Community Profile

Overview

Community Profile

Blog Plan

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 Who is in this community?

The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics notes that in 2005, colleges granted 85,600 undergrad psychology degrees – up 46 percent from 1991(Click here to see a table comparing psychology to other majors.) Princeton Review, which collects data from thousands of colleges annually, asked schools to rank which undergrad majors have the highest enrollment. Overall, psychology was the 2^nd-most popular course of study for undergraduates

 

While demographic information is not available by major, I’ve gathered some numbers on undergraduates at large. Since psychology is such a popular major, I’m assuming the subgroup’s makeup is similar to that of the student population. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2004, of all students enrolled in postsecondary education at any level,

• 57 percent female
• 43 percent male
• 61 percent were full-time students
• 30 percent were minorities
• 83 percent were younger than 35
• 76 percent received some form of financial aid (2007).

This tells me that my target audience is generally young and mostly Caucasian. In addition, 94 percent of college students used the internet daily in 2005, according to the Simmons Market Research Bureau. In addition, in the past 30 days, 39 percent of all college students had used the internet for research and education, 37 percent used it to get news and 24 percent used the web to get employment information. These rates are all significantly higher than the proportions of adults using the internet for these purposes.

What are their interests, and where do they get information on these topics?

Psychology isn’t a pre-professional major. With a diploma in the field, graduates might go on to law school, take a job in consulting or find work in marketing. Continuing education in psychology generally grooms clinicians, psychologists and psychiatrists. Therefore, the one truly unifying factor among these students is not career intent, but rather a strong interest in psychology.

 

Therefore, it makes sense that this community would seek out information about aspects of psychology they find interesting. When I asked psychology students what aspects of psychology interest them most, I got a range of responses: social psychology, behavioral psychology, clinical psychology, health psychology, and on and on. These students (and recent graduates) obviously trust their professors to provide them with accurate, timely information on established research as well as new developments in the field. As experts, professors are expected to teach both theory and application.

 

“In my classes, things that stick out in my mind are when teachers would find examples from popular media, like TV or books, to illustrate psychology in the everyday world,” says Andrea Diamond, a senior psychology major at the University of Virginia. “In one class, the professor showed us clips from My So-Called Life. There’s something really effective about applying academic concepts to popular media.”

 

So where do students go for additional information beyond the classroom? All of the students I interviewed did not mention any websites specifically and solely containing psychology information. Scott Sode, a senior in psychology and journalism at Northwestern University, always reads the psychology-related content that pops up in his Yahoo News. Pelnar says she Googles psychological content she wants to learn more about, and then visits pages that pop up from organizations she recognizes – “not just Wikipedia.”

 

Some students say they do occasionally turn to the websites of two well-known organizations, the American Psychological Association (APA) and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Both of these websites have search functions and “Topic Finders” to aid students satisfying their curiosity or doing research for class. However, though both Web sites have RSS feeds that pull together relevant news stories, the news is not categorized and easy to search through. Therefore, a student researching depression, for example, will find tons of background information, but not research from the last week and year.

 

The APA website has a special section for students, and it links to some pretty comprehensive resources for students who intend to become career psychologists, with everything from salary surveys to scholarship opportunities. But the information is for budding professional psychologists, and not necessarily those undergrads who are simply interested in the topic. As my interview subjects reminded me over and over, psychology is not a pre-professional major. The next course of action is not as simple as applying to grad school or getting a job “in the field” – many undergrads plan to follow different paths than the one the APA’s student section lays out. Furthermore, no one that I interviewed indicated that they use this student section.

How and under what circumstances do they communicate with one another?

The most comprehensive online community for student psychologists is the American Psychological Association of Graduate Students – clearly intended for those pursuing Master’s and Doctorate degrees. With a paid membership in this organization, students can attend events, apply for internships, and access career resources. But again, this organization is strictly for psychology grad students – people who, presumably, have chosen psychology as a career instead of just a field of study. The organization maintains a number of different listserves so members can keep in contact, but I did not see or was not able to access any forums or message boards. The site seems, for the most part, non-interactive and unidirectional: from the organization to the students.

 

So what about undergrads? Psi Chi, an honors society for undergraduate and graduate students in psychology, has chapters at more than 1,000 universities in the U.S. and Canada. Individual chapters might organize social events and speakers on campus. Membership ability is based solely on academic performance. Several students I interviewed, including Pelnar and Diamond, said they’re aware of campus psychology honors societies, but neither one considers herself “involved.”

 

It seems this community does communicate orally, however, and that makes sense – they’re learning about psychology in a big lecture hall, and they’re bound to be friends with at least one or two other psychology majors. Sode says he sometimes takes classes with his roommate, and they share a textbook and discuss the studies they read. Pelnar also talks about class material with peers outside of class.

 

“My roommate’s a psych major, and after an interesting class we’d spend a lot of time discussing things we were learning,” she says. “That’s a good way to understand it or put it into practice, rather than just reading out of textbook.”

 

But all students I interviewed expressed a strong interest in communicating with students from other universities. Sode thinks Northwestern University’s psychology department has a distinct way of teaching the subject, and he’d be interested to learn about other department’s approaches. Pelnar pointed out that an online community would be a great way for students to discuss ideas (and commiserate!) with fellow soon-to-be-grads as they navigate the application process for higher education or work. All expressed dissatisfaction with their current ability to communicate online with others who share their interest in psychology, and all independently said they wished there were a forum or message board they could use to communicate.