Abstract
The Psychology as Science Scale (Friedrich, 1996) was administered to 525 psychology students from nine Russian universities to assess their beliefs about the nature of the discipline. About half of students (49.6%) generally agreed that psychology may be called a scientific discipline. Specifically, 71. 5% of the students agreed that psychology is a natural science, similar to biology, chemistry, and physics, 39. 9% of students agreed that psychological research is important and training in psychological methodology is necessary, and 43.1% of students agreed that human behavior is highly predictable. Students who took three methodology courses shared significantly stronger beliefs in the need for psychological research and the importance of training in methodology compared to students who did not take any methodology courses. Furthermore, students with a specialist degree had significantly stronger beliefs that psychology is a science compared to students who have just finished school. In terms of the effect of students’ career aspirations, students who wanted to be academic psychologists and clinicians had significantly stronger beliefs that psychology is a science compared to students who did not have clarity about their future careers. Regardless of the study limitations, these findings have potential implications for Russian psychology instructors.
Highlights
The Psychology as Science scale (PAS; Friedrich, 1996) was administered to 525 psychology students from 9 Russian universities, with a majority of students being women (86.3%), to assess their beliefs about the nature of the discipline
Based on three factor scores of the PAS, namely reflecting students’ beliefs about psychology as a science, their appreciation of psychological research, and their views about predictability of behavior, we found that students in the northeast (Morales et al, 2005) and the south (Bartoszeck et al, 2005) of Brazil were ambivalent toward the status of psychology as a science and that this is due in part to the lack of published research and the maintaining of psychology research laboratories throughout Brazil
The second goal of this study was to obtain some specific information related to students’ beliefs about psychology as a science depending on the number of methodology courses taken by students and the level of education at the moment of assessment
Summary
The Psychology as Science scale (PAS; Friedrich, 1996) was administered to 525 psychology students from 9 Russian universities, with a majority of students being women (86.3%), to assess their beliefs about the nature of the discipline. Based on three factor scores of the PAS, namely reflecting students’ beliefs about psychology as a science, their appreciation of psychological research, and their views about predictability of behavior, we found that students in the northeast (Morales et al, 2005) and the south (Bartoszeck et al, 2005) of Brazil were ambivalent toward the status of psychology as a science and that this is due in part to the lack of published research and the maintaining of psychology research laboratories throughout Brazil These conclusions are consistent with recent research conducted with American samples, which found that students’ beliefs associated with psychology as a science were positively associated with professors’ appreciation of psychology as a science (Amsel, Ashley, Baird, & Johnston, 2014; Amsel et al, 2009) and with participation in courses that emphasize research methodology and/or require students to complete a research project (Amsel et al, 2011; Friedrich, 1996; Holmes & Beins, 2009; Pettijohn et al, 2015). All financial support of science and education was stopped (Mironenko, 2013b, 2014, 2015); more than 300 institutions of higher education in psychology emerged (Mironenko, 2008a, 2014, 2015)
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