By Meera Komarraju

I find teaching to be a profoundly fascinating and rewarding experience. My earliest memories of teaching take me back to my teenage years when I was asked by my father to “tutor” my younger siblings. However, I did not step into my first formal instructor role until I was a graduate student – and then I was hooked. Twenty years later, after teaching in different countries (United States, India, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan) and in a variety of settings (large, small, undergraduate, graduate, and executive employee courses), I find myself reflecting on what teaching means to me. Quite honestly, the time I spend in the classroom is the best part of my workday. As my administrative responsibilities keep increasing I find myself missing my teaching more keenly. Why do I like teaching so much? Well, I hope the five reasons I offer resonate with you as an instructor interested in or engaged in the teaching enterprise.  

 1.  Teaching is a tremendously creative process. I find crafting a 50 minute lecture to be akin to an artistic composition of ideas and words. As an artist, I visualize the end product from the audience’s perspective and try to offer an absorbing, instructive, and satisfying experience. I spend a lot of preparation time in composing an introduction that captures the imagination, stories that engage the emotions, as well as inserting pauses and questions at the right spot to enhance student engagement and learning. I compare this process to arranging a bouquet of flowers, choreographing a dance, composing a sheet of music, or writing a poem. It has that same creative feel to it. When I observe others teach I find myself paying close attention to how they arrange ideas and the underlying principles that maximize their effectiveness.

Try it Yourself:

• Take time to craft engaging introductions
• Pay attention to the best spots to stop for questions and discussion
• Use stories or other material to facilitate an emotional experience

2. Teaching is about creating a relationship with students. I think the classroom experience has a dynamic, interactive, and social-emotional aspect to it and the quality of the student-teacher relationship has a strong influence on the learning process. Teachers who are able to establish a strong rapport get immediate positive feedback. Since I have been teaching mainly introductory psychology in large lecture auditoriums, it has been quite a challenge to create a personalized experience for a class that is largely freshmen and non-majors. I have learned that letting students know that I love teaching and that I am deeply invested in their learning is a wonderful way to build community and establish a meaningful connection. Students are quite perceptive and if they sense that you are authentic they tend to respond positively and become more engaged. A majority of my students come from diverse backgrounds (first generation, rural, racial/ethnic minority, or inner city) and I find it energizing to be a part of their lives as they figure out the college experience. By getting to know my students I find it easier to include content and examples that are relevant to their lives.

Try it Yourself:

• Do your best to learn the names of as many students as possible
• Explicitly discuss your passion for the topic
• Take time at the beginning to establish rapport and a sense of community

3. Teaching is about believing that your students can learn. I am convinced that all students entering my classroom can learn. As the teacher, I think of myself as a catalyst, as someone who has the opportunity to stimulate curiosity and inspire learning. From day one, I let my students know that despite their previous academic achievements, when they come to my class they can choose to excel. I encourage them to do their best and express their potential. I consciously communicate this expectation when I respond to their questions, give them feedback on their assignments, or ask for their input. I realize that students quickly pick up on what I say and also what I convey implicitly and nonverbally.

Try it Yourself:

• What is your metaphor for teaching? Coach? Tour Guide? Parent?
• Consider your view of student potential; do you treat high and low achieving students differently?
• Reflect on how you discuss your students with your colleagues

4. Teaching about teaching. Typically, most instructors start their teaching with very little training or preparation. Few academic departments have the resources to offer a teacher training program. I too started teaching with almost no guidance or preparation. However, I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to provide training/orientation to a group of about 20 teaching assistants every year for the past fifteen years. During a week of training prior to the start of the semester and in a weekly Teaching Practicum during the semester, the TAs and I discuss strategies for generating participation, grading papers, addressing plagiarism, managing classroom procedures, handling problem students, and motivating students to attend class and complete course assignments. Throughout all these fifteen years, it has been particularly gratifying to watch TAs apply psychology in managing the classroom and student behavior. We discuss novel pedagogical techniques and experimenting with them to bring psychology to life and enhance student participation and engagement. I find myself sustaining my fascination for teaching through my involvement with my Teaching Assistants and teaching them about teaching. 

Try it yourself:

• How do you mentor teaching assistants?
• Set aside time for reflection on your own teaching effectiveness
• Keep up with the latest research from the science of teaching and learning

5. Teaching is a developmental process. I have often reflected on whether certain individuals are born to be teachers or whether it is possible to perfect teaching through practice. Based on my teaching experience, my research, and years of working with my Teaching Assistants, my sense is that teaching is a developmental process. When a person first starts teaching, they may be at a particular spot along a continuum. However, with experience and with conscious effort an instructor can gradually progress through a process of continuous improvement. The more confident and competent an instructor begins to feel, the more likely they are to enjoy the teaching experience. Instructors who enjoy teaching will find it hard to keep all the joy to themselves and will soon find it spreading throughout their classroom and infecting their students!

Try it yourself:

• Create a timeline of your own teaching history and mark important milestones
• What is your philosophy of how great teaching develops?
• Who are your inspirations in the world of teaching

Bio

Dr. Meera Komarraju is Professor of Psychology and Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Fellow of MPA and APA-Division 2; and recipient of the SIUC Outstanding Teacher of the YearAward-2012.

By Robert Franklin

How Did I Get So Excited about the Brain in the First Place?

The brain is intricate, complex, and full of mystery. I can think of few things more interesting than knowing that there is a direct relationship between the chemical and biological processes in our heads and my thoughts and behaviors. This is why biological psychology is my favorite subfield of psychology.

But almost all of my Introduction to Psychology students don’t see it that way. After hours studying and memorizing terms and topics as riveting as the axon hillock or location of the parietal lobe, it’s no wonder many students are turned off by the brain.

How many future neuroscientists are stopped right here?

I grappled for a long time with this question. And I wondered why I became so interested in the brain. How did I, trained as a social psychologist, become the “brain person” at my university?

It goes back to one moment at the very beginning of grad school. I volunteered to be a test subject for other students testing equipment in the new, expensive EEG lab. I sat as they spent thirty minutes placing a cap of electrodes on my head, waiting as they adjusted them, and readjusted them…and adjusted them again. At this point, when I could hold my boredom out no longer, they stopped, and I saw squiggly lines on a computer screen.

