Bonnie A. Green, Jyh-Hann Chang, Irina Khusid East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania Psychology Department College of Arts and Sciences

Life Long Learning Goal 10.5 of APA’s guideline for undergraduate majors provides recommendation regarding life long learning. Demonstrate an understanding of the importance of lifelong learning and personal flexibility to sustain personal and professional development as the nature of work evolves.

APA goals that promote Lifelong Learning Goal 2: Understanding research design, data analysis, and interpretation Goal 9.1.b: Insightful awareness Goal 9.2.d.: Metacognition guidelines.pdf

Goals and Life Long Learning What do they have in common? Understanding research design, data analysis, and interpretation Insightful awareness Metacognition Can promote Quality decision making Knowledge and understanding Ability to grow past biases Require Essential attitudes for optimization

Achieving the Goals These goals take years to hone and develop Not surprising, they are intertwined throughout ESU’s curriculum Introduced immediately (2 nd semester of first year) Quantitative Psychology (Applied Statistics) Theories of Personality

Looking at what others say regarding applied statistics Generally recognized that students Do possess attitudes and prior experiences that interfere with their ability to learn and thus later apply statistics (e.g., Mills, 2004) Need to believe they can learn statistics Have to recognize that statistics can be a useful tool e.g., SATS (Schau, 1999) iles/sats28pre.pdf However, just teaching applied statistics can actually decrease students belief in their abilities and masks the potential usefulness of statistics (e.g., Pierce, 2006, Shield & Shield, 2008)

Objectives of Quantitative Psychology Goal 1.1 Students will recognize behaviors and attitudes that will maximize their success in behavioral statistics. Objective 1.1.a. Students will implement attitudes and behaviors that increase the likelihood of success in a behavioral statistics class (e.g., adopting a growth mindset and helpful behaviors associated with academic success, practicing self testing, and being intellectually engaged in and out of class). Designed to improve study behaviors by Increasing metacognition Increasing adaptive attitudes (e.g., adopting growth mindset) Recognizing importance of statistics

Example: Metacognition Present study skills in the context of research Increase your own meta-cognition Space out studying and sleep Increase Depths of Processing Self Test, Self Test, Self Test Can be done While discussing the syllabus Stand alone presentation In the context of research examples Details can be found at study-skills/ study-skills/

Example: Metacognition (cont.) Follow up with a study skills survey Have students report Study skills behaviors Grade on last exam Use as example data on hypothesis testing with correlation coefficient

Example: Adopting Adaptive Attitudes First Day of Class homework: Reflective Assignments Green & Sandry (2010) Assignments and Exercises for Students for Statistical Concepts for the Behavioral Sciences, 4/E Complete Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics (SATS) (Schau, et al 1995). Survey can be found at this link lderfiles/sats28pre.pdf Use research on attitudes as examples for illustrating statistics For more detailed information: right/

Students adopting mindset No matter who you are, you can significantly improve your understanding of statistics F ( 2, 68) = 3.16, p <.05 ClassMSDN Gen Ed: 1 st year Stats: 1 st year M&E: 2 nd /3 rd year

Example: Recognizing the usefulness of statistics It helps if students can actually see how statistics can be used to answer questions and make decisions in psychology We want students to go beyond low level memorization to being able to apply statistics “Commitment Learners” Bains (2004) Integrating Your Knowledge Activities Kiess and Green (2010) Assignments that require students to apply information from multiple chapters to answer questions using statistics Model with examples in class students-to-thinking-with-statistics/

Example: Insight in Personality Students in Theories of Personality are expected to complete a series of reflective activities designed to promote insight into one's personality Examples Include: Speed dating Real vs. Idea self Parent interview Friend interview Partner questionnaire 15 life events We want students to go beyond low level memorization to being able to apply information learned in Personality “Commitment Learners” Bains (2004)

I can be successful without spending a great deal of time thinking about what makes me who I am. F ( 2, 68) = 3.16, p <.05 ClassMSDN Gen Ed: 1 st year Stats: 1 st year M&E: 2 nd /3 rd year

Conclusion By providing first year students with the foundation in Understanding research design, data analysis, and interpretation Insightful awareness Metacognition Can promote Quality decision making Knowledge and understanding Ability to grow past biases Essential attitudes for optimization Thus, assuring the foundation for Lifelong Learning

Future evaluation ESU’s psychology department conducted an alumni survey 2006 PASSHE’s 1 year alumni survey is in flux ESU is implementing for AY a new alumni survey that can be used at the department level Survey designed to track Lifelong Learning for all students We can develop our own questions to further explore our rate of instilling Lifelong Learning in our graduates

References Note: there are additional references associated with each link. Mills, J. D. (2004). Students’ attitude towards statistics: Implications for the future. College Student Journal. Schau, C., Stevens, J., Dauphinee, T. L.. & Del Vecchio, A. (1995). The development and validation of the Survey of Attitudes Toward Statistics. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 55,