1.1: About This Course

Last updated
Save as PDF

Page ID: 59791

\( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \) \( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)\(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \(\newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\) \( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\) \( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)\(\newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)

This comprehensive, ready-to-adopt Introduction to Psychology course provides thorough coverage of all topics covered in a typical introductory course, including biological psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, social and personality psychology, and mental and physical health.

The course is organized around the recently recommended model from the American Psychological Association, which encompasses the five psychological domains, or pillars: biological psychology, cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, social and personality psychology, and mental and physical health psychology (see “Strengthening Introductory Psychology: A New Model for Teaching the Introductory Course”).

With the OpenStax Psychology textbook as a foundation, this contains other material curated by Lumen Learning and created by Patrick Carroll of the University of Texas at Austin. Other significant contributions were made by Jessica Traylor (Gordon State College).

The course enriches learning with frequent application, curated videos, selected NOBA content, and interactive learning activities to foster practical skills. Engaging “Psychology in Real Life” features use recent research to help students think critically about experimental design.

What’s New?

We believe in making continual improvements to the course in order to enhance and facilitate student learning. This newest version of the course includes additional Psych in Real Life pages, which provide learners with the opportunity to think deeply about relevant psychological research. These 2019 additions include:

Psych in Real Life: Brain Imaging and Messy Science
- Dive into a psychological research article (McCabe and Castel) and learn more about the replication crisis
Psych in Real Life: Consciousness and Blindsight
- Describe unconscious perception as it relates to blindsight
Psych in Real Life: Choice Blindness
- Understand decision-making processes and choice blindness, based on research done by Johannson and Hall
Psych in Real Life: Love and Pain
- Look at two studies (Sarah Master and Jarred Younger) related to romantic love and the experience of pain
Psych in Real Life: Blirtatiousness, Questionnaires, and Validity
- Understand how personality tests are created, then examine how validity is measured
Psych in Real Life: Growth Mindsets
- Dive into Dweck’s research on growth mindsets
Psych in Real Life: Reconsolidation
- Understand how memory reconsolidation can be used as a therapy technique
Psych in Real Life: Habits
- Look at research on habitual behavior and popcorn eating by Wendy Wood and David Neal

In addition to these new pages, there are also several new assignments options. We have also used data to find areas in the course in need of further clarification or interactives, such as this interactive about reliability and validity.

Acknowledgments

This book has benefited from the contributions of many people, including Stephen Alexander, Madison Barnett, Mike Bonham, Ian Bronstein, Rachael Brown, Alisha Cassani, Adrianna Cluff, Billy Davis, Elizabeth Gaudino-Goering, Katie Gibson, Amanda Gill, Marissa Green, Jake Hamilton, Kayden Hawkins, Ammon Heinzen, Maya Landgraf, Kirstin Ruth Lovely, Xi Liu, Forbes March, Josh Marshall, Jared McCormick, Emily Parks, Cecelia Peden, Madelin Pepper, Luke Phillips, Anakin Purser, Blake Rawlings, Grace Rountree, Julia Savage, Celia Scott, Jaiya Seibert, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Wendell, Bridget Wyall, Trillium Ost, Amy Corry, Randolph Harrison, Mika Munger, Grace Adegoke, Ying Zhang, Marissa Green, Arlene Eck, Daphny Chen, Danae Mahecic, Stefani Martinez, Tito Breedlove, Will Bradford, Frank Shen, Julianna Lizcano, Tori Mize, Bailey Thomas, Charlie Dornbach, Katalin Lax-Wright, Jonathan McKinney, Mike Bonham, Randolph Harrison, Antonio Silva, Clark Elieson, Tyler King, Timothy Heyward, Eleanor Winston, Trish LeBaron, Jasmine Holder, Josh Wessler, Ethan Rico, Alison Suttles, Emily Bettridge, Scott King, Narel Hernandez, Tom Rawle, Peter Blackburn, Michael Panasyuk, Ethan Bramhall, Maren Daines, Nick Ungson, Susana Rivera, Kristy Madsen, Joy Kinser, Heidi Henderson, Christopher Mullin, Nina Moyal, Andrew Alamo, Michael Patterson, Sarah Coulson, Katrina Rosner, Matthew Scarbrough, Katie Soh, Bryannon Burnham, and Ben Yager.

About Lumen

Lumen Learning courseware is based on open educational resources (OER). When we can find well-designed, effective OER that are appropriately licensed, we use them in our courseware. When we can’t find pre-existing OER, we create original content and license it as OER (under a Creative Commons Attribution license).

Lumen’s authoring process doesn’t end when our courseware is released. Our choice to adopt open educational resources means that we have the copyright permissions necessary to engage in continuous improvement of our learning content. Consequently, our courses are continually being revised and updated. Errata reported for our courseware are fixed in a matter of days, as opposed to the traditional model in which errors persist until the next “edition” is printed (often a year or more). Students and faculty can suggest improvements to our courses directly from within the courseware as they use it. And we conduct regular analyses to determine where students are struggling the most in our courseware, and make improvements that specifically target these areas.

Given our unique approach, our list of authors and other contributors may look different than the lists you are used to seeing. We provide both a list of the primary content authors (the people involved in the initial creation of the course) and a list of everyone who has contributed suggestions and other improvements to the course since it was first released. We invite you to join us as we create courseware that supports student learning more effectively each semester.

If you’d like to connect with us to learn more about adopting this course, please Contact Us.

You can also make an appointment for OER Office Hours to connect virtually with a live Lumen expert about any question you may have.

CC licensed content, Original

Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution