Masters Degrees (Psychology)

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Toward assessing scientific thinking : a qualitative analysis of student reasoning among psychology undergraduates
(Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2011-03) Bezuidenhout, Shaughn; Kagee, S. A.; Allie, Saalih; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Psychology.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The effectiveness of a research methods course on the scientific thinking skills of a group of second year psychology students was recently reported on by Kagee, Allie and Lesch (2010). As part of this study they developed an instrument, The Scientific in Psychology Scale, comprising 11 questions each of which required (a) the endorsement of one of two binary choices and (b) a written explanation detailing the reasons for the choice. However, their findings were based only a statistical analysis of (a) which allowed for a comparison between a control group and an experimental group as a whole. The present study aims to characterize the patterns of thinking at a more detailed level, by analysing the qualitative data for one of the questions. To this end, an alphanumeric scheme was devised to code the data for the two groups mentioned; namely, first year psychology students who comprised the control group, and second year psychology students who comprised the experimental group. The coding was performed at a fine-grained level from which broader categories were constructed.