Psychology 4180: Critical Thinking in Psychology

2020 - 2021

Instructors

Ron Sheese, Course Director rsheese@yorku.ca

Tony Miller, Teaching Assistant tony2017@yorku.ca

General Description

The course presents critical thinking as a rhetorical strategy for persuading oneself and others of the accuracy or utility of ideas, positions, actions etc. The strategy is highly favoured in Psychology, in science, and in academia generally; thus, we will examine the concepts and skills that are valued for critically gathering, interpreting, and evaluating scholarly work. Emphasis will be placed on the concept of argument and on Psychology’s contributions to understanding both the obstacles to critical thinking and the means by which it can be facilitated. We will consider multiple examples of critical thinking in Psychology and critical thinking about Psychology. Students will practice thinking critically themselves in various contexts - Psychology research articles, popular accounts of psychological research, and applied settings.

Skills emphasized in the course include:

  • Locating research articles on psychological issues of interest and demonstrating critical thinking about the articles and issues,

  • Critically assessing and communicating the value of media reports about psychological concepts and studies.

  • Critically assessing the methodology used to address specific research questions,

  • Critically interpreting results from reported research,

  • Critically evaluating the credibility of scientific evidence and differentiating argument from conjecture,

  • Communicating with the lay public about professional psychologists’ scholarship.

Format

The course will have both synchronous and asynchronous elements.

  • Zoom class meetings, varying from 60 to 90 minutes in length, will be held every Thursday evening at 7:00 pm. By means of the Zoom Rooms feature, students will be divided into groups of four for these meetings and provided specific activities and questions to discuss in their groups. Attendance in these online discussion groups is a factor in the course evaluation.

  • Readings to be completed before the Thursday meetings will be assigned each week (see schedule below). Most of the discussion questions taken up in the Thursday meetings will be based on these readings. Students will write a reflection paper each week based on one or more of the assigned readings. In the week following submission, these papers will be peer reviewed anonymously by a random selection of classmates. Each person who submits a review paper will be allocated, randomly and anonymously, three papers from classmates. The submission and peer review process is managed by a Moodle app, and thus, no email or physical exchange of papers is necessary.

  • Instructor comments on each of the assigned readings will be recorded and made available on the course Moodle page. There will be at least two separate recordings each week - one very brief and providing a simple introduction to the readings with no expectation that listeners have begun studying them; another one (or more) with comments that do assume familiarity with the readings. These latter comments will include explanations of difficult concepts, elaboration on central ideas, and linkages to other aspects of the course. Typically the recordings will be available early in the week for which the reading is assigned, and students can listen to these on the schedules that suit them best.

  • Q and A sessions with the instructor will be held each week on Tuesdays 12:30 - 1:30 pm and on Wednesdays 7:00 - 8:00 pm. These sessions are optional, and the students who do participate may enter and leave a session as they please - their purpose is to give everyone opportunities to ask questions and/or clarify their ideas.

Evaluation

  • Attendance in weekly Thursday Zoom discussion groups (10%)

  • Submission of weekly reflection papers and peer reviews (10%)

  • Project 1 (10%), October 22. Critical analysis of a popular press article and its academic source.

  • Project 2 (15%), December 10. Critical analysis of a Psychology research article

  • Project 3 (20%), February 25. Critical review of a set of related Psychology articles

  • Project 4 (15%), April 15. Portfolio of eight reflection papers

  • Project 5 (20%), April 22. Plain-language recommendation paper regarding an issue of applied psychology

Weekly activites

Course Topics and Reading Assignments