Education or Indoctrination? The Accuracy of Introductory Psychology Textbooks in Covering Controversial Topics and Urban Legends About Psychology

Ferguson, Christopher J.; Brown, Jeffrey P.; Torres, A.

doi:10.1007/s12144-016-9539-7

Cited by 33 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…However, with new policies and guidelines emerging, students entering the field will not only need to learn them but will have the opportunity to refine and improve them in the future. Some efforts have been made to consider the accuracy of research described in textbooks (e.g., Ferguson, Brown, & Torres, 2016), redesign methods courses to teach replication as a core component of research practice (Frank & Saxe, 2012), and develop pedagogical tools to communicate issues of replication and best practices to students (Chopik, Bremner, Defever, & Keller, 2018). In general, however, it is unknown what instructors are teaching students about current issues and debates in psychology research and how instructors' own perceptions of the replication and reform movement influence their teaching.…”

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confidence: 99%

Perceived Need for Reform in Field-Wide Methods and the Teaching of Replication, Interpretation, and Transparency

Anglin

Edlund

2019

Psychology Learning & Teaching

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Despite discussion and institution of new reforms in psychology research, little is known about how much reform psychologists believe is still needed across various research practices and whether instructors are teaching students about replication and reform in their courses. To investigate these questions, we distributed questionnaires assessing perceived need for reform in psychology research and the teaching of replication and reform to instructors of undergraduate and graduate psychology courses across multiple listservs ( n = 328). Participants reported discussing topics related to replication and reform briefly in their courses and that moderate changes are still needed in psychology research. Topics were discussed more extensively in advanced vs. introductory courses, and in methods/statistics vs. content courses. Perceived need for reform and number of student researchers supervised/year correlated with teaching these issues, suggesting that those who believe more change is needed in psychology research and are more involved in shaping the next generation of psychology researchers are more likely to discuss replication and reform in their courses. Our questionnaires provide a preliminary tool to be further refined, validated, and applied in future research on knowledge and perceptions of problems in social science research and the impact of teaching these issues in the classroom.

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confidence: 99%

Perceived Need for Reform in Field-Wide Methods and the Teaching of Replication, Interpretation, and Transparency

Anglin

Edlund

2019

Psychology Learning & Teaching

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“…Content analysis of textbooks has a long history, particularly in undergraduate psychology, (e.g. see (Steuer and Whitfield Ham 2008;Haselhuhn and Clopton 2008;Ferguson, Brown, and Torres 2016) although the field has extended across higher education e.g. see (Hopper and Huxford 2017;French et al 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Many of these studies have focused on the accuracy of content within textbooks (e.g. (Steuer and Whitfield Ham 2008;Ferguson, Brown, and Torres 2016) while others have focused on determining how certain topics are covered across textbooks (e.g. see (Haselhuhn and Clopton 2008;Hopper and Huxford 2017) or on the relationship between textbook use and academic performance (Landrum, Gurung, and Spann 2012;French et al 2015).…”

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confidence: 99%

Are we educating educators about academic integrity? A study of UK higher education textbooks

Ransome

Newton

2017

Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education

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A substantial proportion of university students report committing plagiarism and related forms of misconduct. An academic integrity-focused approach to addressing plagiarism emphasises the promotion of positive values alongside education of staff and students about good, and bad, practise in writing, studying and assessment design. The concept was developed many years ago and is seen as desirable, yet it is not clear whether academic integrity features prominently in the education of academics themselves. We analysed source texts for postgraduate certificates in higher education (or equivalent) at UK universities. Overall, academic integrity was poorly addressed in these texts, and the language used ('cheating', 'plagiarism') was not reflective of an academic integrity-based approach. Newer issues, such as the purchasing of custom written assignments (contract cheating), were barely addressed. We conclude that the concept of academic integrity needs to be integrated into mainstream discourse around teaching in UK higher education.

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“…This analysis is extraordinarily still used today by many psychologists with either epistemological, educational or political aims and focuses (e.g. Roeckelein, 1996Roeckelein, , 1997Zechmeister & Zechmeister, 2000;Habarth, Hansell & Grove, 2001;Simonton, 2004Simonton, , 2006Costa & Shimp., 2011;Kissee, Isaacson & Miller-Perrin, 2014;Griggs & Christopher, 2016;Whaley, Clay & Broussard, 2017;Whitehead III, Smith & Losonczy-Marshall, 2017;Ferguson, Brown, TorresBrown & Torres, 2018;Warne, Astle & Hill, 2018). The analysis of introductory books has also been implemented by scholars from other sciences, including informatics (McMaster, Rague, Sambasivam, & Wolthuis, 2019), statistics (Ravinder & Misra, 2016;Dunn, Carey, Farrar, Richardson & McDonald, 2017), chemistry (Nelson, Kumar & Ramasamy, 2015), biology (Colosi, 2000;Bednekoff, 2005;Wright, Cardenas, Liang & Newman, 2017) and sociology (Manza & Van Schyndel, 2000;Keith & Ender, 4 Someone could argue for the exclusion of influential sources, both due to their historical importance (e.g.…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychology: a Giant with Feet of Clay

Zagaria

Ando

Zennaro

2020

Integr. psych. behav.

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Education or Indoctrination? The Accuracy of Introductory Psychology Textbooks in Covering Controversial Topics and Urban Legends About Psychology

Cited by 33 publications

References 31 publications

Perceived Need for Reform in Field-Wide Methods and the Teaching of Replication, Interpretation, and Transparency

Perceived Need for Reform in Field-Wide Methods and the Teaching of Replication, Interpretation, and Transparency

Are we educating educators about academic integrity? A study of UK higher education textbooks

Psychology: a Giant with Feet of Clay

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