My thoughts, once held secret in my mind, were now laid bare before everyone. And even though it would take hours of data processing before anyone could make any sense out of those squiggly lines, I was hooked. I could see the brain.

How Could I Get My Own Students Excited about the Brain?

Fast forward to my recent experiences as an instructor. My lectures are full of demonstrations, from group conformity to visual illusions. Students do not have to search long to find examples of memory processes. YouTube is full of videos of young children making predictable mistakes trying to understand the world. But I wasn’t able to show the brain in action. The best I could do was show cartoon diagrams that have no relationship to thought or behavior. The technology to demonstrate the brain, like when I was in grad school, could cost up to millions of dollars, which was just barely out of the budget of our small department.

But fortunately technology never stays still. Sensors such as the Neurosky MindWave EEG headset can begin to show the brain for less than $100 for a headset. The headsets use Bluetooth to pair to any computer or tablet, or even an iOS or Android smartphone, and after only seconds of preparation output their data into an app which shows the raw EEG brain waves along with different types of brain waves, such as alpha, beta, and theta waves, as well as a measure of attention and meditation. Through its Mobile Learning Initiative, Anderson University where I teach provides iPads for each of its students, so I had an opportunity to literally let students see their brains in action. However, I was unsure whether such an inexpensive system would even work, let alone give an accurate representation of mental processes.

With a generous grant from the South Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities Excellence in Teaching award, I was able to purchase a classroom set of these headsets. I then developed a lab exercise where students wore the headsets and engaged in several activities, such as resting with eyes closed, doing mental arithmetic, or reading. Students had to try to figure out what brain waves were associated with the different tasks. After that, the student wearing the headset would close their eyes and either rest or do mental arithmetic and the other students in their group would have to guess what they were doing using what they learned from the first part of the exercise.

Even with EEG headsets that were more like a toy than research-grade hardware, students were able to see differences between different activities. Even as the lab ended, the students kept testing out new ideas, for example seeing if listening to different music would lead to different brain activation. They tried raising their meditation scores by relaxing and found out that biofeedback might actually work. Most importantly, the students were excited to learn more about how the brain works and the techniques we use to understand the brain.

I was surprised about how much students liked just seeing their own brain waves, given that the brain waves do not tell us very much about how the brain works or where certain activities are located in the brain. But I suppose I should not have been surprised, given my memory of seeing my brain work for the first time. And I learned how a relatively inexpensive device could possibly encourage a future generation of neuroscientists.

How You Can Let Your Students Experience the Excitement Too

Even though I was able to get a full classroom set of headsets, even one or two of the headsets would be enough to get a class excited about neuroscience. The headsets only take a few seconds to start working, and several people can try the headset in a single class. If only one or two of the headsets are available, or if an instructor has a large classroom, there are many ways to convey that same level of excitement. First, just passing around a tablet that shows another student’s brain waves is enough to put someone’s brain activity literally in a student’s hands. Having students ask a volunteer to do different tasks while watching their brainwaves is an easy way to see how different behaviors change brain activity. For larger classes, the instructor can show the brain waves of a volunteer by installing an application on a presentation computer or by using an app to mirror what a student is seeing on a tablet with the presentation computer in the classroom (such as Apple Airplay). I’ve even done this in class before, watching a volunteer student’s brain waves change as they became drowsy listening to a lecture!

There are a few practical considerations to note. The Mindwave Mobile EEG uses Bluetooth to connect and thus it can be difficult pairing several headsets to tablets at the same time. It is best to pair the headsets to different devices one at a time. I recommend trying out the system with only one or two headsets before trying to use it in a larger classroom. In addition, having alcohol on hand to sanitize the headsets makes it much easier to share the headsets.

I believe the Mindwave EEG headset is a viable way to bring the brain into the classroom and has many ways to excite students, depending on what an instructor needs. The headsets are available on the Mindwave online store (http://store.neurosky.com/) as the MindWave Mobile: Brainwave Starter Kit.

Bio

Dr. Robert Franklin is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Anderson University, in Anderson SC, where he teaches courses in neuroscience, statistics, and research methods. His research interests involve understanding how people read social information from faces and how aging affects these processes. However, one of his greatest passions is increasing student interest in the research process by helping students examine questions they find most relevant and interesting. Robert is also co-author of the Noba learning module Attraction and Beauty.

By Andy Luttrell

@So_Psych

I’m sure you’ve had this experience. You do something that seems so embarrassing, it consumes all of your attention, and you’re sure that everyone’s watching you, reveling in how embarrassing your faux pas was. Later you find out that nobody had any idea you did anything unusual.

In general, people aren’t paying as much attention to you as they’re paying to themselves. Nevertheless, when we’re focused on something about ourselves, we often assume that everyone else is focused on it, too. This is the heart of what social psychologists call the spotlight effect.

Here’s another example: I got my first pair of glasses in fifth grade. These days, I forget I’m even wearing them, but for those first couple weeks, all I could notice were the new lenses on my face. I even remember that right after we picked up my new glasses, my mom and I had to go to the mall, and the entire time, I felt self-conscious. I was sure that everyone was looking at me and my new glasses, thinking to themselves how strange they looked on me.

Now, I could be wrong, but as I look back, I don’t think anyone at that mall actually noticed my glasses that day. What mattered was that I focused on my new eyewear, and that degree of self-consciousness made it seem like everyone else must have been focused on it, too.

Adjusting to a New Environment

It’s easy to feel like you’re at the center of a spotlight anytime you adjust to a new environment. The transition to college life is one that comes with a ton of new experiences, which can be tricky to navigate.

When we’re thrust into a new environment, we tend to become more self-aware and focused on our every action. Psychologists who study culture shock have pointed to the heightened self-awareness that can accompany the adjustment to a foreign land. Your own college or university probably feels something like a foreign land—or at least it did when you first arrived.

This time of self-awareness is a perfect opportunity for the spotlight effect to emerge. Think about some of the worries you might have had when you started college. Maybe you felt as though your roommate was always judging you or that the other students in your residence hall noticed your every move. It might feel like your fellow students are scrutinizing your choices, but that fear is probably more about your own heightened self-awareness.

Turning on the Spotlight

To understand the spotlight effect and why we can be tricked into thinking other people think about us more than they actually do, let’s look to one of the scientific studies. An early published demonstration of the spotlight effect considered the everyday embarrassing experience of wearing a Barry Manilow t-shirt.

