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节课上就开始进行科学探究，并激发教学兴趣，圣奥拉夫学院建议发展1)调查实验室，作为每年120名学生入门课程的一部分，以及2)一个讲师计划，为对教学感兴趣的学生提供一个在接下来的学期里在实验室任教的机会。心理学入门课程的学生将与一名教员一起参加每周三个小时的课程，然后在三名教员和讲师主持的轮流实验室课程中每周额外工作三个小时。该实验室将在10个不同的实验课程中每组15名学生参加。它将为学生提供机会将心理学引起的好奇心转化为可检验的假设、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了这门课程，他们还必须选修教育心理学课程。例如，在教师教育项目的80名高年级学生中，80%的人学习了心理学入门课程。其中12名有心理学背景的学生正在准备教授K-12实验室科学(心理学、生物、化学或物理)。在1996-97学年，有150名学生申请参加教师教育计划，这表明该计划的增长势头强劲。因此，研究实验室在入门心理学中的潜在影响是非常高的。教师将跟随实验室轮换，与一组介绍学生一起教学，培养学生的探究能力，帮助学生在学习过程中，并评估他们的工作。该项目的目标是：1)从第一门课程开始，在大学水平上教授心理学作为一门调查实验室科学；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进行教学；3)鼓励学生作为图书馆、实验室和现场的研究共同体共同努力；4)设计一种可复制的模式，以促进其他高校的调查实验室科学的建设。

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.