Numerous changes in higher education (e.g., the demand for accountability, threats to tenure, new modes of instruction) and discontent with narrow definitions of scholarship have created the need for a broader and more precise definition of the nature of scholarship in psychology. The 5-part definition that we propose includes ( a ) original research (creation of knowledge), ( b ) integration of knowledge (synthesis and reorganization), ( c ) application of knowledge, ( d ) the scholarship of pedagogy, and ( e ) the scholarship of teaching in psychology. Scholarly activities require high levels of discipline-specific expertise, are innovative, can be replicated, are documented, can be subject to peer review, and have significance. This broader conceptualization of scholarship will benefit all stakeholders in higher education-students, faculty, colleges and universities, the community, and society at large.
Spatial training has been only modestly effective at improving the performance of adolescents and adults on the water-level task. Based on previous findings with the task, a self-discovery training procedure was developed that involved having participants proceed from easier to more difficult problems along a dimension of increasingly greater competing perceptual cues. The training was effective in (a) eliminating the gender differences on the drawing task, and (b) significantly improving females' knowledge of the physical (invariance) principle, although not to the level of males. Training effects did not transfer to a related spatial task. The water-level task (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956) requires participants to predict how the surface of water would look in a tilted container. Typically, research participants are asked to draw the water line in a twodimensional depiction of a tilted bottle or glass, in which case a horizontal line is the correct response. Although a surprisingly large proportion of both men and women have difficulty with this task, gender differences on it are nevertheless robust. Among adolescents and adults, many studies have reported that males are more likely than females to indicate, both graphically and verbally, that water remains horizontal regardless of the orientation of its container (Kalichman,
The effects of examination grades on college students' study behaviors, attendance, and evaluations of instruction were examined in an undergraduate psychology course. A paradigm involving a team-teaching procedure was employed, which enabled the questions to be investigated in the natural setting using an experimental, rather than correlational, methodology. Liberal grading was found to result in higher evaluations of course and instructor but had no demonstrable effect on studying or attendance. The implications of these findings and alternative interpretations are discussed.
The effects of contingent reward on children's interest in an academic activity (math) were investigated in a token economy analog. Three measures of interest were examined using an A-B—a design: (1) amount of the activity produced, (2) quality of the activity produced, and (3) time spent engaging in the activity. Reward was delivered contingent upon the first of these measures. Experimental subjects were exposed to baseline, reinforcement, baseline, and follow-up conditions. A control group received baseline procedures throughout. No evidence of substantial undermining of interest occurred on any measure, although two subjects displayed an immediate, transient decrease in postreward performance.
A child abuse analog was created by placing an adult in a frustrating teaching situation with a child learner. The child's performance was programmed to deteriorate despite the adult's teaching efforts. The intensity of the adult's responses used to terminate the child's signals of success or failure was examined over the course of the interaction. The magnitude of these responses increased over trials, particularly in response to signals of failure, and these increases occurred without the adult's awareness. The findings were considered within the context of a social interactional model of child abuse, in which the adult's aggressive behaviors were presumed to result from arousal generated by the child's aversive behaviors.
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