Let’s back up for a second. In this study, college students were to arrive at the psychology lab in groups to fill out printed surveys in a conference room. In fact, one randomly chosen participant from each group was given an arrival time that was 5 minutes after everyone else’s, so when that person arrives, everyone else in his or her group has already been taken to another room and started filling out the survey.

When that person arrives, though, the experimenter says that he or she has to wear a t-shirt with an enormous picture of Barry Manilow’s face on it. Manilow, the researchers assure us, is “a musician who is not terribly popular among college students.” In other words, everyone’s embarrassed to wear this ridiculous t-shirt.

Boldly wearing the Barry Manilow shirt, the participant heads to the other room to meet the rest of the group. The person sits down and gets ready to take the survey when the experimenter says, “on second thought, everyone else is already pretty far ahead, so you should actually wait outside for moment.”

At this point, the researcher basically asks, “do you think anyone in that room noticed you were wearing a shirt with an enormous photograph of Barry Manilow’s face on it?” On average, people thought that about 50% of the people in the room noticed the shirt and would be able to identify the embarrassing visage gracing its fabric. However, in reality, only about 25% of people in the room actually noticed the shirt.

Participants vastly overestimated how many of the people in that room noticed the t-shirt. If you put yourself in their shoes (or t-shirts, rather), the judgment makes a lot of sense—if you were made to walk into a room wearing an embarrassing t-shirt, of course you’d think everyone noticed. But the reality is not nearly what we think it is.

Turning the Spotlight Off

In another study, when the researchers allowed some time for the participants to get used to wearing their new pop culture apparel before heading to the other room, they didn’t think that many other people noticed the shirt. This is important because it gives us insight into why the spotlight effect happens; it’s because people assume everyone else will notice something about themselves when they’re more focused on it.

When you feel embarrassed, it consumes all of your attention, and you assume that everyone else is focused on what you are focused on. If it doesn’t concern you (like the people who had a chance to forget that they were wearing the goofy t-shirt), you don’t leap to the conclusion that everyone else is paying attention to it.

So when you catch yourself thinking that everyone is paying attention to something you did, ask yourself: “is it just because I’m obsessing about it?” The reality is that all those other people who you think are paying attention to you are actually concerned with their own behavior and think you’re paying close attention to them.

Bio

Andy Luttrell is a PhD student studying social psychology at The Ohio State University. His research focuses on attitudes and persuasion, but he teaches all corners of social psychology. You can also read his weekly psychology blog, Be a People Expert

A version of this post first appeared on Andy's blog. Check it out for more great psych content!

Do you?

By Analea Brauburger

@analea32

TEACHING PHILOSOPHY

As a firm believer in “show me, don’t tell me”, I always find it difficult to write about my teaching philosophy. However, teaching, to me, is not a career, vocation, or an occupation; it is a LIFESTYLE. Caring about students, connecting with them, providing guidance and support, and acting as a role-model is insurmountably important to me. I believe a true teacher walks the walk and lets her actions talk the talk.

For instance, in this course, you will receive feedback on your work promptly, you will not hear ANY excuses from me, and I will continuously admit when I do not know enough about a topic to provide sufficient information or advice (but I will always come back and provide more information in the next Module or Announcement). I do not make things up as I go along and I do not allow my personal life to interfere with your learning. Of course, that means I expect the same from my students. It’s not sufficient for me to ask you to do as I say, but instead, I ask that you follow my lead and meet me at that level and encourage me to elevate my game as well.

Student relationships are important in my course, not only relationships with me, but with other students. I believe we learn more as a group than as individual heads separately bobbing along and taking notes. It is important that everyone respects one another in this on-line classroom and keeps information within our group, especially when it is shared in confidence.

As a life-long learner, I will constantly share with you my new ideas, teaching tools I am discovering, and I will talk about classes I take to better my teaching practice. I share with you in hopes that you see that all of us can make the decision and dedicate the time to becoming better at what we do. I owe it to you and myself to always improve.

All of this being said, I look forward to an amazing experience in this course with you and look forward to learning as much from each of you as you can learn from me.  

Perhaps you’ve moved away from focusing on the syllabus during the first day of your new quarter/semester, but if you are like most, you haven’t….and even if you have….you probably still try to ensure your students read the syllabus and take it seriously. It is your contract with them, right? As if the length of your syllabus isn’t already daunting, I’m going to ask you to think about adding a bit more, a Teaching Philosophy, geared towards students. Believe it or not, the Teaching Philosophy example above was created as a FAILED attempt at an assignment. Yes, one of my biggest successes in the classroom to date was actually a complete failure when I turned it in! Let me explain.

I was taking a year-long graduate seminar focused on the Community College student and best practices around teaching Community College students when an assignment came around to create a TEACHING PHILOSOPHY. The assigned teaching philosophy was supposed to be geared towards an audience of prospective hiring agents like Deans, Vice Presidents of Instruction, etc. Unfortunately, as I was reading all of the resources and thought I was following assignment directions, I created a teaching philosophy that didn’t quite earn me the grade I was expecting (yes, an A, just like our students expect when they do not follow directions, duh!). To my instructor’s dismay, I narrowly focused on the audience that REALLY matters to me (no offense to my Dean, of course): my students. Specifically, the students who just walked or clicked into my classroom or course. My teaching philosophy told them who I am, what I’m all about as an educator, specific ideals I expect from them and myself, and how I approach my own learning.

Yep, I failed the assignment. However, the teaching philosophy that I created for my students has become one of my greatest successes as an educator.

My teaching philosophy is not a template to follow, nevertheless, it is an example of the TYPE of thing that might just speak to your students about who you are as an educator and what they can expect from you and vice versa.

There are MANY examples of teaching philosophies out there (see resources below); however, most are directed towards employers and not students. I include my teaching philosophy on my syllabus and also include a graded syllabus quiz as part of my first week of work for students. In that quiz I always ask them the following question: What part of Analea’s Teaching Philosophy stood out to you? Why?

