Intro 360
A new course design to engage college students
Time
May 2020 - May 2021
Team Members
Associate Chair of Psychology Department, Introduction to Psychology Instructors, Various Departmental Faculty
Client
Psychology Department, University of Pittsburgh
Role
I acted as the Lead Instructional Designer for this course transformation, affecting up to 1,600 students per semester. I conducted semi-structured interviews with course instructors, created and delivered surveys to hundreds of students, designed the course from synthesized insights, and developed most course materials. After designing the course, I behaved as one of the course’s co-instructors, developed the evaluation materials, and analyzed student feedback for improvement insights. I orally presented this work to the department and to the University’s Teaching Center on multiple occasions.
Summary
Introduction to Psychology is a course attended by many students, all from a wide variety of academic backgrounds. In this course design, I developed a series of simple assignments that students could personalize to their own learning interests and complete on their own time schedule. Feedback for the program was positive overall, with students appreciating the flexibility in the design. It continues to be delivered at the University beyond its pilot implementation.
THE PROBLEM
In past years, the recitation model implemented in Introduction to Psychology courses allowed for small class sizes and diverse grading opportunities; but this model was not offered to all 1,600 students and did not provide an explicit focus on skill-building or allow for self-directed learning.
THE SOLUTION
The final Intro 360 design consists of 5 activities for students in Introduction to Psychology. Two of the activities are small group activities with graduate instructors and three are individualized activities to be completed independently. This design allows for instructors to teach at a normal teaching level (4 hours per week) and for students to gain two hours of instruction with only 20 students present.
Activities for independent learning
Individualized activities were designed to dig deeper into important concepts in psychology. Topics that are not usually the focus of Introduction to Psychology were included to encourage students to engage more deeply, such as research ethics, how to define psychological variables, and how to develop a career in clinical psychology.
Activities for learning with peers
Activities with instructors were designed with active learning in mind - incorporating techniques such as think-pair-share and pre-writing to encourage discussion. Each activity highlights research conducted at a lab at the university. Topics covered reflected student interest from surveying and demonstrated how psychology research can inform important societal questions, particularly relating to stigma (e.g., suicidal ideation) and underrepresented groups (e.g., racial achievement gaps in the US).
Finally, the program provides each student with their own customizable experience in which they decide which activities to complete to earn their grade. Although 5 activities were required, 16 options were available.
THE PROCESS
Semi-Structured Interviews
At the University of Pittsburgh, Introduction to Psychology is regularly taught by four instructors. I interviewed the instructors to find pain points with the past system and understand their goals for students attending the course.
Synthesis and Insights
A few themes emerged from interviews:
Students seem to crave small group meetings with instructors when they are in large lectures.
There are many good students that do not perform well on exams - diverse grading opportunities are always welcome.
Overlapping content from multiple sources often leads to confusion.
There are limited opportunities for students to learn more about psychological research, especially that which is conducted at the University.
Surveys
Given the insights from my interviews, we developed a plan, “Intro 360.” Two cohorts of Introduction to Psychology students (250 students) were surveyed to understand their reactions to the plan and learn which psychology topics they found interesting. To assess topic interest, we provided students with 24 topics and asked them to rank their top 10.
Student reactions were mostly positive:
“I think this is a good idea that will make psychology more fun because we will be switching up what we usually do. I also like how it will help out our grades.”
Feedback from final design of Intro 360 from other Introduction to Psychology students before implementation. Scale 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Error bars as standard error.
THE EVALUATION
Ultimately, 85% of students indicated that they would recommend that we continue Intro 360 as opposed to recitations in the future.
After each activity, I immediately delivered a survey for the students to provide feedback about their experience. For example, I asked students, “How would you rate the quality of this activity?”
Histogram of student feedback after individualized activities.
Histogram of student feedback after small group activities.
In addition to these immediate evaluations, I also created and collected summative evaluations of the program to measure student attitudes about the program as well as the achievement of our learning goals.
I ran independent t-tests (A/B) to compare how students felt about statements related to our learning goals prior to and after having taken Intro 360. The tests indicated significant improvement in these three statements (p < .05).
Students were asked to provide written feedback about Intro 360 and about each of the activities as they completed them.
Student feedback demonstrated success in our instructional goals.
Students liked the ability to customize their own learning experience and that they could arrange the program to work within their schedule. In addition, they reported finding the activities not strenuous and fun to learn while also being challenging and relevant. These elements of flexibility for students learning were particularly welcomed by students in the online setting and during to COVID-19 pandemic.
Looking Forward
My evaluation suggests that Intro 360 did function as a solution for all students in Introduction to Psychology to have an opportunity to learn more about topics of interest in a maximally flexible format. As the department plans to continue implementing the program, I have reflected on areas of improvement for the next iteration:
Requirement clarity. Though most students performed very well in Intro 360, there were some who were confused about the requirements. Increased integration with the main Introduction to Psychology course may aid these students.
Improved activity descriptions. Some students indicated that their lack of satisfaction with an activity was simply that it wasn’t what they expected from the description. With only a sentence or two to guide them, increased accuracy will ensure students choose activities that most align with their interests.
Increased integration. Due to technical limitations, grades had to be manually updated once a week. A more streamlined experience for students may involve an immediate grade update upon activity completion.