Introduction To Psychology Noba

0 views

Skip to first unread message

Claudio Davey

unread,

Aug 3, 2024, 5:08:54 PM8/3/24

to inlenewshan

This modular approach to covering introductory psychology covers a wide variety of topics that can be selected in an ad hoc manner. As a Health Psychologist, I regret that there is not a specific chapter on Stress & Coping (based on the seminal work by Lazarus & Folkman), but the chapter "The Healthy Life" by Emily Hooker and Sarah Pressman is quite useful and covers a variety of topics within health psychology. There is also an intentional effort to cover breadth rather than depth, which is relatively appropriate given the pedagogical focus on introductory psychology. Given the large number of modules, it can be difficult to see from a larger perspective about the degree of overlap and redundancy between chapters, however.

As a clinical psychologist, I noted that information is included for DSM-5, but the recent revision to DSM-5-TR is not reflected in these modules. Given that the changes from DSM-5 to DSM-5-TR were more substantive than the change from DSM-IV to DSM-IV-TR, this is an important shift to capture within the most up-to-date information. Importantly, one of the most major changes were made in response to review groups that focus on Sex and Gender, Culture, Suicide, and Ethnoracial Equity and Inclusion to ensure than cultural and contextual differences in symptom presentations were taken into account using the most updated information on these topics.

The text is written clearly and would be easily understood by introduction to psychology students. Of course, this varies from module to module because of the different authors, but this is overall a highlight of this OER.

Even though this is a lower score, I would not raise this as a major concern. Rather, the lower score reflects the modularity of the OER. There are several small differences that arise with regard to terminologies and frameworks, but I do not foresee any to be so glaring that they would raise significant problems for students. I do appreciate the formatting consistency of each chapter, which provides a nice through-line that connects the different modules and scaffolds the information to students within a predictable and relevant structure.

This is a major strength of this OER and a very compelling reason to use these chapters in your course. Each chapter could really hold on its own and does not rely on others to communicate its main points. Instructors can curate a selection of chapters and order them in the best way that works for their course. As I mentioned earlier, you can also include these chapters into other courses (beyond introductory psychology) as supplemental readings.

The suggested structure of the texts makes sense but in itself would likely be too much reading to assign for most introductory psychology courses. As such, the strength of this OER is to allow instructors to determine their own organization based on the material provided.

Several of the modules mention cultural contexts and include meaningful understanding of cultural influences. I did not encounter any material that appeared culturally insensitive or offensive. However, it would be appreciated to more directly acknowledge the eurocentric nature of psychology's history and empirical knowledge base as a major limitation of the field. Additional modules that are centered on African and East Asian perspectives of psychological concepts would be appreciated.

The modular nature of this OER resource lends itself well to integrate some of the chapters into a variety of courses. Some of my favorite modules include "The Healthy Life", "Why Science?", "Functions of Emotions", and "Love, Friendship, and Social Support".

With so many modules to choose from, this collection offers an introduction to most areas of the discipline. Each module is relatively short and thus cannot always cover the depth of the topic, but it provides a good introduction. I should also mention that aside from the text itself, there are extremely comprehensive "companions" to each module, including test banks, discussion questions, pre-reading exercises, and even lecture slides. I didn't take advantage of those companion pieces, but they make it very easy to build a course of this text if that's what an instructor wants to do.

I'm not an expert in all the sub-disciplines covered, but I didn't find factual errors in the modules I'm more familiar with. Having experts in the topic write specific modules helps ensure that each topic gets covered accurately.

As a whole, I believe the text includes adequate (though not exemplary) consideration of psychological diversity. There were a few specific modules, however, in which omissions of cultural variation/nuance were stark and almost jarring.

The book covers a range of topics, presenting both general perspectives (e.g., Sensation and Perception) appropriate for survey classes and more specific modules (e.g., Vision, Touch & pain) for topical classes.read more

The book seems to be relatively up to date with citations from the early to mid 2000s, and it seems like updates would be relatively easy and straightforward to implement. However, I would like to see more citations from within the last 5-10 years

The text is very easy to follow with lots of examples. I also like how students can click on bolded terminology and get a definition (rather than having to scroll to the end of the chapter or the book)

The overall structure and length of each chapter are consistent. The use of bolded terms and the clickable glossary are consistent. However, it is a little hard to maintain consistency when almost every chapter is written by a different author/set of authors, though they do come close.

This book has wonderful modularity. It is broken into larger blocks (Psychology As Science, Development) with a mix of general and more specific topics within each block. It is very easy to select a particular module to include in one class and choose a second model to include in a different class.

Overall, the organization is good with the larger blocks (Psychology As Science, Development) and the subtopics/modules within each. Sometimes the organization of the modules themselves could be a bit better. It's not always clear why certain modules are in a given block or in the order they are in.

The interface looks good. The screen scrolls relatively well, no distortion of images or charts. The only thing that would make it better is if there was a clickable menu on the side that allows you to skip ahead rather than having to scroll through all the topics. NOBA has a clickable menu like that on their "browse" page, but not within this textbook.

None of the material is culturally insensitive or offensive. However, the book could benefit from some more examples that are culture specific. Some modules do include this information (e.g., emerging adulthood) and there is an entire module on Culture, but the book could use a little more diversity throughout.

This is a remarkable collection that covers 101 topics across Psychology. The modules are written by prominent researchers on the given topics. The text runs more than 1800 pages, indicating a very thorough examination. The index itself runs...read more

Each module is authored by an expert in that topic. Thus, to the extent that multiple authors would reduce the potential to present biased opinions or specific lens/viewpoint, the content could be considered unbiased. I reviewed topics in my own expertise (methods, social psychology) and the content was accurate and error-free; I did not see evidence of misinformation.

Each module is structured the same: general introduction/overview of topic, learning objectives, specific subjects/sections, outside resources (sometimes these are interspersed throughout the module), discussion questions, vocabulary, and module references.

I only noticed that the page numbers in the textbook did not navigate in alignment with the Adobe reader. The text, formatting, graphics, and pictures were all at professional levels. Very clean and organized.

Photos depicted an array of ages, genders, and race/ethnicities (to the extent that such identities are assumed based simply on appearance). There are modules specifically dedicated to community psychology; and stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination. Within specific modules, I found discussions of diversity e.g., cis and transgender; sexual fluidity; systemic oppression; essentialism; racial bias; among others. That being said, I did not see evidence or even acknowledgement across many modules of potential cultural effects within the topic or samples. (I found a lack of in-depth analyses of bias in psychological and intelligence testing, somewhat disconcerting; more of a hand-wave than a true acknowledgement.)

I am impressed with the coverage of so many topics. The publisher, funding foundation, and module authors are all reputable and respected within psychology. I liked the links to outside materials - which could be useful pedagogical tools for instructors.

With 101 modules, The Full Noba Collection is comprehensive in its coverage. The collection is divided into topic areas and is searchable by topic/keyword. Topic areas cover all of the traditional topics within an introductory psychology course including Psychology as a Science, Biological Basis of Behavior, Sensation and Perception, Development, Cognition and Language, Learning and Memory, Social, Personality, Emotions and Motivation, Psychological Disorders, Well-Being, and Community Psychology.