I’ve learned so much from their responses:

“The part of Analea's teaching philosophy that captured my attention was in regards to being a life-long learner. In particular the statement, "I owe it to you and myself to always improve." I find this very motivational and I also agree that learning does not stop with finishing school or this class in general. Learning for me is a lifestyle. I have chosen a career path that comes with a dedicated lifestyle and I look forward to learning new things daily. I apply the same philosophy to my hobbies as well. I am excited for this course and happy to have a teacher focused on the big picture of life in general. I look forward to learning more in regards to the psychology of the human experience. “

“I was impressed by the concept of teaching as a lifestyle. I appreciate this and think it shows a great deal of commitment. I’m glad that teaching feels like a natural and appropriate lifestyle to you, rather than a burden that might interfere with the rest of your life.”

“The part of the philosophy that stood out to me was about not letting personal problems interfere with my learning and how my problems should not interfere with Analea's class. What she expects from me should be what I expect from her.”

I hope you will consider adding a teaching philosophy to your syllabus and heck, maybe even a little low stakes quiz on your syllabus content with one question surrounding your new addition!

Bio

Analea Brauburger earned her B.S. in Psychology from the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University. She then entered a Ph.D. program at The Pennsylvania State University where she focused on research related to emotion regulation in the workplace. She left PSU after the events of 9/11 to volunteer in the Peace Corps as a Water and Sanitation Technician. Upon return to the U.S.A, Analea joined Teach for America and taught in rural Louisiana at Northwest High School in Opelousas during hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ike, and Gustav. She moved to Seattle, Wa, in 2009 and works at South Seattle College as a part-time psychology instructor as well as the school's Assessment and Continuous Improvement Coordinator. She has recently begun teaching for Tacoma Community College, as well, because their dedication to Open Educational Resources (OER) drew her in and now allows her to provide textbook free courses at two colleges in Washington State.

Additional Resources:

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/philosophy-of-teaching/philosophy-of-teaching-statement-focuses-on-student-learning/

http://ucat.osu.edu/professional-development/teaching-portfolio/philosophy/guidance/

http://www.uwo.ca/tsc/resources/selected_teaching_topics/teaching_dossiers/guide_to_constructing/teaching_philosophy_examples.html

http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/tutorials/philosophy/samples/

By Melissa Stiksma

As a psychology student and relentless traveler, I believe in the impact of your environment and the benefit of changing it often. It just isn’t September until I’m on a bustling campus surrounded by freshmen with backpacks full of books. Recently starting in the clinical program of George Mason University, I identify with that freshmen naiveté. Moving from Florida to D.C. as a brash 23 year old has been an exhilarating but overwhelming change. Blazers replace floral flip flops. My change in environment makes me wonder: do the people make the place or does the place make the person? Will your university change you? Or did you choose your school because you knew you’d fit in? I argue that the answer lies in an interaction. And the more you interact with the world – the more you can start to understand it. 

Wanderlust, a longing to explore, has given me more than a good story about meeting Lorde at a rock music festival in Japan. My incessant thirst for novel contexts, people, and adventure has influenced me as a human being and as a researcher; the two intrinsically intertwined. Traveling gives me previously unfathomable perspective in a field that necessitates reflection. For future psychologists of the world, I advise this: seek a world larger than your own. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable and expose yourself….just not literally. That’s illegal.

Take, for example, my time in Peru. Traveling alone with a backpack and no itinerary for three weeks affects you; and I found that where ever you are, that’s where you’re supposed to be. Although I sought solitude, I found comfort in easy friends from the ubiquitous microcosm of hostels. Humans are social creatures with social needs – even the lonest of wolves and the blackest of sheep have a desire to belong. Moving throughout Peru, I celebrated Mother’s Day in an orphanage, rode an oversized pony led by a 13 year old up a remote mountain, sand-boarded desert dunes, white-water rafted for $20, climbed Machu Picchu mountain, and zip-lined near Tarantula Lodge (which lived up to its name). Although I cannot list these on a CV, they undoubtedly contribute to who I am as a person and thus as a scientist. I gave into a higher power and allowed fear to succumb me – akin to running analyses after lengthy data collection. As a graduate student I feel reckless but as a traveler, relatively cautious. Put yourself in varying contexts so you can see the world with different lenses bringing a much fuller perspective to your life and work.

 But you don’t have to go to Peru or Japan to do this! Stop using the broke college student excuse. Now is the time to explore and be okay with getting lost. Buy a cheap bus ticket to see a small town’s quirky claim to fame (e.g., Captain Kirk’s future birthplace in Riverside, IA). Decide to drive only turning left for two hours, find the best local grub, and ask someone what they’re passionate about. Volunteer (to teach English) overseas and you often only have to pay for your flight. There are loads of books and blogs about how to travel on a budget (like this, this , and this), the trick is caring enough to actually do it. Even easier, you can gain perspective just by switching up your routine or becoming a tourist in your own town:

1. Use Yelp to try a new food/dish once a week (instead of the usual at Panera Bread)
2. Sunday farmer’s market (instead of a grocery store)
3. Talk to people (instead of headphones)
4. Go for a walk between classes (instead of Facebook)
5. Study at a local coffee shop (instead of Dunkin Donuts)
6. Drive home using a different route (or get lost unfailingly like I do)
7. Throw your books in a bag and read at a dog park (instead of that same corner of the library)
8. Book a night in a hostel and swap stories with a traveler (instead of Netflix at home alone)
9. Visit a museum or common tourist attraction (instead of Netflix at home alone)
10. Ask for directions to the best bagel shop (instead of Netflix at home alone…don’t lie to me)

People tend to stick with what they know (or acclimate like an ink drop in water). As explorers of the human mind we need to become more aggressive in our pursuit of the unknown. I fear a world of Starbucks armchair psychologists, ‘authorities’ of human behavior, making generalizations about a world they have yet to experience. So I repeat my advice to future psychologists: get lost and explore with no hypotheses. Become an anthropologist immersed in unfamiliar surroundings. Albeit fleeting and biased, a blurry snapshot from a different vantage might present meaningful connections about the beautiful world we live in.

So travel far and wide. In books and theories, music and time, and through people and their stories. Because at the end of the day, we are only a collection of our stories and the people we tell them to. Go forth into the real world, find your plot-twist, and tell me about it when you get home.

