Join Ronald J. Comer (Princeton University) and Jonathan S. Comer (Florida International University), the renowned best-selling authors of Abnormal Psychology and Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, as they review the rapidly growing body of research on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the state of mental health and its treatment.     WATCH RECORDING ... View more

APA has a new Introductory Psychology Initiative that provides recommendations for teaching the intro psych course, training teachers, and assessing student learning. In this webinar, Jane Halonen (University of West Florida) will discuss the Initiative's recommendations regarding student learning outcomes and assessment strategies to improve the quality of the introductory psychology experience.     WATCH RECORDING ... View more

In the Society for the Teaching of Psychology Facebook group, Maria Lechtreck shared a 15-minute Graham Shaw video that teaches us how to draw. After learning—in mere minutes—how to draw cartoon faces, I have been wondering how to work this into my Intro Psych course—the video, not the cartoon faces. The Intro Psych textbook I use (Myers and DeWall, Psychology in Everyday Life) opens with a short chapter titled “Student Success,” and the chapter contains all kinds of useful information on how to be, well, a successful student. I ask my students to reflect on what they read in this chapter, identify three suggestions they found most useful and why, and then identify their biggest challenges and what strategies they have in place to cope with those challenges. As a companion to that question, I’m considering adding this set of questions. *********** How confident are you in your ability to draw? Very? Somewhat? Not at all? Now, watch this 15-minute video. Participate along with the audience, drawing the characters as the presenter Graham Shaw draws them: Spike, Thelma, Jeff, Pam, and Albert Einstein. Draw a character of your own imagination. Take a photo of your collection of 6 drawings, and paste the photo here as part of your assignment. After watching the video and participating along with the audience, are you more confident in your ability to draw? Explain. At the end of the recording, Shaw asks us to consider what other beliefs we carry around about ourselves that may be causing us to limit what we can do. If someone believed that they are “not good at math,” for example, how could that belief limit the career paths they might take? Lastly, read “How praise came to be a consolation prize” in The Atlantic. What is meant by “fixed mindset?” What is meant by “growth mindset?” When someone says, “I can’t draw” or “I can’t do math” or “I can’t write,” are they exhibiting a fixed mindset or a growth mindset? Explain. Lastly, what is meant by “false growth mindset?” According to growth mindset, what’s the best way to react to a failure? ... View more

