Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants
Distilling and Simplifying Narratives of Experimental Research for Discussion with Beginning Students
Department
Psychology Department
College
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Date Range
2014-2015
Disciplines
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Abstract
Psychological science includes not only the theoretical frameworks and empirical findings of the discipline, but also the research methods through which the science develops. Those methods, both formal and informal, provide a structure for teaching analytic thinking, problem solving, and critical thinking. They are also difficult to teach in an engaging fashion, particularly to beginning students. Students in introductory psychology typically lack the conceptual grounding and statistical background necessary for the kind of analytic discussion of research studies that is common in graduate-level training. Such critical analysis is nevertheless possible if studies are presented and discussed in a narrative fashion that frames them clearly as a form of problem solving. This paper presents strategies for using this problem-solving narrative approach, illustrating the approach with an example appropriate for students in an introductory psychology course.
Conference Name
World Association for Case Method Research and Application
Conference Location
Istanbul, Turkey
ScholarWorks Citation
Hendersen, Robert, "Distilling and Simplifying Narratives of Experimental Research for Discussion with Beginning Students" (2015). Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants. 584.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/fsdg/584