Bio

Melissa Stiksma is a doctoral student in the clinical program at George Mason University. Her research interests focus on the intersection of positive and clinical psychology, especially as it relates to social anxiety. Through her career Melissa hopes to make a positive impact in people's lives via psychological research and real-world application. To learn more about Melissa visit http://melissastiksma.weebly.com/

By David Disabato

You know how it is: your instructor assigns you to read a study and things go along well until you hit that dreaded results section. Suddenly, the English language is replaced with numbers, Greek symbols, and asterisks. They mean something; but unless you have a background in statistics you might not always know exactly what. Let’s be honest; confusion over results of empirical articles motivates many students to skip over these sections entirely. My goal with this post is to help you engage with these tough articles by explaining what statistics in psychology can and cannot do.

What statistics CAN do:

Statistics can determine whether variables are correlated. Correlation is a measure of the relationship between two variables. You are probably most familiar with the term “correlation” from your statistics class when you calculated “r” ranging from -1 to +1. Although other statistics have different symbols (e.g., t, F, d, which you may or may not remember from statistics class), they are actually all different types of correlations. Now most of you are probably comfortable reading results sections with the “r” correlation – perhaps that is the only statistic you understand! The key is realizing more advanced statistics are just fancy correlations. When you see big tables, with many columns, numbers, and asterisks, or figures with circles, boxes and arrows, they are almost always representing correlations of some sort.

What stats CANNOT do:

Statistics can never determine causation. Remember the old saying: “Correlation does not equal causation?” Maybe you learned that the amount of ice cream sales at a beach is correlated with the number of shark attacks in the water. But it would be unlikely that ice cream sales cause shark attacks. Variables can be correlated for many reasons other than one variable causing the other. This logic applies to not only the “r” correlation statistic, but all other advanced statistics as well. No matter how complex the statistics, they only determine correlation and not causation.

What DOES determine causation?

Causation is determined by the research design reported in the methods section, not the statistics found in the results section. Remember learning about all the different types of research designs: true experiments, quasi-experiments, observational studies, survey studies, case studies, etc. Well only true experiments are able to determine causation and all other study designs are not able to. That is why your professors may have emphasized the scientific power of true experiments (see http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/faculty_sites/sommerb/sommerdemo/experiment/types.htm for a good definition of a true experiment).

HOW to read a results section:

When reading a results section, one of the goals is to decide whether there is enough evidence to support the researcher’s claims in the discussion and abstract sections. Below are four steps I believe are central to reading a results section. To help guide you through the process – let’s use an example: A study wants to see whether a college students’ number of friends is associated with greater alcohol use.

1) Determine the variable thought to be the cause. In our example, the variable is “number of friends”.

2) Determine the variable thought to be the effect. In our example, the variable is “alcohol use”.

3) Determine which statistic represents the “correlation” between the two variables. Remember, almost every statistic represents a correlation, but the symbol may be different than the traditional “r”. In our example, the correlation may come from a regression with a “t” statistic.

4) Determine whether the correlation between the two variables is statistically significant. This is just a fancy way of looking at probability. Basically, researchers are asking, “What is the probability the correlation was due to random chance?”Remember that thing called a “p-value” from statistics class? (P.S., lower is better). If the p-value associated with the statistic is less than .05 (e.g., p < .05), then the correlation is “statistically significant”, implying a correlation exists. If the correlation is not statistically significant, the two variables are said to be uncorrelated. In our example, we will assume statistical significance.

Although our example only has one variable thought to be the cause and one the effect, complex studies often have multiple “causes” and “effects”. No matter how many, we can apply the same four steps to each combination of thought to be cause-effect pairs.

Hopefully we succeed in identifying the key words, numbers, and symbols in the results section to complete steps 1-3. Step 4 will determine whether the researcher’s claim is supported or not. However, be weary of seemingly causal language in the discussion and abstract sections with phrases such as “predicts”, “leads to”, “influences”, “affects”, etc. These are some of the many ways researchers write about their statistical correlations, but the words do not change the fact that “correlation does not equal causation”.

SUMMARY of what we learned:

We have learned what statistics can do: determine whether two variables are correlated. We learned what statistics cannot do: determine whether one variable causes the other. We learned that the type or research design, not the statistic, determines causation. We learned the four steps of evaluating whether the results support the researcher’s claims in the discussion and abstract sections: 1) Identify the variable(s) thought to be the cause, 2) Identify the variable(s) thought to be the effect, 3) Identify the statistic representing their correlation, and 4) determine whether that correlation is statistically significant.

Don’t let results sections intimidate you. All studies are simply researchers asking questions about interesting variables. They usually want to know the relationship between variables and in some cases, the relationship over time. In some cases they can determine if one variable causes another. Parsing apart each variable and understanding whether results are significant is well within your grasp.

Bio

David Disabato is a PhD student of Clinical Psychology at George Mason University outside of Washington DC. He specializes in statistics and data analysis as it applies to non-experimental psychology. He has done statistical consulting for multiple professors across the country using new, up and coming analyses. He has taught statistics at the undergraduate and graduate levels and is interested in discovering new ways to motivate psychologists to use statistical best practice.

By Jeanne Slattery

Some people are born teachers. I was not. When I first started teaching 35 years ago I stood up in front of the class with pages of notes — including jokes. I was awkward and uninspired. I focused on content and rarely seriously considered the things that I now see as most important: critical thinking, writing, empathy, interpersonal skills, quantitative reasoning.

I believe I am a very good teacher now. I know that I am a committed one. What changed? Two things: I am married to someone who was a natural in the classroom and I learned from observing him and others. Perhaps more importantly, I went to one of the first meetings of a group called Partners in Teaching, Learning, and Assessment at my university.

That first year, I partnered with Kristen Marshall, a faculty member in the Communications department. We sat in on and videotaped each other’s classes, interviewed each other’s students, and met regularly. In addition, the whole group met monthly over food and readings.

Kristen and I were not a natural pairing and never became close, yet the things that we did together that year changed my view of the teaching process. She challenged my views of teaching, what I should be doing in the classroom, and what my students were doing in and out of class. She opened my eyes to other ways of seeing teaching, for which I am eternally thankful.

Partners only met in this format for the first year, but we continued to hold regular meetings on Friday afternoons at Michelle’s, a local coffee shop. We offered small workshops and brought in speakers with national reputations. We offered regular master classes, which we described to the university community. We began writing about teaching in a newsletter nine years ago, then an e-newsletter, then for the Hand in Hand blog.

