Activity #9

Jon Mueller describes an activity designed to help students learn to think scientifically, especially with regard to the kinds of evidence needed to support different kinds of claims.

Mon, 15 Jan 2001
Jon Mueller
North Central College
jfm@noctrl.edu

I am finally getting around to sharing a small thing I do in my intro psych class. The primary focus of that class now for me is scientific thinking. I start out the first two weeks with that focus and then continue that theme throughout the topics of the course. I also spend the first 5 minutes of most class periods addressing a scientific thinking question I had assigned. I pick three students each time to come back to the next class with an answer to a particular question. I pick 3 students for the same question so that I am sure that I have at least one there, because more students are involved, and because the questions can often have more than one answer.

Some examples of the questions I give them are:
1) "Can rabbits fly? Come back the next class with an answer and evidence to support it." As a class we then evaluate the evidence. I often start off the term with a silly one like this, but it still gets at questions of what is good or bad evidence and of the importance of operational definitions. And I find about an equal number of students come back with "yes" as with "no" as the answer to this question.

2) Are there more left-handed or right-handed people in the world? How would you find out?

3) I give them an article that summarizes the research on the effects of using cell phones and tell them to come back as my doctor. I am a heavy cell phone user. Should I keep using it-- what is your advice?

4) I give three students a copy of an article on zinc lozenges that says it is a fad and a gimmick. I also give them a copy of the back of the package of Cold-eeze, a zinc lozenge product that claims to reduce cold symptoms. The back of the package gives brief abstracts of two articles published in peer-reviewed journals. The package claims this "proves" its product works. I ask them who is right?

5) I give them a copy of a news article that has a causal headline describing correlational research. I will ask them if there is anything wrong with this article.

And so on and so on. I try to find questions that challenge their thinking but also fit the specific course topic we are covering at that time. For example, when we are discussing heredity or personality I will ask three students to identify a trait they share with a parent. I will then ask them where they think that trait came from in them and what evidence they are basing that on.