Kaleidoscope St. Peter 2007-8
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Teaching Forensic Psychology: A Case-Based ApproachCarolyn St. Peter, Ph.D. Department of Psychology Mesa Community College Contact information: (mailto:cstpeter@mail.mc.maricopa.edu)
Summary: This project evaluated the use of case studies as a pedagogical tool for applying scientific principles to the practice of Psychology.
Contents |
Project Goals and Objectives
Focus Course Information or Context for Project
In the Spring of 2007, the Psychology department began offering a course entitled Introduction to Forensic Psychology.
Introduction
Although there is a very long history for the use of case studies in medical, business, and law school education, very little research exists on the use of case-based instruction for increasing conceptual application in Psychology courses. Although anecdotal examples are often used, they are frequently in the form of stories told by the instructor (Herreid, 2007).
Providing students with opportunities to apply what they learn presents a unique challenge to a course in which the primary focus of study is not only a clinical population, but a forensic clinical population, which is traditionally found in restricted facilities such as prisons and forensic units of mental hospitals and wards. Needless to say, this population is rather inaccessible to a community college student.
Forensic Psychology is defined as "the application of scientific knowledge (in Psychology)to legal issues (Bartol & Bartol, 2006)." As in many clinical fields, Forensic Psychologists can be scientists or practitioners. Because an increasing number of Psychology students are identifying themselves as future practicing Forensic Psychologists at earlier points in their education, an early introduction to the process of applying scientific findings to cases would accomplish several goals:
1) strong appeal 2) improve student's abilities to critique, use, and appreciate scientific literature as a primary means of informing practice
Method
Cases were obtained from a variety of sources, and were presented to students as dilemmas, with a particular problem to be solved, or decision to be made. The cases had overriding themes: some were diagnostic in nature, some involved forming opinions about social policies, and some were ethical dilemmas. Class "case discussions" were stimulated by giving students worksheets with predetermined questions (so students would come to class prepared). Goals of the case discussions were to work through the facts of each case, consider the scientific knowledge about the facts involved, analyze the problem, consider possible solutions, and discuss implications and consequences of each solution.
A two-part questionnaire was administered both at the beginning of the Fall, 2007 semester (pretest), and again at the end of the semester (posttest). An Abnormal Psychology class was used as a control. Part I of the questionnaire required students to estimate and rate (on a 7-point Likert scale) their perceived ability to analyze cases using critical thinking. Part II of the questionnaire was designed to measure student's case analysis skills; in other words, their ability to use and apply theories taught during the course of the semester to a real-life case. Additional questions regarding students' perceptions of the effectiveness of cases, lecture, class discussion, videos, and primary-source research reports were included at the post-test for Forensic Psychology students only.
Project Results
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Conclusions
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Examples of Cases
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Reflections
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Annotated Reference List
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