More than that, Partners gave me a sense that teaching was important and valued by my colleagues, and that I wasn’t alone in seeing that. Each time we met we talked about the things that we were struggling with, but as importantly, we discussed the successes we’d experienced in the previous week. These informal meetings created an atmosphere that valued focusing on teaching, taking risks in our teaching, and trying new approaches. Equally important, we discussed our growth outside the classroom: research, service, professional growth. In fact, I (successfully) went up for promotion when I did only because of my colleagues’ support and encouragement.

One of the things that made Partners work is that we were and are a faculty group. At various points we have received grants and regular funding from administration, but we are an informal group of people who work on teaching because we choose to, not because someone tells us to. We have chosen the things that we are interested in and how we want to approach them. This intellectual and professional freedom has made a huge difference.

I’ve been involved with Partners for 20 years. In that period we’ve encountered an array of administrators. Some have supported us. Others, less so. The ones we’ve most appreciated have been those who have nurtured us, recognized the climate we have been building, and gave us funds to help us meet our goals. Thank you. And thanks to all of my faculty colleagues who have been instrumental in my development as a teacher.

----

This piece especially profited from Melissa K. Downes’ thoughtful and insightful comments on earlier drafts.

This is an adaptation of Jeanne’s original post at the Hand in Hand blog. Check it out for more insightful posts on teaching from Jeanne and her colleagues at Clarion University.

Bio

Jeanne M. Slattery is a professor of psychology at Clarion University. She is interested in thinking about what makes teaching and learning successful, and generally describes herself as a learner-centered teacher. She has written two books, Counseling diverse clients: Bringing context into therapy, and Empathic counseling: Meaning, context, ethics, and skill (with C. Park), and will be publishing Trauma, meaning, and spirituality: Research and clinical perspectives in 2016. She can be contacted at [email protected]

By Claudia Stanny

Many academics do not think of themselves as writers. Instead, they think of themselves as teachers, thinkers, scholars, researchers, or artists who must write. This mindset creates obstacles to writing. Tietze (2014) argues that when writing becomes part of your identity, you make it a priority and create opportunities to write during your regular activities, just as you make room for other critical activities (sleeping, eating, spending time with your family, exercising).

If we reflect on how academics spend their time every day, writing emerges as an integral part of academic life. How much time do you spend writing emails, lecture notes, exam questions, comments on student papers, and other day-to-day academic tasks? Writing is intrinsic to academic life. The type of writing that we parcel out as unique and separate from “real” academic life is the writing that is most useful for formal professional scholarship: peer reviewed publications, conference submissions, grant proposals, chapters and books. When we isolate writing for publication as a unique activity that is fundamentally different from our other writing, we underestimate the role of writing as part of our professional identity and sabotage our commitment to writing publishable work. 

Jenkins (2015) offers good advice for integrating writing into a regular schedule. Like Tietze, Jenkins argues that the first step to becoming a productive writer requires making a commitment to write: Decide that you are a writer and that writing is something you need to do to meet your personal goals (not imposed goals), not something you would like to do when the stars align properly.

The stars never align properly. Life never opens up a grand vista of free time when we can complete long-postponed plans. Mundane tasks have the uncanny knack of filling up available time. If you have all afternoon to perfect your lecture and no other pressing priorities, you will use the full afternoon for this task. Jenkins suggests scheduling time for routine tasks to prevent them from taking all your time. Although your Power Point might be more perfect if you spent another hour searching for better images, you might better spend some of that time on the important task of writing. Similarly, you should schedule times to write and honor that schedule the way you would honor your class schedule, your class prep time, or a scheduled appointment.

Consider the potential contribution made by everyday writing for your formal, scholarly work. You might write an email to a collaborator or editor to discuss the structure of an article or chapter. Treat this writing as pre-writing. It may contain the seeds of an outline or a paragraph that sorts out the main issues of a thorny topic. Notes recorded during a planning meeting may evolve into a first draft of a research methods section. Carry a notebook or iPad to record writing ideas or draft short summaries of concepts that might be the basis for new scholarly work or contribute to existing work. Some people keep a reading journal and record new and useful ideas from scholarly reading. Others keep more general journals and record notes and to-do lists associated with day-to-day activities (meetings, conversations, and phone calls, as well as formal reading). Do not throw away or ignore task-related writing. Mine it for elements you can use in formal writing projects.

Resources

Jenkins, R. (January 12, 2015). Writing with a heavy teaching load. Blog post in The Chronicle of Higher Education retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Writing-With-a-Heavy-Teaching/151155

Tietze, C. (July 3, 2014). Make writing a part of your identify. Blog post retrieved from http://christiantietze.de/posts/2014/07/identity-schedule-serious-writing/

Bio

Claudia J. Stanny is the Director of the Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment and an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of West Florida. She offers workshops on teaching strategies, faculty career development, scholarship of teaching and learning, and assessment of student learning. Her publications discuss assessment in higher education, applied aspects of memory and cognition, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

A version of this post first appeared on the University of West Florida’s Center for University Teaching, Learning, and Assessment website. You can find it and other great teaching tips posts by Claudia Stanny by visiting - http://uwf.edu/offices/cutla/

By Jeffrey Holmes

“The purpose of a college education is to teach students how to think.” This valuable objective is noted by many professors and administrators, and it is challenging to find a college mission statement that does not in some way present the claim that students attending the college learn to be critical thinkers. In psychology, thinking critically is largely synonymous with thinking scientifically. Students take courses in statistics and research methods in order to be able to effectively consume and critique information about human behavior. However, possessing a particular skill does not necessarily carry with it an inclination to utilize that skill.

For quite a few years I have been collecting data from undergraduate psychology majors and minors concerning their views of psychology, their interests in various aspects of the discipline, and their attitudes toward different types of thinking. The data are extensive but a few important patterns are noteworthy. First, nearly half of roughly 500 psychology majors I have surveyed responded “not at all” when asked how much they enjoy taking math courses—indicating not indifference but actual dislike for courses that address a core skill relevant to scientific thinking. Moreover, depending on the specific survey item, between one-quarter and one-third of psychology students express skepticism about the scientific nature of psychology. Very few psychology professors express such skepticism, so the students’ doubts are presumably not being deliberately instilled in psychology courses.

