Career Paths in Psychology: Where Your Degree Can Take You, Second Edition - Kindle edition by Robert J. Sternberg, Robert J. Length: 376 pages; Word Wise: Enabled; Screen Reader: Supported; Enhanced Typesetting:. About the various things psychologists do in Career Paths in Psychology (Sternberg, 1997). Applications CAREERS IN PSYCHOLOGY basic research Research aimed at developing or testing theories which may or may not have practical applications applied research Research aimed at finding practical solutions to immediate problems (continued).
The most widely circulated newspaper in Connecticut recently carried a story on the meteoric rise of the president of one of the major banks in the state. I might have passed over the story with a glance had the name of the bank president not caught my eye. He was someone with whom I had gone to school from 1st grade right up through high school.
What especially caught my attention, though, was that he had been a C student—someone who didn't seem to have much to offer. Were the bank president an isolated case it might not be cause for alarm. But one cannot help wondering how many such students conclude that they really do not have much to contribute—in school or in the world at large—and so never try. The Cost of a Closed System.
Our system of education is, to a large degree, a closed system. Students are tested and classified in terms of two kinds of abilities—their ability to memorize information and, to a lesser extent, their ability to analyze it. They are also taught and assessed in ways that emphasize memory and analysis. As a result, we label students who excel in these patterns of ability as smart or able. We may label students who are weaker in these abilities as average or even slow or stupid. Students may, however, excel in other abilities that are at least as important as those we now reward.
Creativity and the practical application of information—ordinary common sense or 'street smarts'—are two such abilities that go unappreciated and unrecognized. They are simply not considered relevant to conventional education.
The ability tests we currently use, whether to measure intelligence or achievement or to determine college admissions, also value memory and analytical abilities. These tests predict school performance reasonably well. They do so because they emphasize the same abilities that are emphasized in the classroom.
Thus, students who excel in memory and analytical abilities get good grades. Practically oriented learners, however, who are better able to learn a set of facts if they can see its relevance to their own lives, lose out.
(Indeed, many teachers and administrators are themselves practical learners who simply tune out lectures or workshops they consider irrelevant to them.) The consequences of this system are potentially devastating. Through grades and test scores, we may be rewarding only a fraction of the students who should be rewarded.
Worse, we may be inadvertently disenfranchising multitudes of students from learning. In fact, when researchers have examined the lives of enormously influential people, whether in creative domains (Gardner 1993), practical domains (Gardner 1995), or both, they have found that many of these people had been ordinary—or even mediocre—students. Teaching in All Four Ways At any grade level and in any subject, we can teach and assess in a way that enables students to use all four abilities (Sternberg 1994, Sternberg and Spear-Swerling 1996. See also Sternberg and Williams 1996, Williams et al. In other words, we can ask students to.
Recall who did something, what was done, when it was done, where it was done, or how it was done;. Analyze, compare, evaluate, judge, or assess;. Create, invent, imagine, suppose, or design; and. Use, put into practice, implement, or show use. In physical education, for example, competitors need to learn and remember various strategies for playing games, analyze their opponents' strategies, create their own strategies, and implement those strategies on the playing field.
Figure 1 presents some examples of how teachers can do this in language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science. Teaching for Four Abilities Type of Skill Memory Analysis Creativity Practicality Language Arts Remember what a gerund is or what the name of Tom Sawyer's aunt was. Compare the function of a gerund to that of a participle, or compare the personality of Tom Sawyer to that of Huckleberry Finn. Invent a sentence that effectively uses a gerund, or write a very short story with Tom Sawyer as a character. Find gerunds in a newspaper or magazine article and describe how they are used, or say what general lesson about persuasion can be learned from Tom Sawyer's way of persuading his friends to whitewash Aunt Polly's fence. Mathematics Remember a mathematical formula (Distance=Rate x Time).
Solve a mathematical word problem (using the D=RT formula). Create your own mathematical word problem using the D=RT formula. Show how to use the D=RT formula to estimate driving time from one city to another near you. Social Studies Remember a list of factors that led up to the U.S. Compare, contrast, and evaluate the arguments of those who supported slavery versus those who opposed it. Write a page of a journal from the viewpoint of a soldier fighting for one or the other side during the Civil War. Discuss the applicability of lessons of the Civil War for countries today that have strong internal divisions, such as the former Yugoslavia.
Science Name the main types of bacteria. Analyze the means the immune system uses to fight bacterial infections. Suggest a way to cope with the increasing immunity bacteria are showing to antibiotic drugs. Suggest three steps that individuals might take to reduce the likelihod of bacterial infection. When we use this framework, relatively few activities will end up requiring only one of these four abilities.
On the contrary, most activities will be a mixture, as are the tasks we confront in everyday life. Notice that in this framework, instruction and assessment are closely related. Almost any activity that is used for the one can be used for the other. In addition, no type of activity should be limited to students whose strength is in that area. On the contrary, we should teach all students in all four ways. In that way, each student will find at least some aspects of the instruction and assessment to be compatible with his or her preferred way of learning and other aspects to be challenging, if perhaps somewhat uncomfortable. Teaching in all four ways also makes the teacher's job easier and more manageable.
No teacher can individualize instruction and assessment for each student in a large class, but any teacher can teach in a way that meets all students' needs. Does This Work in Practice? In the summer of 1993, we conducted a study of high school students to test our hypothesis that students learn and perform better when they are taught in a way that at least partially matches their own strengths (Sternberg 1996; Sternberg and Clinkenbeard 1995; Sternberg et al. Known as the Yale Summer Psychology Program, the study involved 199 students from high schools across the United States and some from abroad. Each school had nominated students for the program. Interested nominees then took a test designed to measure their analytical, creative, and practical abilities. The test included multiple-choice verbal, quantitative, and figural items, as well as analytical, creative, and practical essay items (Sternberg 1993).
A sample of the items appears in Figure 2. Sample Multiple-Choice Questions from the Sternberg Triarchic Abilities Test Analytical Verbal The vip was green, so I started to cross the street. Vip most likely means:. car. sign. light.
tree Creative Quantitative There is a new mathematical operation called graf. It is defined as follows: x graf y=x+y, if x.
Career Paths in Psychology is a must-have resource for students contemplating a career in psychology, for psychologists considering switching between areas of psychology, and for professionals thinking of switching to psychology from another field. In this comprehensive anthology, authors selected for their distinction in their chosen careers offer their professional - and personal - perspectives on 19 different graduate-level careers in psychology. Few fields of study offer more career opportunities than does psychology, and readers will find thoughtful discussions, leavened with tips and insights gained from personal experience, on the full range, including (to name only a few) academia, clinical psychology, health and school psychology, clinical neuropsychology, and government service. Each chapter discusses the nature of the career, its advantages and disadvantages, how to prepare for it, typical activities, ranges of financial compensation, opportunities for employment, and the personal attributes needed for success in the career. 'Day in the life' discussions give readers a glimpse into the prosaic realities, challenges, and rewards of each career that the lab or lecture hall rarely provides.
Reprinted eight times since the publication of the first edition in 1997, 'Career Paths in Psychology' is recognized as the 'go-to' sourcebook for anyone seeking a candid portrait of different careers in this ever-changing field. The second edition has been expanded (discussions of five new careers added) and updated to reflect current trends and changes in the field.