The COVID-19 pandemic has led to dramatic shifts in the teaching and learning of psychology. The purpose of this study was to document the impact of those shifts on undergraduate psychology students' motivation and self-regulation of learning during the initial transition to remote instruction. Psychology majors (N = 358) attending a public land-grant university in the southeastern U.S. voluntarily completed a survey at the end of the Spring 2020 semester. Closedand open-ended items assessed students' self-reported behavioral and psychological wellness, motivation, and learning experiences during the COVID-19 outbreak. A convergent mixed methods analysis was used in which open-ended questions provided context and experiential nuance to quantitative findings. Students reported increases in sleep, social media use, gaming, and procrastination, but decreases in academic motivation and self-regulation (e.g., focusing, juggling responsibilities). Over 75% reported increases in stress, which they attributed most frequently to motivational and academic challenges. Students reported learning less in most of their classes following the shift. They attributed this to internal factors, including selfregulatory/motivational difficulties, and external factors, such as instructional delivery modality. Although most perceived their instructors as understanding, nearly half reported a decline in instructional quality and communication after the shift to remote instruction. Over one third of students reported feeling less certain about their future educational plans. Implications for the provision of institutional and instructional supports for college students during and beyond the pandemic are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic led to dramatic shifts in the teaching and learning of psychology. The purpose of this study was to document the impact of those shifts on undergraduate psychology students’ motivation and self-regulation of learning during the initial shift to remote instruction. Psychology majors (N = 358) attending a public land-grant university in the southeastern U.S. voluntarily completed a survey at the end of the Spring 2020 semester. Closed- and open-ended items assessed students’ self-reported behavioral and psychological wellness, motivation, and learning experiences during the COVID-19 outbreak. A convergent mixed methods analysis was used in which open-ended questions provided context and experiential nuance to quantitative findings. Students reported increases in sleep, social media use, gaming, and procrastination, but decreases in academic motivation and self-regulation (e.g., focusing, juggling responsibilities). Over 75% reported increases in stress, which they attributed most frequently to motivational and academic challenges. Students reported learning less in most of their classes following the shift. They attributed this to numerous internal (e.g., self-regulatory/motivational difficulties) and external (e.g., online delivery modality, changes to workload, poor communication, insufficient instructional accommodations) factors. Although most perceived their instructors as understanding, nearly half reported a decline in instructional quality and communication after the shift to remote instruction. Over one third of students reported feeling less certain about their future educational plans. Implications for the provision of institutional and instructional supports for college students during and beyond the pandemic are provided.

The present study investigated the commonly accepted view from various sources (e.g., American Psychological Association [APA]), which indicates the significant difficulty in being accepted into a PhD in clinical psychology program. Data were collected (total number of applicants, applicants accepted, and number of accepted students who matriculated) from 100 APA-accredited PhD in clinical psychology programs that are also members of the Council of University Directors of Clinical Psychology. These data were used to examine why the probability of acceptance into at least one clinical PhD program may be higher than previously thought. The results showed an acceptance–matriculation discrepancy—the overall number of individuals accepted into clinical psychology PhD programs is higher than that of matriculated students. In addition, being accepted into a clinical PhD program is a function of the number of applications per applicant. The article concludes with a discussion of how applicants to clinical PhD programs should approach the application process.