Teaching Writing to Psychology Students

Abstract: The aim of doctoral programs in psychology is to help students become competent psychologists, capable of conducting research and of finding suitable employment. Starting with a brief description of the basic organization of the French university system, this paper presents an overview of how the psychology doctoral training is organized in France. Since October 2000, the requisites and the training of PhD students are the same in all French universities, but what now differs is the openness to other disciplines according to the size and location of the university. Three main groups of doctoral programs are distinguished in this paper. The first group refers to small universities in which the Doctoral Schools are constructed around multidisciplinary seminars that combine various themes, sometimes rather distant from psychology. The second group covers larger universities, with a PhD program that includes psychology as well as other social sciences. The third group contains a few major universities that have doctoral programs that are clearly centered on psychology (clinical, social, and/or cognitive psychology). These descriptions are followed by comments on how PhD programs are presently structured and organized. In the third section, I suggest some concrete ways of improving this doctoral training in order to give French psychologists a more European dimension.

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A Multimedia Situational Test With a Constructed-Response Format

Journal of Personnel Psychology ◽

10.1027/1866-5888/a000035 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 78-88 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Janneke K. Oostrom ◽

Marise Ph. Born ◽

Alec W. Serlie ◽

Henk T. van der Molen

Keyword(s):

Cognitive Ability ◽

Computer Technology ◽

Psychology Students ◽

Learning Activities ◽

Ability Test ◽

Constructed Response ◽

Job Experience ◽

Relationship Of ◽

The Relationship ◽

Situational Test

Advances in computer technology have created opportunities for the development of a multimedia situational test in which responses are filmed with a webcam. This paper examined the relationship of a so-called webcam test with personality, cognitive ability, job experience, and academic performance. Data were collected among 153 psychology students. In line with our expectations, scores on the webcam test, intended to measure interpersonally oriented leadership, were related to extraversion, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and job experience. Furthermore, the webcam tests significantly predicted students’ learning activities during group meetings over and above a cognitive ability test and a personality questionnaire. Overall, this study demonstrates that webcam tests can be a valid complement to traditional predictors in selection contexts.

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