Valerie%20Whittlesey%20Increasing%20Student%20Learning%20of%20Diversity%20in%20Psychology

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Valerie WhittleseyIncreasing Student Learning of
Diversity in Psychology

• SEPA Meeting
• March, 2006

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Outline

• Reasons for Teaching about Diversity Issues in
  Psychology
• Attitudes and Experiences of Psychology Faculty
  in Teaching about Diversity Recommendations
• Reviewing Diversity Research in Teaching of
  Psychology Recommendations
• Conclusion

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Importance of Teaching about Diversity

• Allows students to be fair and equitable in their
  interactions with other people
• Helps prepare students for employment in an
  increasingly pluralistic society after college
• Makes psychology more relevant for all students

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Importance of Teaching about Diversity

• May encourage students from all backgrounds to
  enter the psychology profession
• Will increase students knowledge of psychology
• Will enrich students emotional and personal
  development

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Teaching Diversity Experiences and
Recommendations of APA Division Two Members

• Jane Simoni, Kathy Sexton-Radek, Karen Yescavage,
  Harriette Richard, Alene Lundquist

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Diversity Survey- Purpose

• Descriptive data on respondents, their
  institutions, and students
• Respondents attitudes toward teaching diversity
  issues
• Respondents recommendations for diversity
  resources

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Teaching Diversity Survey

• Survey distributed to Division 2 members in 1995
• Survey sent to 2,108 members
• 703 members responded
• Return rate- 33

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Diversity Survey- Demographics

• 14 Asst. Professor
• 23 Assoc. Professor
• 37 Full Professor
• 5 Emeritus

• 8 Teachers
• 6 Adjunct Instructors
• 1 Visiting Professors
• 6 Other Positions

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Diversity Survey- Demographics

• 33 Liberal arts college
• 20 Community college
• 11 Technical institution

• 11 Research university
• 19 Comprehensive university
• 6 high school

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Diversity Survey- Demographics

• 40- Less than 3,000 students
• 19- 3,000- 4,999 students
• 12- 5,000- 6,999 students

• 11- 7,000- 9,999 students
• 18- Greater than 10,000 students

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Diversity Survey- Demographics

• 37 Suburban institution
• 32 Urban institution
• 29 Rural institution

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Diversity Survey- Demographics

• 27 Midwest
• 21 Mid-Atlantic
• 21 South
• 9 West
• 7 New England

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Diversity Survey- Demographics

• 80 White students
• 10 African American students
• 6 Hispanic students
• 3 Asian American students
• 1 Native American students

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Diversity Studies- Demographics

• 62 Women
• 38 Men

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Diversity Study- Multicultural Courses Taught

• 12 Psychology of Gender
• 2 Psychology of Minority Groups
• 2 Racism and Sexism in America
• 3 Women and Society
• 15 taught one of four multicultural courses

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Diversity Survey- Importance of Diversity
Education in Courses

• 1 (not important)
• 5 (of major importance)
• Mean- 3.94
• SD- .86
• Between 3 (somewhat important) to 4 (important)

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Diversity Survey- Time Allotted to Discussion of
Diversity

• 14- One class period
• 40- A couple of classes
• 20- A couple of weeks
• 13- Most of course

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Diversity Survey- Issues of Diversity

• 89 Ethnicity and social class
• 77 Ageism
• 73 Appreciation of diversity

• 71 All sexual orientations
• 40 Cultural isms
• 12 Gender perspectives

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Diversity Survey- Goals in Teaching Diversity
Issues

• 85 Heighten sensitivity and awareness
• 77 Broaden understanding of human condition
• 72 Tolerance

• 44 Enhance psychological mindedness
• 32 Expose personal perspectives
• 13 Political action
• 8 Other

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Diversity Survey- Pedagogical Methods to Attain
Goals

• 69 Lectures discussions
• 57 Textbook readings
• 49 Field trips and discussions
• 39 Other

