Highly Prevalent but Not Always Persistent: Undergraduate and Graduate Student's Misconceptions about Psychology

SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://sagepub.com

Y

9

Psychology; College Students; Misconceptions; Beliefs; Questionnaires; Time to Degree; Online Surveys; Knowledge Level; Correlation; Predictor Variables; Incidence; Student Attitudes; Cohort Analysis; Graduate Students; Undergraduate Students; Doctoral Programs; Academic Achievement

10.1177/0098628314562677

0098-6283

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.

As Provided

41

2015

EJ1049713