Introduction to Psychology (PSYC 1504) at UoPeople

Introduction to Psychology (PSYC 1504) is another course I took at the UoPeople last term. It's an elective course. I’ll be honest; I would lose count if I begin calculating the times I have studied Psychology. Art, history, and psychology are some of my favorite subjects and they have been very instrumental in my development as a person. Suffice it to say, I find them very educational and enjoyable.

In the class, you mainly learn about biopsychology, consciousness, sensation/perception, learning, thinking, intelligence, memory, lifespan, motivation/emotions, personality, social psychology, industrial-organizational psychology, stress, psychological disorders, and treatment. It's a very lightweight course, which you can pair with one or two more courses. 

My class had 21 students and not many dropped out. I was the only one from the US in the class. My professor was from the Bahamas and had a Ph.D. in Advanced Studies in Human Behavior. She was very active throughout the course and regularly posted in the Discussion Forums, reviewed/re-graded assignments on her own, communicated with students, and provided thought-provoking feedback on Learning Journals. Unfair peer assessment and plagiarism were prevalent in the class. But the professor took care of them. She was such a sweet motherly figure on the whole.

You get a colorful book in the course, which was brilliant in my view. You read two chapters each week to do your assignments. Most of the time, I didn’t have to reference another source as the textbook explained the concepts thoroughly. Psychology is a debatable subject, especially in a diverse setting like a classroom at the UoPeople where people come from different cultures and societies. There was unfair peer assessment in the class when a student didn’t agree with the ideas of another student. At least, that is what I gathered by looking at the grades I received from my peers. My instructor fixed unreasonable peer assessments on her own regularly. She also ran a plagiarism checker to make sure that students weren't just cheating from questionable sources. I love instructors with high integrity and moral values that despise cheaters because they align with my own values.

You write 7 Discussion Forum posts, 4 Written Assignments, and 7 Learning Journals in the course. The Discussion Forum posts and Written Assignments are worth 5% each or 10% in total. Learning Journals are worth 20%. The assignments in this course are on the practical side as they want you to recall a time or come up with an example when you experienced the psychological aspects or certain behaviors. The Written Assignments specifically want you to find studies on the psychological concepts you learn in the class. The Learning Journals mostly want you to answer a few practical questions based on what you have learned in the week. All the assignments were uncomplicated from my viewpoint.

Each Graded quiz is worth 15% of the course. You take the quizzes in the 3rd and 6th week of the class. You’ve to answer 20 questions within 30mins in the graded quizzes. The Final Exam has 40 questions, which you’ve to answer in 60mins. I felt the allotted time was fairly ample to finish the quizzes and exam. The non-Graded Quizzes and Final Review Quiz prepares you well for the Graded Quizzes and Final Exam. Most of the questions in the Final Exam and Graded Quizzes consist of principles, phenomena, behaviors, disorders, biases, stages, developments, reflexes, definitions, theories, and psychologists/scientists you study in the class from the textbook. The Final particularly had many questions on hypothetical circumstances where you’ve to tell which behavior or phenomenon is being displayed in a situation. I specifically felt that the Final Exam was fantastic in invoking critical thinking in students. There was also minimal repetition in it.

I got 36/40 on the final and ended up getting an A in the course. If you haven't studied psychology before, you might struggle with the class. The final presents many hypothetical situations, which you can correctly answer only if you do your readings, and have a good foundation in psychology. Overall, it’s an awesome course that will enhance your knowledge about various characteristics of human behavior in terms of psychology. In other words, you will be able to introspect why we as humans do things the way we do them. I feel this course will be instrumental in your development as a person if you actually study and do your readings.