The New Psychology Curriculum
The large number of course action forms submitted to the Curriculum Committee
represents a large-scale restructuring of the Psychology Curriculum and this note is
provide to give the Committee an overview of the rationale for the changes. A number of
factors led to this restructuring. First, the current curriculum has not undergone major
change in over 20 years, so many of the course additions, name and description changes,
and deletions simply reflect a modernization of the curriculum. In this regard, the
department was guided by a 2009 publication from the American Psychological
Association which provided a "state-of-the-field" guide to undergraduate psychology
education. Another factor was the development of a departmental Undergraduate Steering
Review with responsibility for ongoing review of the curriculum. This group has
conducted a four-year study of the curriculum and provided the initial motions that led to
the proposed revisions. Another important factor driving the restructuring was
information generated by our annual learning outcomes assessments conducted for the
past four years. These data consistently indicated student difficulties in learning
objectives related to quantitative/experimental components of the curriculum. As we
reviewed patterns of course our students took, we determined that in most cases our
students were waiting until their Senior year to take many of the courses in these
categories which meant that they were often ill-prepared for other classes that they were
taking earlier in their career. Finally, the new University Studies goals inspired us to
develop courses that will allow students to benefit from the contributions psychology has
made to the study of diversity and global cross-cultural issues. Taken together, these
considerations drove the proposed changes which I will describe below.
As our curriculum currently stands, General Psychology (105) is the sole prerequisite for
most courses in the department-even those at the Junior or Senior level. There are few
exceptions like the courses in our research methods sequence (225 Statistics is
prerequisite to 355 Experimental which, in turn, is prerequisite to the Capstone
requirement (410, 412, 417). Our category requirement (students must select from a
range of courses in five categories) insures breadth, but as 105 is the sole prerequisite for
these, not enough depth. Thus, the major rationale for the new curriculum is that
students have a smooth and logical progression from General Psychology to the
Capstone course. The categories themselves are in need of updating to better fit the
American Psychological Association best practice guidelines, and one required course
(405 History and Systems) is no longer required in most psychology curricula around the
country.
Content Domain Requirement. Perhaps the major change made to address these issues
is with respect to the category requirement. We now propose to require that majors take
one course in each of six areas which relate closely to the content domains recommended
by the American Psychological Association. Indeed, we will no longer refer to these as
category requirements, but rather specify the particular content domains. Each class
within each content domain is at the 200 level with 105 as the prerequisite, and will itself
serve as a gateway prerequisite to more advanced coursework in that area. In this way,
we will better assure that students are well grounded in the breadth of our field and
permit the development of increased depth in elective areas. Several of the courses
involve content domains that will expose students to quantitative/experimental fields and
will do so early in their career. We believe this will better prepare them to meet our
learning objectives as they pursue more advanced topics later in their college careers. The
proposed new content domain requirement is as follows:
Content Domain 1(Developmental Psychology): PSY 220,221, or 223; Content
Domain 2 (personality and Social Psychology): PSY 246 or 264; Content Domain 3
(Abnormal Psychology): PSY 247; Content Domain 4 (Biological Psychology): PSY
256; Content Domain 5 (Cognitive Psychology): PSY 211; Content Domain 6
(Learning and Behavior Analysis): PSY 217. Content domain 1 is unchanged from the
old category system. Domains 2 and 3 include three courses (Personality, Social
Psychology, and Abnormal Behavior) that were formerly taught at the 300 level, but are
otherwise unchanged. Content domains 4, 5 and 6 are all new courses that will introduce
students to the fields of neuroscience, cognitive psychology and learning and behavior
analysis, respectively. All three are of critical importance to the modem psychology
major. The major must also complete the methods core sequence (unchanged) and take an
additional 12 hrs of electives at the 300 or 400 level (these courses can now be taught at a
more advanced level because each now has a 200-level prerequisite.
Additional200-Level
Courses. We also developed two courses at the 200 level designed
to provide students with psychological perspective on "Living in a Global Society"
(Cross Cultural Psychology PSY 270) and on "Living in Our Diverse Nation"
(psychology of Human Diversity PSY 271). These courses have been submitted for
review to the University Studies Committee for the appropriate category, but will not
count toward the major.
The remainder of our 200 level courses (210, 245, 257, 265, 275) are seen as "service"
courses that should be accessible to all UNCW students as electives (psychology majors
may take any ofthese courses, but they do not count toward the major requirements). In
keeping with the goal of accessibility, these courses generally have no prerequisite
requirements (257 is an exception). Two ofthese courses are new and reflect recent
trends in the field (257 Evolutionary Psychology and 275 Forensic Psychology), but the
remainder are courses that have long been in our curriculum.
Advanced Courses. Most of the course changes at the 300 and 400 level reflect new
prerequisites that will permit these courses to be taught at a more advanced level.
However, we also propose three new capstone courses which are designed to give
students more choice in developing their specializations: Advanced Developmental
Psychology (423), Psychometrics (425), and Advanced Social and Personality
Psychology (464).423 and 464 are completely new courses, but 425 involves the
addition of a laboratory component to a previously existing course. These three willjoin
PSY 410,412 and 417 as options for completing the capstone requirement in the major.
All six will involve advanced treatment of the literature in a particular field and will
include a laboratory in which students will develop and conduct a research project which
will be followed up with data analysis, and oral and written presentation of the project.
Taken together, the proposed changes result in an increase in 3 hrs required for the
Psychology major (from 49 to 52 hrs).
Psychology Minor. Finally, the requirements for a minor in Psychology are, of necessity,
also affected by the overall curriculum change: 18 hours (as is currently the case)
including PSY 105, one course from any three of the six content domains required for
majors, and six additional hours in psychology.
In order to facilitate review of the package, we include a revised section of the
undergraduate catalog as it would appear with the proposed changes. Thus, the new
requirements and how each course will fit in the major can be examined. Specific course
change forms then follow in numerical order.