The perennial question for any introductory course is about what to cover. Is it better to teach more stuff superficially? Or is it better teach less stuff deeply? This is the classic breadth vs. depth dilemma. I don’t think anyone goes all-in on breadth, teaching Intro Psych by covering one isolated concept after another, jamming in every known psychological concept. If that’s you, may I suggest using the APA Dictionary of Psychology as your open source textbook? Nor do I think that anyone goes all-in on depth, teaching Intro Psych by covering one concept in great detail. That’s what a graduate school dissertation is for. Instead, we’re all somewhere in between these two extremes. How far left from center and how far right from center is the question. This question would be easier to answer if we knew where the center was. When I teach Intro Psych, what I choose to cover and choose not to cover are driven by two primary factors. The first is the textbook I’m using. The authors—with much input from reviewers and editor(s)—have curated the psychological knowledge that they think is important for an educated citizenry to know. That one’s easy. I have a book that tells me what they thought was important. The second factor is my own opinion of what an educated citizenry needs to know. This one is a little harder, but not much. If knowing a piece of psychological knowledge will increase the chances of saving someone’s life, it’s more likely to make my cut. I spend more time and effort covering sleep and attention than I used to. My coverage of psychological disorders focuses much more on stigma these days than it does on, say, symptoms. (Shout out to Susan Nolan for helping me think about this.) I’ve changed my approach to psychotherapy so that students can explore how to find a psychotherapist and the questions to ask a potential psychotherapist. When Intro Psych instructors get together, these are the kinds of issues we talk about. How much of your coverage of the personality chapter is historical? Or, more to the point, do you cover Freud? Do you lecture on the sodium-potassium pump? Do you ask students to know what each neurotransmitter does? How much I/O content do you cover? Do you cover motivation and emotion? But here’s what we don’t talk about. At the Intro course level—and this is true for any discipline—we deliver the simplified version. We zoom out to the 30,000-foot view where we can’t see the nuance. In Intro to History (of some appropriate time period) we learn that the cause of WWI was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand. We learn in Intro to Anatomy that there are two arteries in the human arm, the radial and the ulnar. We learn in Intro to Art that Picasso was a cubist. All of that is true. Sort of. Much had to come before in order for Ferdinand’s assassination to trigger a world war. Some people have three arteries in their arms. And Picasso, in his early years, was not a cubist; that came later. In Intro Psych we have our own typically-covered content that is true in a sort of kind of way. The brain, for example, is much more complex than could ever be presented in Intro Psych. Yes, the temporal lobes play an important role in hearing—but the temporal lobes do so much more beyond that. Yes, the occipital lobes play an important role in vision—but lots of other places in the brain are important for vision, too. But we keep it simple. Temporal=hearing; occipital=vision. Yes, perceptions of three dimensions comes from binocular vision, but not everyone with two good eyes perceives the world in three dimensions. Decision-making and memory involve much more than what we present in the Intro course. Psychological disorders are much more complex than could be covered in Intro. If students are lucky enough to take another psychology course (keeping in mind that the vast majority of students in Intro Psych are not psychology majors), the instructor of that next course will say something like, “In Intro Psych, you may have learned X. In this course, you’ll learn that that’s not the whole story. Let me tell you about Y.” And then for the few students who go on to graduate school in psychology, they’ll hear, “As an undergraduate you were probably told X and Y. In graduate school, you’ll learn that’s not the whole story. Let me tell you about Z.” And then when that even smaller number of students goes on to spend decades researching that one area, they’ll begin to fill in the other letters of the alphabet. And therein lies the challenge in teaching Intro Psych. None of us who teaches the course knows the whole alphabet—or even the portion of the alphabet known to date—for every concept we cover. In fact, we know X for most of what is in our Intro Psych textbooks. We may know Y for some concepts—probably as a result of an upper division course we took and perhaps now teach. And for even fewer concepts—the concepts we researched ourselves in graduate school—we also know Z. And if you have an area you are researching now, I bet you also know A, B, and, depending on whether your current studies are going to yield the data you expect, C. Intro Psych is the most difficult course in our curriculum to teach. It’s the course that will make you painfully aware of how much you don’t know about psychology, because you know the simplified version of most of the course content. You know X. The longer you teach it, however, the more you learn. In some areas, you start to pick up Y. You get better at answering student questions. When you first start teaching Intro, your modal answer to student questions is most likely “I don’t know.” After a few years, as you learn more, you start to answer more frequently with “it depends,” and you’ll have one or two things in your back pocket that “it” depends on. But whatever your answer, it will still be the simplified version. Because you’re teaching Intro Psych. ... View more

I read my share of blogs and news stories. Concepts we cover in Intro Psych appear with some frequency out there in the land of popular culture. Freudian terms—**bleep** retentive, oral fixation—seem to be less commonly used than they used to be. Correlations—described, if not named—pop up often. Unfortunately, they’re too often discussed in terms of causation. Classical and operant conditioning often make appearances, and, yes, negative reinforcement is frequently confused with punishment. When a writer mentions classical/Pavlovian conditioning, I go on the alert. Is this really an example of classical conditioning? Or is it mislabeled operant conditioning? I’m pulling for the writer to get it correct. And I do a little celebratory dance when they do. I haven’t been doing many celebratory dances lately. When it comes to conditioning, the default assumption seems to be that whatever the example is, it’s classical conditioning. If the person says it is an example of operant conditioning, they’re usually correct. If the person says it is an example of classical conditioning, well, they’re less often correct. When I cover classical and operant conditioning in Intro Psych, I emphasize that classical conditioning invokes involuntary behaviors and operant conditioning requires voluntary behaviors. Since we cover these topics sequentially, it’s easy to just cover and move on. But given how easy it is for people to conflate these types of conditioning, some interleaving is in order. In interleaving, it’s important for students to get practice moving back and forth between classical and operant conditioning. Here’s an example you can use to help students get a bit of practice in separating classical from operant conditioning. Ask students to read this short article (“Simone Giertz built a photo booth that lets her dog take selfies for treats”). Students do not need to watch the 15-minute video, but they certainly may if they’d like. In a synchronous or an asynchronous group discussion, ask: The author of the article writes that Simone Giertz “Pavlov’d her dog into taking selfies.” Is this true? Has the selfie-taking dog been trained using classical (also called Pavlovian) conditioning? Or has the dog been trained using operant conditioning? Explain the reasons for your choice. Once students have correctly identified this as operant conditioning, you may want to expand the discussion. What would happen if the dog kept pressing the pedal and no more treats were given? Let’s take the discussion a little further. Now let’s say that after several repetitions, the dog salivated when the rotating dispenser delivered a treat. Would that be classical or operant conditioning? Explain the reasons for your choice. And one more step. What would happen here if the dispenser rotated, but no treat was delivered? What would happen to the selfie-taking dog’s amount of salivation? Conclusion By giving students interleaving practice with classical and operant conditioning using real-world examples, hopefully, they will be better equipped to detect errors—and when they start writing for the public, they’ll not make those same errors in identification. And, in the end, the public will learn from the correct applications of these concepts. ... View more

