Remaking the Psychology Curriculum

Abstract

Nil yR ODERN life has put a heavy strain upon the collegiate curriculum which is derived largely from two factors, the expansion of human knowledge and the presence in college of sizable groups of students with specialized intellectual and vocational interests. Under the stress of these two forces the traditional curriculum of the American college has gradually, though slowly, surrendered ground. Even the wonted names of courses are frequently but masks behind which parades a highly altered instructional content. In other cases current courses and curricula represent an intrusion of entirely new material into the traditional program at times so unlike the old in nature and purpose as seemingly to transform the college of liberal arts itself. The assault of the new world upon the college has been irresistible, even brutal at times, and some fine values may have been sacrificed in the excesses of revolutionary changes. Much to the bewilderment of collegiate authorities and educational philosophers the process is neither ended nor even in the way of abatement. For the most part it proceeds without formulated method or clear purpose. Unless we are to surrender to confusion, some plan of evolving and adjusting the curriculum must be made. One such method, that of activity analysis, has recently been used. In esssence this method starts with the occupation, the task or the job, and seeks to determine the skills and knowledges necessary to its pursuit. From this determination the movement is backward to the training program, to the curriculum, with long lists of prerequisite courses. Taken quite generally this is an ancient method of curricular construction; its more precise formulation is recent and has occurred in the distinctly vocational fields such as the industrial occupations. The developments of the curriculum at Stephens College and the lists of teachers' traits and activities found in the Commonwealth Teacher-Training Study by Charters and Waples are examples of its use at the collegiate level. Opposed to occupational analysis as a method of procedure is that of subject-matter analysis. While the former works backward from the end result, the latter moves forward from the vantage of available knowledge logically arranged. This, too, is an ancient method of making curricula, but the abundance of current knowledge and the specialized character of much of it set tasks of new and greater difficulty. If this method is to continue usable, it must be refined and adapted to the more complex condi-