Abstract
Scientific thinking is a predicate for scientific inquiry, and thus important to develop early in psychology students as potential future researchers. The present research is aimed at fathoming the contributions of formal and informal learning experiences to psychology students’ development of scientific thinking during their 1st-year of study. We hypothesize that informal experiences are relevant beyond formal experiences. First-year psychology student cohorts from various European countries will be assessed at the beginning and again at the end of the second semester. Assessments of scientific thinking will include scientific reasoning skills, the understanding of basic statistics concepts, and epistemic cognition. Formal learning experiences will include engagement in academic activities which are guided by university authorities. Informal learning experiences will include non-compulsory, self-guided learning experiences. Formal and informal experiences will be assessed with a newly developed survey. As dispositional predictors, students’ need for cognition and self-efficacy in psychological science will be assessed. In a structural equation model, students’ learning experiences and personal dispositions will be examined as predictors of their development of scientific thinking. Commonalities and differences in predictive weights across universities will be tested. The project is aimed at contributing information for designing university environments to optimize the development of students’ scientific thinking.
Highlights
Scientific thinking encompasses purposeful thinking with the aim to enhance knowledge, using the abilities to generate, test and revise theories as well as being able to reflect on how knowledge is acquired and changed (Kuhn, 2002)
The 1st-year at university is a critical educational period for students’ development of skills, interests, and aspirations (Jenert et al, 2015). For those students who want to become researchers, 1st-year education gives a first impression of science, with core courses found in psychology programs such as research methods and statistics (Stoloff et al, 2009)
We examine the influence of learning experiences in 1st-year psychology on students’ development of scientific thinking
Summary
Scientific thinking encompasses purposeful thinking with the aim to enhance knowledge, using the abilities to generate, test and revise theories as well as being able to reflect on how knowledge is acquired and changed (Kuhn, 2002). Chen et al (2014) showed that students who are self-efficacious about learning science, approach a task by examining arguments from several sources to make a decision, indicating a moderating role of self-efficacy in how epistemic cognition is related to academic outcomes The results of these studies support the idea that epistemic cognition plays a major role in students’ further engagement and development of scientific thinking and we consider it a facet of scientific thinking that should develop early in psychology students. We assess psychology students twice to examine the contributions of formal and informal learning experiences to their development of scientific reasoning including statistics misconceptions, and epistemic cognition during the 1st-year of study. We examine specific patterns of scientific thinking and its predictors in students who identify themselves as aspiring researchers
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