Soyyılmaz Demet, Griffin Laura M, Martín Miguel H, Kucharský Šimon, Peycheva Ekaterina D, Vaupotič Nina, Edelsbrunner Peter A
Department of Psychology, Istanbul Bilgi University Istanbul, Turkey.
Faculty of Film, Art and Creative Technologies, Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology Dún Laoghaire, Ireland.
Front Psychol. 2017 Feb 10;8:133. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00133. eCollection 2017.
Scientific thinking is a predicate for scientific inquiry, and thus important to develop early in psychology students as potential future researchers. The present research is aimed at fathoming the contributions of formal and informal learning experiences to psychology students' development of scientific thinking during their 1st-year of study. We hypothesize that informal experiences are relevant beyond formal experiences. First-year psychology student cohorts from various European countries will be assessed at the beginning and again at the end of the second semester. Assessments of scientific thinking will include scientific reasoning skills, the understanding of basic statistics concepts, and epistemic cognition. Formal learning experiences will include engagement in academic activities which are guided by university authorities. Informal learning experiences will include non-compulsory, self-guided learning experiences. Formal and informal experiences will be assessed with a newly developed survey. As dispositional predictors, students' need for cognition and self-efficacy in psychological science will be assessed. In a structural equation model, students' learning experiences and personal dispositions will be examined as predictors of their development of scientific thinking. Commonalities and differences in predictive weights across universities will be tested. The project is aimed at contributing information for designing university environments to optimize the development of students' scientific thinking.
科学思维是科学探究的一个前提条件，因此对于心理学专业的学生而言，作为未来潜在的研究者，尽早培养科学思维非常重要。本研究旨在探究正式和非正式学习经历对心理学专业学生在第一年学习期间科学思维发展的贡献。我们假设非正式经历比正式经历更具相关性。来自欧洲不同国家的一年级心理学学生群体将在第二学期开始时和结束时分别接受评估。科学思维的评估将包括科学推理能力、对基本统计学概念的理解以及认知认识论。正式学习经历将包括参与由大学管理部门指导的学术活动。非正式学习经历将包括非强制性的、自主学习经历。正式和非正式经历将通过一项新开发的调查进行评估。作为倾向性预测指标，将评估学生在心理科学方面的认知需求和自我效能感。在一个结构方程模型中，将把学生的学习经历和个人倾向作为其科学思维发展的预测指标进行检验。将测试不同大学在预测权重方面的共性和差异。该项目旨在为设计大学环境提供信息，以优化学生科学思维的发展。