• 38 Guest speakers
• 37 Selected readings
• 35 Student Presentations
• 28 Videotape and discussions
• 25 Research papers

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Diversity Survey-Barriers, Aids, and Successful
Strategies

• Three open-ended items about barriers,
  facilitating factors, and successful strategies
• Two raters content analysis of respones
• Interrater reliability (.90 to .94)

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Diversity Survey- Barriers

• 27 Incorporating diversity issues into courses
  was not relevant
• 23 Time constraints

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Diversity Survey- Barriers (cont)

• 25- No barriers
• Most barriers listed by less than 10 of
  respondents
• Student apprehension
• Lack of adequate resources
• College univ. curriculum

• Professor inadequacy
• Low department support
• Campus climate
• Heightened tension
• Community climate

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Diversity Survey- Facilitating Factors

• 30 Resource rooms books
• 17 Workshops
• Less than 10
• College curriculum
• Videotapes
• Campus climate

• Community perception
• Student attitudes
• Parental attitudes

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Diversity Survey- Successful Strategies

• 18 Discussion
• 14 Experiential activities
• 11 Cross-disciplinary approaches

• Less than 10
• Student presentations
• Campus-wide activities
• Media presentations
• Community activities
• Papers
• Journal articles

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Teaching Diversity Experiences and
Recommendations of APA Division Two
MembersFollow-Up Study

• Loreto Prieto, Val Whittlesey, Diane Herbert,
  Carlota Ocampo, Allison Schomburg, and Dominicus
  So

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Diversity Survey- Follow-Up Study

• Survey distributed to Division 2 members in 2000
• Survey sent to approximately 3,000 members
• 648 members responded
• Return rate- 22

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Diversity Study-Follow-Up Study

• Although the return rate was lower than original
  study, the demographic institutional, campus, and
  course based characteristics of the 2000 sample
  match known population parameters of 2002 STP
  membership survey.
• Also, descriptive data on respondents, their
  institutions, and students similar to 1995 study.
• Results similar to 1995 study respondents
  attitudes toward teaching diversity issues and
  recommendations for diversity resources.

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Diversity Survey- Follow-Up Issues of Diversity

• 94 Race/ethnicity
• 94 Sexual orientation
• 91 Sex/gender
• 86 Ageism
• 82 Social class

• 78 Physical disabilities
• 78 Religion
• 73 International
• 70 Mental/learning disabilities
• 66 Language differences

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Diversity Survey-Follow-UpBarriers

• 57 Time constraints
• 36 Lack of perceived training/resources
• 21 Diversity issues are not relevant to course
  content

• 18 Student apprehension about dealing with
  diversity issues

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Diversity Survey- Follow-Up Study

• For the follow-up study, faculty respondents were
  additionally asked four questions
• - their own personal level of acceptance toward
  diverse persons
• (broadly defined)
• - the level of importance they attached to
  incorporating diversity issues
• into their courses
• - their estimation of the level of
  importance their students attached to
• having diversity issues incorporated into
  courses
• - the level of acceptance they have felt
  from their students when
• diversity issues have been incorporated
  into courses

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Diversity Survey-Follow-Up Study

• Each item was constructed on a 5-point Likert
  scale with Not accepting/not important and Very
  accepting/very important as polar anchors.

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Diversity Survey- Follow-Up Study

• Faculty acceptance of diverse persons (mean
  4.7 sd .53).
• Faculty perceptions of the importance of
  incorporating diversity issues into their
  coursework (mean 4.2 sd .94).

• Faculty perceptions of the importance their
  students attach to having diversity issues
  incorporated into their courses (mean 3.4 sd
  .99).
• Faculty perceptions of the acceptance of students
  to incorporation of diversity issues into course
  work when instructors included it (mean 3.9 sd
  .82).

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Diversity Survey-Recommendations of Both Studies

• Ensuring that more psychology faculty see the
  relevance of diversity issues in the psychology
  curriculum.
• Overcoming time constraints and lack of training
  and knowledge of diversity that faculty feel.

