Human Resources Research Organization, Alexandria, Virginia.
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2020 May;15(3):761-777. doi: 10.1177/1745691619898843. Epub 2020 Mar 20.
Understanding which students enter and leave psychology majors in college is critical to understanding the pipeline into the field. In this study, we compared psychology majors with nonpsychology majors on the basis of demographic, degree planning, academic preparedness, and academic performance variables using a unique longitudinal sample of nearly a million college students at 249 colleges and universities. Guided by prior research, we examined which students would persist in psychology, enter psychology from another major, or leave psychology for another major between three points in time: intended major before entering college, second-year college major, and fourth-year college major. Critically, most students who majored in psychology did not initially express interest in the field, but entering and persisting in the field was strongly associated with high school exposure and performance in psychology. Students with poorer performance in college often transfer into psychology from majors that may be perceived as difficult (e.g., science, technology, engineering, and math), whereas higher-performing students appear to leave psychology for these same majors, which may also be perceived as more lucrative. These results are concerning for the field of psychology if individuals with high potential who are originally interested in the field eventually leave.
了解哪些学生进入和离开大学心理学专业对于了解该领域的人才流动至关重要。在这项研究中，我们使用近百万名学生在 249 所学院和大学的独特纵向样本，基于人口统计学、学位规划、学术准备和学术表现等变量，将心理学专业学生与非心理学专业学生进行了比较。根据先前的研究，我们研究了哪些学生将在三个时间点坚持心理学专业、从其他专业转入心理学专业或从心理学专业转入其他专业：进入大学前的意向专业、大学二年级的专业和大学四年级的专业。重要的是，大多数主修心理学的学生最初并没有表现出对该领域的兴趣，但进入并坚持该领域与高中时接触和表现出的心理学水平密切相关。在大学成绩较差的学生往往会从被认为困难的专业（如科学、技术、工程和数学）转入心理学专业，而成绩较好的学生似乎会因为这些专业被认为更有利可图而从心理学专业转入这些专业。如果原本对该领域感兴趣的高潜力个体最终离开，那么这些结果对心理学领域来说令人担忧。