David Myers (Hope College), longtime author of our bestselling introductory psychology resources, offers his insights on the human element of this crisis—our need to belong, why we may be too much, or too little, afraid, and how shared threats affect social behavior.     WATCH RECORDING ... View more

Mask-wearing (or not) continues to be a social psychological goldmine. In this case, let’s take a look at conformity. The social pressure to wear or not wear a mask is pervasive. If you are not wearing a mask but are surrounded by people who are, you can feel the pressure to conform to the group’s behavior and put your mask on. If you are wearing a mask but are surrounded by people who are not, you can feel the pressure to conform to the group’s behavior and take your mask off. Even medical doctors who know the value of wearing masks as a coronavirus transmission preventative can feel the social pressure at a party where no one else is wearing a mask, as described in the New York Times article below. And imagine being at the White House reception for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, a reception where no one was wearing a mask. After covering conformity, provide the following discussion prompt. ******** Part A. Read this New York Times article: “If You See Someone Not Wearing a Mask, Do You Say Something?” (It’s better to link to this September 13, 2020 article in your library database as students may have exceeded their number of free New York Times articles for the month.) From our textbook reading, identify the factors that increase the likelihood of conforming. For each, note whether the factor was present in Dr. Robert Klitzman’s party experience. Provide evidence from the article. Part B. Review these photos taken on September 26, 2020. For each factor that increases the likelihood of conforming, note whether the factor was present. Provide evidence from the photos and article. Part C. Have you had a similar experience where you felt social pressure to wear a mask or not? Describe the experience. Which factors that increase the likelihood of conforming were present for you? Which were absent? Finally, what did you do: conform or not conform? Part D. Lastly, when put in the same position again, would thinking about the factors that increase the likelihood of conforming affect your ability to resist the social pressure? Why or why not? ... View more

