Are Educational Psychology Courses Educationally and Psychologically Sound? What Textbooks and Teachers Say

Educational psychology courses should be the best taught courses on college campuses given that its instructors and textbook authors are resident experts in learning and teaching. More specifically, we contend that educational psychology courses should adhere to six principles. Educational psychology courses should: (a) be driven by teaching models, (b) integrate theory and practice, (c) provide opportunities to practice teaching skills, (d) present an integrated model for instructional planning, (e) prepare teachers to teach learning strategies, and (f) help students learn. We surveyed practicing teachers and analyzed current educational psychology texts and found that these principles are not upheld. We report on the principles, our findings, and how an educational psychology course that upholds these principles might be developed.     

Correction to: Educational Psychology Early Career Award Winners: How Did They Do It?

Educational Psychology Review -     

The process of review: A levels of processing approach

This experiment investigated the effects of reviewing notes at a deeper level of abstraction, by means of reorganization. No differences in immediate recognition performance were found for subjects who reorganized notes into an instructor-generated matrix versus subjects who reviewed in their typical manner. An interaction between method of review and type of delayed test was apparent. Reorganization during review resulted in relatively higher achievement on a free recall test while unstructured review produced higher achievement on a cued recall exam. This interaction was unpredicted by the theory of encoding specificity but was explained in regard to the theory of episode matching. Instructionally, reorganization was advocated as a review technique for most learning situations in which retrieval cues are not imposed.     

Laptop versus longhand note taking: effects on lecture notes and achievement

There has been a shift in college classrooms from students recording lecture notes using a longhand pencil-paper medium to using laptops. The present study investigated whether note-taking medium (laptop, longhand) influenced note taking and achievement when notes were recorded but not reviewed (note taking’s process function) and when notes were recorded and reviewed (note taking’s product function). One unique aspect of the study was determining how laptop and longhand note taking influence the recording of lecture images in notes and image-related achievement. Note-taking results showed that laptop note takers recorded more notes (idea units and words) and more verbatim lecture strings than did longhand note takers who, in turn, recorded more visual notes (signals and images) than did laptop note takers. Achievement results showed that when taking laptop notes, the process function of note taking was more beneficial than the product function of note taking (i.e., better image-related learning and similar text-related learning). When taking longhand notes, the product function of note taking was more beneficial than the process function of note taking (i.e., better text-related learning and similar image-related learning). Achievement findings suggest that the optimal note-taking medium depends on the nature of the lecture and whether notes are reviewed.     

Educational Psychology Early Career Award Winners: How Did They Do It?

Educational Psychology Review -     

Conversations with Five Highly Successful Female Educational Psychologists: Patricia Alexander,Carol Dweck,Jacquelynne Eccles,Mareike Kunter,and Tamara van Gog

Educational Psychology Review - Previous studies have investigated the characteristics, influencing factors, and working strategies of highly successful educational psychologists. These studies,...     

SOAR versus SQ3R: a test of two study systems

Although researchers have long investigated ways to improve study habits and raise achievement, few studies compare study strategy systems with one another. No study to date has compared the long popular SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review) system with the more modern SOAR (Select, Organize, Associate, Regulate) system. This study directly compared SQ3R and SOAR to determine which is most effective. College students trained in the SQ3R or SOAR system and given corresponding study materials used their respective method to study a text in preparation for a test assessing fact, relationship, and concept learning. Results confirmed that students who used the SOAR system outperformed those who used the SQ3R system and learned 20 % more relationships, 14 % more facts, and 13 % more concepts. Results were attributed to SOAR’s cognitive processing advantages over SQ3R.     

Conversations with Four Highly Productive German Educational Psychologists: Frank Fischer,Hans Gruber,Heinz Mandl,and Alexander Renkl

Previous research (Kiewra & Creswell, Educational Psychology Review 12(1):135–161, 2000; Patterson-Hazley & Kiewra, Educational Psychology Review 25(1):19–45, 2013) has investigated the characteristics and work habits of highly productive educational psychologists. These investigations have focused exclusively on American scholars who were trained and employed at various universities and have ignored international scholars and scholars with a shared academic lineage. The present study sought to fill these gaps by investigating, through qualitative methods, how a cohort of four German educational psychologists (Heinz Mandl, Alexander Renkl, Hans Gruber, and Frank Fischer) with a shared academic background became productive scholars. Interview responses suggested that the German scholars’ shared experiences during the early years of their careers shaped their career paths and productivity. Additionally, interviews with each scholar revealed several commonalities (i.e., long and focused research career, trademark characteristic, scholarly influencers, effective time-management practices, and research-management strategies) between this contingent of productive German scholars and their productive American counterparts. Finally, the present study also identified several differences (e.g., educational training, funding opportunities, sabbaticals, administrative responsibilities, and research traditions) between the American and German research environments that influence productivity. Practical implications from this investigation include advice for emerging scholars.     

What College Instructors Can Do About Student Cyber-slacking

Today’s traditional-aged college students are avid users of mobile technology. Commonly referred to as the Net Generation, today’s college students spend several hours each day using their smart phones, iPads, and laptops. Although some scholars initially opined that the Net Generation would grow into technologically savvy digital natives who would leverage their unprecedented access to technology for professional and academic betterment, contemporary research has rejected the digital native myth. Instead, college students frequently use mobile technology for off-task purposes while attending classroom lectures or doing schoolwork outside of class—a phenomenon known as cyber-slacking. This article provides college educators with an overview of the frequency and consequences of cyber-slacking inside and outside the classroom and seven instructional implications for curbing cyber-slacking. Proposed strategies for curbing cyber-slacking include rejecting the digital native myth, adopting and enforcing technology policies, consciousness raising, motivating students to relinquish their devices, incorporating active learning in the classroom, using mobile technology as a teaching tool, teaching students to be self-regulated learners, and motivating students to delay gratification from their mobile devices.