TY - JOUR
T1 - Highly Prevalent but Not Always Persistent
T2 - Undergraduate and Graduate Student's Misconceptions About Psychology
AU - Hughes, Sean
AU - Lyddy, Fiona
AU - Kaplan, Robin
AU - Nichols, Austin Lee
AU - Miller, Haylie
AU - Saad, Carmel Gabriel
AU - Dukes, Kristin
AU - Lynch, Amy jo
PY - 2015/1
Y1 - 2015/1
N2 - Although past research has documented the prevalence of misconceptions in introductory psychology classes, few studies have assessed how readily upper-level undergraduate and graduate students endorse erroneous beliefs about the discipline. In Study 1, we administered a 30-item misconception test to an international sample of 670 undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students. Analyses indicated that participants identified and rejected the majority of misconceptions, with doctoral students performing better than their master's or undergraduate peers. In Study 2, we administered a revised version of our questionnaire to a novel sample of 557 students while controlling for number of years spent at university, psychology courses completed, and need for cognition. Once again, we found that graduate students rejected more, affirmed less, and reported lower levels of uncertainty than their undergraduate counterparts. Educational implications and future research directions are discussed.
AB - Although past research has documented the prevalence of misconceptions in introductory psychology classes, few studies have assessed how readily upper-level undergraduate and graduate students endorse erroneous beliefs about the discipline. In Study 1, we administered a 30-item misconception test to an international sample of 670 undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral students. Analyses indicated that participants identified and rejected the majority of misconceptions, with doctoral students performing better than their master's or undergraduate peers. In Study 2, we administered a revised version of our questionnaire to a novel sample of 557 students while controlling for number of years spent at university, psychology courses completed, and need for cognition. Once again, we found that graduate students rejected more, affirmed less, and reported lower levels of uncertainty than their undergraduate counterparts. Educational implications and future research directions are discussed.
KW - graduate students
KW - misconceptions
KW - need for cognition
KW - psychology
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84927779939&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0098628314562677
DO - 10.1177/0098628314562677
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84927779939
SN - 0098-6283
VL - 42
SP - 34
EP - 42
JO - Teaching of Psychology
JF - Teaching of Psychology
IS - 1
ER -