| Literature DB >> 26909058 |
Brody Heritage1, Lynne D Roberts2, Natalie Gasson2.
Abstract
Psychological literacy, a construct developed to reflect the types of skills graduates of a psychology degree should possess and be capable of demonstrating, has recently been scrutinized in terms of its measurement adequacy. The recent development of a multi-item measure encompassing the facets of psychological literacy has provided the potential for improved validity in measuring the construct. We investigated the known-groups validity of this multi-item measure of psychological literacy to examine whether psychological literacy could predict (a) students' course of enrolment and (b) students' year of enrolment. Five hundred and fifteen undergraduate psychology students, 87 psychology/human resource management students, and 83 speech pathology students provided data. In the first year cohort, the reflective processes (RPs) factor significantly predicted psychology and psychology/human resource management course enrolment, although no facets significantly differentiated between psychology and speech pathology enrolment. Within the second year cohort, generic graduate attributes (GGAs) and RPs differentiated psychology and speech pathology course enrolment. GGAs differentiated first-year and second-year psychology students, with second-year students more likely to have higher scores on this factor. Due to weak support for known-groups validity, further measurement refinements are recommended to improve the construct's utility.Entities:
Keywords: graduate attributes; known-groups validity; measurement; psychological literacy; undergraduate psychology
Year: 2016 PMID: 26909058 PMCID: PMC4754652 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00162
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Front Psychol ISSN: 1664-1078
Demographic characteristics of the undergraduate participants (N = 685).
| Total | 515 | 87 | 83 |
| 21.01 (5.89) | 19.72 (3.70) | 21.91 (6.77) | |
| Male | 121 | 15 | 3 |
| Female | 394 | 72 | 80 |
| First year undergraduate | 210 | 37 | 17 |
| Second year undergraduate | 275 | 36 | 66 |
| Third year undergraduate | 30 | 14 | 0 |
| 1.50 (1.65) | 1.43 (1.44) | 1.55 (1.20) | |
| Yes | 95 | 15 | 15 |
| No | 420 | 72 | 68 |
| Full-time | 435 | 78 | 66 |
| Part-time | 78 | 9 | 17 |
| Domestic | 503 | 87 | 79 |
| International | 12 | 0 | 4 |
Measures of psychological literacy facets.
| Construct | Measure | Reference | Example item | No. Items | Latent Factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Psychological knowledge | Psychology misperceptions test | “People predominantly use either the left side or the right side of their brain” | 29 | GGA | |
| Scientific thinking | Need for cognition | “I find satisfaction in deliberating hard and for long hours” | 18 | GGA | |
| Critical thinking | Critical thinking disposition scale | “I usually check the credibility of the source of information before making judgments” | 11 | GGA | |
| Application to issues | Psychology as a helping profession scale | “People can learn to enhance their health (e.g., stop smoking) through courses in psychology” | 11 | PHP | |
| Acting ethically | The integrity scale | “It is important to me to feel that I have not compromised my principles” | 18 | GGA | |
| Using/evaluation information and technology | Information literacy self-efficacy scale | “Locate resources in the library using the library catalog” | 17 | GGA | |
| Communicating effectively | Self-perceived communication competence scales | “Present a talk to a group of strangers” | 12 | GGA | |
| Respect for diversity | Interactional diversity scale | “Had serious discussions with students whose religious beliefs were very different from yours” | 7 | None | |
| Self/other insight/reflection | Self-reflection and insight scale | “I frequently examine my feelings” | 26 | RP/GGA | |
| Single item psychological literacy measures | – | “At this point in your education, how would you rate your knowledge of basic concepts/principles in Psychology?” | 9 | Not applicable |
Bivariate correlations, variances, and reliabilities of the psychological literacy factors (N = 685).
| Psychology only, years one to three | All measured disciplines (first years) | All measured disciplines (second years) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GGA | PHP | RP | GGA | PHP | RP | GGA | PHP | RP | |
| GGA | |||||||||
| PHP | 0.424 | 0.414 | 0.540 | ||||||
| RP | 0.854 | 0.448 | 0.755 | 0.365 | 0.879 | 0.493 | |||
| Variance | 0.088 | 0.462 | 0.162 | 0.082 | 0.332 | 0.186 | 0.081 | 0.236 | 0.153 |
Parameter estimates for psychological literacy factors differentiating enrolment groups.
| 95% | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exp( | Lower | Upper | |||
| Psychology-HRM | |||||
| Intercept | –1.81 (0.19) | ||||
| GGA | 0.41 (1.02) | 0.691 | 1.50 | 0.20 | 11.18 |
| PHP | 0.35 (0.37) | 0.347 | 1.42 | 0.69 | 2.92 |
| RP | –1.47 (0.65) | 0.023∗ | 0.23 | 0.06 | 0.82 |
| Speech pathology | |||||
| Intercept | –2.65 (0.28) | ||||
| GGA | 0.76 (1.39) | 0.586 | 2.134 | 0.14 | 32.60 |
| PHP | –0.61 (0.47) | 0.193 | 0.54 | 0.22 | 1.36 |
| RP | –1.27 (0.88) | 0.151 | 0.28 | 0.05 | 1.58 |
| Psychology-HRM | |||||
| Intercept | –2.12 (0.19) | ||||
| GGA | –0.16 (1.34) | 0.907 | 0.86 | 0.06 | 11.91 |
| PHP | –0.85 (0.45) | 0.056 | 0.43 | 0.18 | 1.02 |
| RP | –0.55 (0.95) | 0.567 | 0.58 | 0.09 | 3.75 |
| Speech pathology | |||||
| Intercept | –1.55 (0.15) | ||||
| GGA | 2.35 (1.11) | 0.034∗ | 10.47 | 1.20 | 91.50 |
| PHP | –0.05 (0.35) | 0.882 | 0.95 | 0.48 | 1.89 |
| RP | –3.00 (0.79) | 0.000∗∗∗ | 0.05 | 0.01 | 0.23 |
Parameter estimates for psychological literacy factors differentiating year groups for psychology majors.
| 95% CI | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exp(B) | Lower | Upper | |||
| Intercept | 0.27 (0.09) | ||||
| GGA | 1.31 (0.61) | 0.031∗ | 3.70 | 1.13 | 12.10 |
| PHP | –0.19 (0.15) | 0.226 | 0.83 | 0.61 | 1.12 |
| RP | –0.22 (0.45) | 0.630 | 0.81 | 0.33 | 1.94 |
| Intercept | –2.00 (0.21) | ||||
| GGA | 1.66 (1.31) | 0.205 | 5.28 | 0.40 | 69.13 |
| PHP | 0.16 (0.33) | 0.625 | 1.18 | 0.61 | 2.25 |
| RP | –0.16 (1.00) | 0.870 | 0.85 | 0.12 | 6.04 |