What do students remember about introductory psychology, years later?

A course in introductory psychology (Intro Psych) has potential to cultivate valuable knowledge and skills, especially for first-year students. The present research is a first step at understanding this potential by surveying college seniors who took Intro Psych during their first year. We aimed to discover students’ perspectives on what they learned, a sense of how much they actually retained, and whether students’ course experiences predicted their academic behaviors as seniors. When asked what they learned from the course that helped them in other courses and in life, both majors and nonmajors described how Intro Psych shaped their study skills, knowledge, and perspectives on the social world. In a retest of items from their first midterm, students showed high performance (70% correct) compared to previous studies, with psychology students (majors and minors) showing better performance than nonpsychology students (81% vs. 69%), d = .74. Finally, we found that students’ performance on a multiphase term project in Intro Psych predicted their self-reported project management skills as seniors (r = .32, p < .001). Students’ enjoyment of the course, measured by their evaluations of the instructors, predicted self-reported project management skills (r(148) = .294, p < .001) and also later study skills (r(148) = .266, p < .001). Together, these findings support the importance of Intro Psych and highlight the need to further clarify and expand our knowledge of its long-term impact. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

Duke Scholars

Author Bridgette Martin Hard Psychology & Neuroscience