Advanced students in our department at a liberal arts college presumably learned enough about scientific thinking to progress through our research-heavy curriculum, and they also achieved higher scores on a scientific literacy test than beginning students. However, advanced students were no more inclined than beginning students to see science as integral to psychology. In other words, although the students learned something about scientific thinking, there was little evidence of any increase in the importance they assigned to—or their tendency to engage in—such thinking. The data also suggest that even among the large proportion of students who endorse the scientific nature of psychology, many express a preference for relying on their own intuition and personal experience when trying to understand human behavior. This of course does not make them unusual; it means they are like most other human beings.

Perhaps not surprisingly, many psychology students report that they intend to work as mental health clinicians. In this context, the data summarized above speak to the frequently cited scientist-practitioner gap in psychology. An important body of research indicates that psychology students with strong practitioner interests differ from those with strong scientist interests in ways not limited to their preferred professional activities. They also tend to think in different ways and value different types of evidence. This is true for both undergraduate and graduate students. Many students with a practitioner orientation successfully complete research-heavy academic programs as a means to an end, but cease consuming scientific literature as soon as they graduate—opting instead to base their work primarily on personal experience.

Scientific thinking is not merely an ability that can be taught; it also involves dispositional qualities that are far less flexible. In this sense it parallels a long-studied characteristic known as need for cognition—the degree to which a person enjoys thinking in ways that require effort. Throughout a long history of research, need for cognition has been primarily assessed and conceptualized as a personality trait rather than an intellectual ability. The tendency toward engaging in effortful thought often correlates with the ability to do so, but as noted earlier, the ability to think in a particular way does not predispose one to think that way on a regular basis.

Needless to say, most undergraduate psychology students are not going to become career scientists. Nonetheless, the development of scientific thinking skills is an important learning outcome for college students and one that is likely to yield a variety of benefits throughout life—a fact underscored by its inclusion in the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major. Scientific thinking can enhance students’ personal lives by improving their ability to select the most effective medical treatments and the best quality products for purchase, and can contribute to the greater good by providing students with the tools to critique broad economic and social policies. Rather than being dismissed as unnecessarily cynical about what college instructors are likely to be able to achieve, it is my hope that recognizing the limits of our ability to change students can help us to set effective parameters for our learning objectives and also motivate us to seek new ways to teach an appreciation for the importance of scientific thinking—rather than assuming we are already reliably changing the way students think. In this age of accountability and formalized assessment of learning objectives, it is more important than ever to carefully consider what we can accomplish.

Bio

Jeffrey Holmes is an associate professor of psychology at Ithaca College. His research interests include attitude measurement, psychology students’ professional interests and views of the discipline, and myths about human behavior.

References

American Psychological Association. (2013). APA guidelines for the undergraduate psychology major: Version 2.0. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/ed/precollege/undergrad/index.aspx

Holmes, J. D., & Beins, B. C. (2009). Psychology is a science: At least some students think so. Teaching of Psychology, 36, 5-11. doi:10.1080/00986280802529350

Zachar, P., & Leong, F. T. L. (1992). A problem of personality: Scientist and practitioner differences in psychology. Journal of Personality, 60, 665-677.

By Arron Grow & Greg Price

@GregPriceMBA

@DrAPGrow

In our experience, and we suspect in yours, course assessments that are used to determine student learning are predetermined, the same for every student, and prepared long before a class is ever offered. One practice that is not so common is allowing students to determine for themselves how their learning should be assessed. For those who have the flexibility we’d like to present a way teachers can enable students to personalize their own learning assessments. But first, a bit of foundation for why we would even suggest such an idea. (This is, after all, an educator’s blog and it would seem unfitting to present our ideas without first establishing some reasons, right?)

Support for Student-created Assessments

Many studies support the idea that increasing student engagement improves learning in higher education (Astin,1993; Kuh, 2003; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, & Whitt, 2005; Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005). In all these studies and many more, the recurring theme is this—the more engaged students are in their own educational experiences, the better the chances are that they will learn more. This conclusion is supported in at least two ways. For starters, when students participate in the creation of their own assessments, it enables them to create assessment experiences that are in line with their own learning preferences. In other words, whether students have a conscious knowledge of it or not, they know how they themselves learn best. Knowing themselves as they do, students can create assessments that will leverage their preferences. If, for example, a student prefers to write, they will likely create an assessment that calls for a written product. Students who believe they learn better when they see things in visual form, will likely design an assessment that leans on this preference.

Another benefit is that self-created assessments allow students to demonstrate knowledge in ways that can showcase their individual strengths. Both of these reasons are ways of integrating student voices more into the teaching and learning process, increasing student engagement, and, in the process, improving student learning. Now who among us wouldn’t want these benefits? No one? Good, now let’s get to the process.

A Process for Implementing Student-created Assessments

Recommendations before Starting Out

Before getting into details, here are a few recommendations to keep in mind.

Be open-minded. 

According to Svinigki and McKeachie (2013), “What is important is learning, not teaching. Teaching effectiveness depends not just on what the teacher does, but on what the student does” (p. 5). There are many instructors who are locked into specific systems; either those imposed by the academic institution where they work or those of their own making. Consider instead the notion of “challenging the process” proposed by Kouzes and Posner (2012). Be willing to test this out; personally witness if this helps students learn more.

Start small. 

For management reasons, it is recommended that students are given the opportunity to create their own assessment for only one part of a course and that all students create their own assessment from the same part of the course. This may seem contrary to the guidance provided earlier where we suggest straying from set systems. While suggesting you be willing to challenge the process, you may want to stay within certain norms – particularly at first. One of the norms we’re talking about here is everyone stay together. Variations in their ‘togetherness’ is what we’re espousing. Gradual change is typically received more easily than big changes all at the same time.

Getting the Ball Rolling

Introduce the idea early. 

At the start of the course, typically when going over a course syllabus, introduce all proposed class assessments, including the assessment which will be the student-created assessment. There is no need to go into great detail about the student-created assessment at this time, just let students know that they will have the opportunity to decide for themselves how they may want to demonstrate their knowledge in a specific content area to be covered later in the course.

Students propose idea. 