• Need to focus on all facets of diversity.
• Examining directly student attitudes of the
  importance they attach to incorporation of
  diversity into course work and their acceptance
  of this incorporation.

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Review of Diversity Research in Teaching of
Psychology Summary Agenda

• Carlota Ocampo, Jane OConnor, Loreto Prieto, Val
  Whittlesey

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Diversity Review

• David Johnsons database obtained from the
  webpage of the Office for Teaching Resources in
  Psychology
• www.lemoyne.edu/OTRP/index.html
• Used to identify TOP works published from 1974 to
  1999
• Authors manually consulted TOP 2000 issues

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Diversity Review- Diversity Categories

• Aging
• Disability
• Gender
• International
• Nontraditional students

• Race/ethnic
• Several diversity categories
• Sexual orientation
• Social class
• Religion

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Diversity Review- Taxonomy of Methodologies

• Activities
• Articles
• Bibliographies
• Comments
• Course descriptions
• Demonstrations

• Empiricals
• Equipment
• Reviews
• Software
• Surveys
• Symposias
• Interviews

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Diversity Review- Raters

• .91 Interrater agreement coefficient in
  determining which articles were diversity related
• .97 Interrrater agreement coefficient in
  determining the diversity category that the
  articles fit into
• .90 Interrater agreement coefficient in
  determining the methodology for the diversity
  studies

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Diversity Review- and of TOP Diversity Studies
Total Studies Published 1974-2000 N 1,860 Total of Studies Published 1974-1987 N 994 Total of Studies Published 1988-2000 N 866
Diversity Studies 1974-2000 N 136 7.31 Diversity Studies 1974-1987 N 46 4.63 Diversity Studies 1988-2000 N 90 10.39
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Diversity Review- Diversity Categories of Studies

• 35 Gender
• 17 International
• 13 Aging
• 12 Several categories
• 10 Race/ethnicity

• 10 Sexual orientation
• 3 Nontraditional students
• 0 Social class
• 0 Disability
• 0 Religion

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Diversity Review- Methodologies of Diversity
Studies

• 30 Articles
• 25 Courses
• 19 Activities
• 10 Empiricals
• 5 Comments
• 4 Surveys

• 3 Demos
• 2 Interviews
• 1 Software
• 0 Bibliographies
• 0 Equipment
• 0 Reviews
• 0 Symposias

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Diversity Review- Frequent Diversity Methodologies

• International articles- N 12
• Gender courses- N 11
• Gender empirical studies- N 10
• Gender classroom activities- N 9

• Gender articles- N 8
• Several diversity category articles- N 7
• Aging classroom activities- N 7
• Racial/ethnic courses- N 6

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Diversity Review-

• The 70 works in the previous slide represent 50
  of all diversity studies published in TOP between
  1974 to 2000
• Publications concerning gender issues constitute
  38 or 28 of total diversity works

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Diversity Review

• 28 diversity empirical works represented 1.5 of
  all published works in TOP and 21 of diversity
  studies published in TOP from 1974-2000
• Eight (28.5) of empirical diversity articles
  during the earlier period
• 20 (71.4) of empirical diversity articles during
  the latter period

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Diversity Review- Empirical Diversity Studies

• Gender (17 61)
• Sexual orientation (414)
• Aging (311)

• General diversity (311)
• International (13.5)

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Diversity Review- Empirical Diversity Studies

• One-third of studies exploratory in nature
• Gender based issues offered more information
  regarding previous findings or theory related to
  study in question

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Diversity Review- Recommendations

• Increase amount and programmatic focus of
  diversity research
• Increase theory driven empirical research using
  experimental design
• Continued attention to differential impact of
  teaching curriculum, materials, and methods on
  diversity

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Diversity Review- Recommendations (cont)

• Increased use on development of instruments to
  measure diversity teaching goals
• Increased examination of underexamined groups
• Increased knowledge about psychology and its
  ability to address diversity issues
• Increased understanding of and support of diverse
  psychology professoriate

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