Jordan P. Lippman et al.
190
In Kershaw’s classes, articles are the primary reading materials; for each article students
complete a required activity developed by Kershaw and Lippman (under review). In
Pellegrino’s classes, this activity was an extra-credit assignment. We developed this activity
to enhance students’ critical thinking and reading skills and to provide an opportunity to
engage in an authentic activity. In addition, students are introduced to the way psycho-
logical data is reported in the scientific community.
Implementation of Activity
Kershaw selected one article for every major subject area in cognitive psychology accord-
ing to the following criteria: (a) the article had to present original experimental results; it
could not be a review article; (b) the article had to be relatively short in length, approxi-
mately 10 pages or less; and (c) the article had to cover an aspect of the particular cognitive
psychology topic that Kershaw judged as being relevant to the students’ lives (see Table 16.2
for a sample list of articles by course topic).
Students read each article before coming to class and turned in a reading worksheet that
asked several standard questions and a unique question for each article. Students engaged
in scientific practice and further honed their scientific and critical thinking skills by ana-
lyzing the articles for methodological or interpretation issues and by suggesting additional
manipulations that could enhance the research. The unique discussion question for each
reading asked students to consider real-world applications of the research or to make con-
nections to other articles or research covered in class. To introduce this activity, we have
them read a sample article and try to answer the questions themselves but we then answer
the questions together in a class discussion of how to dissect a journal article.
We will illustrate this technique based on an article by Strayer and Johnston (2001), who
conducted a study about driving and talking on a cell phone. Kershaw has used this article
as a reading about attention because it is about the impact of divided attention on perform-
ance but also illustrates the selective and divided attention experimental paradigms and
introduces issues related to automaticity and individual differences. Students identify the
purpose of the research (e.g., to study the impact of divided attention on driving perform-
ance), succinctly explain the method by identifying the independent variable (e.g., concur-
rent distraction vs. no distraction conditions) and dependent variable (e.g., performance on
a secondary tracking task) and the results (e.g., performance is lower in the concurrent
distraction condition). Students then connect the implications of the results in terms of the
goals of the article (e.g., Experiment 1 showed participation in a conversation can impact
performance using a hand-held or hands-free device). Students critique the research and
suggest changes to increase external validity (e.g., suggesting the simulated driving tasks
were not realistic and suggesting alternatives) or internal validity (e.g., suggesting having an
additional condition where other people in the car talked in the background). For this
article, the unique question was: “On July 8, 2006, it became illegal to use a handheld cell
phone while driving in Chicago. Based on the results of the article, as well as your own
opinion, is this an appropriate ban? Why or why not?” In answering this question for this
article, students linked the findings to larger social and political issues, giving them practice
in critical thinking and helping them see the relevance of class content.