction and training in scientific instrumentation is the long-range goal of this project. To achieve this goal, traditional teaching techniques are being combined with four PBL projects that were developed by faculty members with expertise in each of four research domains. Student groups guided by faculty and graduate student tutors are working through complex problems in experimental psychology in these four domains. Students' prior knowledge is insufficient to understand these problems in depth. Therefore student groups must use resources within and outside of the laboratory to understand each problem and to develop valid solutions. PBL projects encourage students to integrate the principal statistical and methodological components of psychological research in a hands-on environment. A series of written tests are being used to examine student performance in research tasks requiring semantic and procedural knowledge. In addition, several established PBL evaluation techniques are being used to assess the changing learning experiences for students and tutors. Of particular interest is whether PBL works effectively for both traditional and returning students. The expected outcome of this project is a series of lesson plans, complete with interactive tutorials for each piece of scientific equipment, which will be used to disseminate PBL to other campuses. Preliminary findings from the proposed PBL implementation will be used to encourage the continuing evolution of PBL as a flexible, multidisciplinary learning approach in other social science disciplines.