Psych 4280 Personality Lab

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:  PSYC 4280
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a psychology course for undergraduate students by Jake Womick at CSU Bakersfield. The open textbook provides opportunities to deeply engage with different theoretical approaches to personality psychology, to make connections between psychology and creative expressions, and to receive feedback about one’s own personality. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was cost savings for students. Most student access the open textbook in Canvas.

Course Title and Number: Psych 4280 Personality Lab
Brief Description of course highlights:  This is an introductory course that surveys major approaches to personality psychology. 

Student population: Most students are psychology majors in their senior year. Before taking my class, they have had introductory classes to psychology, scientific inquiry, and an introductory course on personality psychology. 

Learning or student outcomes:  List student learning outcomes for the course.
Goal 1: Knowledge base of psychology
Describe key concepts, principles, and theories in psychological science
Apply psychological content to solve practical problems

Goal 2: Research methods in psychology
Exercise scientific reasoning to investigate psychological phenomena
Interpret, design, and evaluate basic psychological research.
Incorporate sociocultural factors in scientific research practices
Use statistics to evaluate quantitative research findings

Goal 3: Critical thinking skills in psychology
Employ ethical standards in research, practice, and academic contexts

Goal 4: Applications of psychology
Write and present effectively for different purposes.
Provide evidence of psychological literacy
Exhibit appropriate technological skills to improve communication

Goal 5: Values in psychology
Refine project-management skills.
Demonstrate appropriate workforce technological skills
All of these are assessed via assignments, and writing requirements.

Key challenges faced and how resolved: The main activity in this course is a research project. Students develop a hypothesis, design a method to test it, collect data, analyze it, and write it up in a peer-review style paper. I started teaching this course for the first time, basing my syllabus on others. The example courses I was using did not require student readings outside of the literature review for their paper. I ran into many challenges with students understanding basic principles of research, methods, statistics, and limitation. In addition to lecturing about these in class, I added complementary readings about these topics.

Syllabus and/or Sample assignment from the course or the adoption [optional]: The reading assignments are used to supplement in-class lecture and activities. SS25 4280 syllabus.docx

Textbook or OER/Low cost Title: A variety of documents, not a book

Brief Description: For the most part, readings consist of chapters pulled from different freely-availabe textbooks. There are some exceptions including blog posts about statistics, and peer-reviewed articles about statistics.

Please provide a link to the resource https://csub.box.com/s/r8sfiavz11nvevq462pl2rmscjqezffh 
Authors:  Viv Bewick, Liz Cheek, Jonathan Ball, Si Gou, Turkur Dahiru, Chelsea Goforth, Paulta T Ross, Nikki L Bibler Zaidi, Brent W. Roberts, Hee J. Yoon, Jennifer Dodorico Mcdonald

Student access:  FEach reading is available on canvas as a pdf file. 

Supplemental resources: These can all be accessed at the same link provided above with the readings. 

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook.  I never used a textbook in this course, but when I added readings, I made sure to make them freely available. So, the replacement cost would be compared to the average research methods textbook cost.  For example: Research Methods in Psychology: Evaluating a World of Information 4th edition cost: $138.61 

License:  CC BY SA

OER/Low Cost Adoption Process

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. Students needed extra support outside of the classroom to either learn or brush up on some key topics. Due to the issues I had with textbook costs in other classes, I decided to find free readings instead of a textbook.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? I evaluated resources.

Sharing Best Practices: There is some time investment up front in finding the resources, but you can really tailor them to your class better than a textbook can offer, and the students deeply appreciate you saving them money. 

Describe any key challenges you experienced, how they were resolved  and lessons learned. There have been cases when I asked students to visit a website to complete a reading and an associated activity hosted on the webpage. Those can be problematic because sometimes the URLs can change or be deleted. 

Instructor Name - Jake Womick
I am a assistant professor of psychology at the California State University Bakersfield. I teach lecture and lab courses on personality psychology. .

Please provide a link to your university page.
https://www.csub.edu/psychology/faculty-and-staff.shtml

Please describe the courses you teach 
Personality Lecture is an introduction to personality research that surveys different approaches to the topic 

Personality Lab is a more advanced course that provides students the opportunity to conduct an independent research project on personality-relevant topics

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests related to your discipline or teaching.  As an instructor, my goal is to foster an environment where every student feels empowered to succeed, discover their passions, and embark on a fulfilling academic and personal journey. My own transformation from a disengaged undergraduate to a passionate scholar was shaped by two professors who guided me toward a field I love—psychology. This personal experience shapes my approach to teaching: I maintain an unwavering optimism in the potential of every student, regardless of their background or academic standing. I recognize that academic struggles often result from factors outside a student's control, not from a lack of ability. My role is to affirm their confidence, express faith in their capacity to excel, and provide the support necessary for them to thrive.