Background: Prior research suggests that the teaching of abstract concepts can be enhanced by the use of concrete examples, but there are few controlled studies. Objective: To replicate key findings from experiment one from Rawson et al. (2015). Method: Experiment participants studied definitions of abstract concepts from psychology, either with…

Background: Utility-value (UV) classroom interventions typically involve students completing assignments that involve writing about the usefulness of the course material. They are widely recommended and have received some empirical support. Objective: This study tested the effectiveness of a UV intervention in an online research methods course. It…

Background: Most students rely on ineffective study habits to learn material instead of using evidence-based strategies known to improve learning. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a novel in-class quizzing strategy (i.e., Make & Take Quizzes) that was intentionally designed to engage students in…

Introduction: "Psychological literacy" is a pedagogic approach that promotes the application of psychology knowledge to address societal, ethical, and cultural problems. Statement of the Problem: Psychological literacy is considered to be a core outcome of a psychology undergraduate degree, and scholars have called for more…

Background: Methods are needed to incentivize student attention to class material. Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of in-class quizzing to incentivize student attention to class material to boost exam performance. Method: A randomized, alternating treatments design embedded in an introductory psychology class…

Background: Allen, Fielding, East, et al. demonstrated experimentally that structural awareness, or the ability to disregard a research problem's topic and instead focus on its structural features, can be trained using StatHand (https://stathand.net). Most training benefits persisted for 1 week. Objective: The objective was to assess the…

Courses including lab- or experiential-based learning may shy away from an online lab format. Using an empirically driven approach, an online research methods in psychology lab section was developed and compared to a face-to-face lab section. Results indicated that there were no differences in student knowledge regarding the American Psychological…

Background: Reading comprehension and writing ability are critical to students' success in introductory psychology. However, these generally are not prerequisites. There is conflicting evidence with regard to the effectiveness of remedial reading and writing classes for students with low placement exam scores. Objectives: To explore whether…

A world-famous classroom exercise gives students the choice between 2 points (the communal option) or 6 points (the overconsumption option) of extra credit toward an assignment in their course, but if more than 10% choose 6 points, no one receives any points. In the current variation, students (N = 795) were also given a third option--to sacrifice…

This study describes the pedagogical use of an online digital tool designed to support students' writing of research reports. The tool, "Manuscript Builder," provides a structure and a set of prompts to support students' writing. Participants included students enrolled in an undergraduate psychology course (N = 22) who were randomly…

Background: College students majoring in psychology often report low interest and engagement in statistics and research methods courses. Objective: The purpose of the current study was to examine potential benefits of integrating movement with learning activities in Introduction to Statistics and Research Methods courses at the college level.…

Improving student performance on exams is a key issue that many psychology instructors face in their classrooms. One potentially easy to deploy option for improving student performance is an exam wrapper. In this article, I detail two studies that compared exam wrappers to a control condition (a previous semester in Study 1 and a within course…

Background: Prior research has shown that pre-service teachers' learning of theory is enhanced when teacher educators model the instructional approaches that they advocate as effective. Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare undergraduate learning outcomes in a course using Team-based Learning (TBL) with those in a traditional,…

In this article, the author describes an exam review activity in which students answered questions and solved puzzles in order to escape the review session. In a general psychology (100-level) course and research methods in psychology (300-level) course, students solved a series of puzzles and review questions. This format is similar to popular…

Research on team-based learning (TBL) generally supports its effectiveness over "traditional" lecture. In practice, however, lecturing rarely consists of teachers exclusively talking at their students, as many incorporate a variety of strategies to encourage active processing. This study compared an interactive lecture style with TBL on…