When the section to involve student-determined assessments arrives, have students determine the specific method that they will use to demonstrate their knowledge. Have them submit their proposed assessment plan. Here are some tips to help students develop their assessment ideas: (a) Ensure that students understand the role of assessments in learning is for them to demonstrate their mastery of course content; (b) Remind students what the objectives are for the part of the course in which they will create their own assessment; and (c) Explain how their goal is to create an assessment product that will demonstrate their mastery of the objective(s) for that part of the course. In education circles this is often referred to as backwards course design; backwards in a positive sense, that is a process that starts with the end in mind, not a process that is questionable to the point of needing to be discarded. : )

Students create grading rubric. 

Have students create a grading rubric for the assessment product they have in mind to create. Point to the grading rubrics used in the course syllabus. Grading rubrics should have the following recommended elements. These of course will vary based on the course and on instructor preference:

(a) Creation of assessment product should take X number of hours (determined by instructor and announced to students).

(b) Four-to-five specific rubric components.

(c) Four levels of accomplishment for each rubric component (from no performance in each component area to exemplary performance in each component area).

(d) Specific, measureable descriptions for each rubric component at each level of accomplishment.

(e) The number of total points for the assessment that is the same for all learners. The instructor informs students of the total number of points the rubric is to have. Students determine how this total number of points is to be divided up among the rubric components they identify.

A good resource for examples of rubrics used for different types of learning activities is available through Carnegie Mellon’s Eberly Center. Though not all of the rubric elements listed above are demonstrated in examples on the Eberly Center page, it is still a good idea to give students to use as a model – whether it is from an external source, or of your own making.

Students submit their proposed assessment idea and associated rubric for instructor review. The instructor reviews and returns proposals to students with comments for improvements if appropriate. We have found that sometimes students don’t want to create their own learning activities. For this reason it’s also a good idea to have a predetermined assessments ready to use as well.

Applications of Student-created Assessments in the Classroom

Here are a few of examples for assessments submitted by students:

Course: Psychology

Content Area: Mind/Body Connections

Learning Objective: Demonstrate knowledge of commonly accepted steps that lead to having a positive mental attitude.

Prompt for Student-created Assessment: Provide a work product that displays commonly accepted steps that lead to having a positive mental attitude. Provide sources for the information you provide.

Proposals Received:

• Provide a 30-day, once-a-day script for the college radio station to read from during their morning show.
• Paint a mural over the ugly gray wall outside the student union; one that provides at least three daily activities students can use to improve mental attitudes.
• Create a pamphlet that can be distributed through the student health center.
• Create a web-page to add to the student life section of the school’s Intranet site.

Course: Biology

Content Area: Kreb’s Cycle

Learning Objective: Demonstrate understanding of the eight steps in the Kreb’s Cycle process.

Prompt for Student-created Assessment: Provide a work product that displays your understanding of the Kreb’s Cycle.

Proposals Received:

• Create a 10-minute video describing the Kreb’s Cycle process.
• Be the interviewee in an interview about the Kreb’s Cycle process (video or audio recording).
• Create a large poster that describes the Kreb’s Cycle process which is suitable for long-term display in the classroom.
• Give a 10- to 15-minute presentation of the Kreb’s Cycle to the class.

Course: Literature

Content Area: The works of Edgar Allan Poe

Learning Objective: Analyze the themes of Poe’s work for relevance in today’s world.

Prompt for Student-created Assessment: Provide evidence that you know and can relate to others through a) the major themes of Poe’s work and b) how his themes are relevant to people today.

Proposals Received:

• Create a narrated PowerPoint presentation that presents the themes of Poe’s work and analyzes the themes of his work for relevance in today’s world.
• Paint the wood fence along 24th and 25th on Vine Street with information about Poe’s works and how they connect with today’s society (The fence is mine so it’s okay.).
• Give a 15- to 20-minute dramatization with fellow classmates during the student union sponsored brown-bag sessions on the topic of Poe’s themes and the meanings we can get from them today.

Course: Marketing

Content Area: Identifying Target Market Population

Learning Objective: Analyze strategies for identifying and narrowing target market populations.

Prompt for Student-created Assessment: Provide evidence of your understanding of strategies for identifying and narrowing target market populations.

Proposals Received:

• Present a proposal to a company that describes how my firm would use multiple methods to help them define, refine, and connect with their most appropriate markets.
• Write a white paper that addresses a company that has been identified in the news as losing market share and provide an analyses of where and how they can find new market populations
• Present a 15-minute presentation to the class about how various social media can use forums to identify different target market populations for businesses.

Conclusion

The more our students are involved in deciding how they will approach their own learning, the more engaged and productive their learning experience will be. Teachers who take advantage of this to increase student engagement and student voice in their classes are likely to be surprised and impressed with the creativity students will demonstrate. In our opinion, the added creativity will widen the perspective of all students and even instructors to create more gratifying, and more memorable educational experiences for everyone involved. Give it a try. See how this works. If you like the experience (and we suspect you will) tell others about it.

Editor’s Note: A more detailed look at this topic is available in: Advances in Exemplary Instruction: Proven practices in higher education. Flores, K. A., Kirstein, K. D., Schieber, C. E., & Olswang, S. G. (Eds.). (2015)

Bio

Arron Grow, Ph.D. is Associate Professor and Associate Program Director for doctoral level studies in organizational leadership for the School of Applied Leadership at City University of Seattle. He researches, writes, and speaks on topics connected with employee engagement and managerial excellence. He is the author of How to Not Suck as a Manager and Change or Go: How to Stop Non Team Player Behavior at Work

Greg Price is an Assistant Professor at City University of Seattle, in Seattle, WA. He is the Academic Program Director for the Master of Arts Leadership program at the same university. Greg also teaches courses in leadership, business, and communications. His research interests are in entrepreneurial leadership and team development. In business, Greg is co-owner of a publishing business in Seattle, WA

References

Astin, A. W. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Kouzes, J., & Posner, B. (2012). The leadership challenge: How to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. San Francisco, CA: Wiley.

Kuh, G. D. (2003). What we're learning about student engagement from NSSE: Benchmarks for effective educational practices. Change, 35(2), 24-32.

Kuh, G. D., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., & Whitt, E. J. (2005). Assessing conditions to enhance educational effectiveness: The inventory for student engagement and success. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Pascarella, E. T., & Terenzini, P. T. (2005). How college affects students: A third decade of research. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Svinigki, M., & McKeachie, W. (2013). McKeachie’s Teaching Tips. (14th ed.) Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.