There must be a cognitive bias that explains why it is so hard for us to learn that correlation does not mean causation. Okay, we can learn it fine. Applying it consistently is the hard part. Last week here in the Pacific Northwest we had a few days of our typical late fall weather: highs in the low 60s (upper teens Celsius) and rainy. And that’s when I discovered that I’m not ready for late fall. Fortunately for me, it’s early fall, and we’re now looking at a 10-day stretch of mid-70s (low 20s Celsius) and sunny. This morning, I opened my news feed to see this article: “Thinking like a Norwegian may help you cope with a winter lockdown.” Oslo's average temperature in January is 32 degrees (0 Celsius), and they get about 6 hours of daylight, so I thought, “Perfect! Let’s see what the experimental evidence says. I could use some tips!” Researchers gave a sample of Norwegians a questionnaire asking about their attitudes about winter, their mental health, and their life satisfaction. Those who had better mental health and higher ratings of life satisfaction had better attitudes about winter. Those who had poorer mental health and higher ratings of life satisfaction had poorer attitudes about winter. This correlational—not experimental—research doesn’t help me at all. After covering correlations and experiments in Intro Psych, in a synchronous or asynchronous discussion, provide students with this discussion prompt: Read “Thinking like a Norwegian may help you cope with a winter lockdown.” Is this article describing a correlational study or an experimental study? How do you know? The article suggests that if you change how you think about winter, you will feel better. In other words, they’re saying that how you think about winter will cause you to feel better. Based on this research study alone, is that conclusion warranted? Why or why not? Monitor the group discussions. If they’re falling into the trap of thinking “it makes sense that how one thinks about winter would affect one’s attitude toward winter,” prompt students with this: This was a correlational study. They measured attitudes toward winter and measured levels of mental health and levels of life satisfaction. They found positive correlations. When attitudes toward winter were high, mental health was better (and vice versa). When attitudes toward winter were high, life satisfaction was high (and vice versa). It is possible that those who have better mental health and higher life satisfaction already would see winter more positively. It may not be that attitudes toward winter cause life satisfaction/mental health. It may be that life satisfaction/mental health cause attitudes toward winter. Or maybe there are third factors. Can you think of any third factors that could cause people to have positive attitudes toward winter and have better mental health and higher life satisfaction? Given that this research was correlational, what would have been a better article title? If you’d like to extend this discussion or spin it off into an assignment, give students this prompt. While correlations cannot tell us which variable is the cause and which is the effect, experimental research can. Here are two hypotheses. Design an experiment that would test each of these hypotheses. Hypothesis 1: Seeing winter in a more positive way can cause people to feel more satisfied about their lives. Design an experiment that would test this hypothesis. Be sure to identify the independent variable and dependent variable. Hypothesis 2: Feeling more positive about our lives can cause us to see winter in a more positive light. Design an experiment that would test this hypothesis. Be sure to identify the independent variable and dependent variable. ... View more

Recently the American Psychological Association published a Speaking of Psychology podcast (and transcript) about the One Mind PsyberGuide—a mental health app rating service. While I wasn’t paying attention, mental health apps have proliferated. Visiting the About One Mind PsyberGuide page, we learn “One Mind PsyberGuide now operates out of the University of California, Irvine and Northwestern University where our team consists of experts in mental health, technology, and technology delivered care. One Mind PsyberGuide is not an industry website; its goal is to provide accurate and reliable information free of preference, bias, or endorsement.” Their mental health app rating system—applied by professional reviewers—includes three main criteria: credibility, user experience, and transparency. Not all of the 196 apps in their database have complete reviews as of this writing. The following is a suggested assignment for the Intro Psych therapy chapter. ********* One challenge for consumers when looking at mental health services is determining what has good scientific evidence backing it and what is closer to quackery. The One Mind PsyberGuide is a website that provides reviews of mental health apps. Apply the CRAAP test to the One Mind PsyberGuide website. Be sure to address each bullet point under Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. In one paragraph, state whether you would recommend this website to friend who was interested in using a mental health app? Explain why or why not. Now, download one of the free apps reviewed by the site to your phone. (If you don’t have a phone, please contact your instructor for an alternative to this section of this assignment.) Apply the CRAAP test to the app. Again, be sure to address each bullet point under Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. Does your evaluation of the app match the review provided by the PsyberGuide? Explain. In one paragraph, state whether you would recommend this mental health app to a friend? Explain why or why not.           ... View more

Join us for the Macmillan's Psychology Speaker Series!  At Macmillan Learning, our psychology community includes committed teachers, researchers, and authors. Among them are some exceptionally compelling advocates for how psychological science can help us understand our contemporary lives. Join us for this timely, idea-rich series of talks from some of the most effective voices in psychology education today, as they share their thoughts on teaching, learning, and living in these unsettling times. You can register for one or all of the following webinars: October 8 - Human Behavior Amidst the COVID Crisis: Helping and Hurting? with David Myers - 1:00 PM EST: VIEW THE RECORDING David Myers (Hope College), longtime author of our bestselling intro psych resources, offers his insights on the human element of this crisis--our need to belong, why we may be too much, or too little, afraid, and how shared threats affect social behavior. October 21 - The APA Introductory Psychology Initiative Outcomes: What You Need to Know with Jane Halonen- 1:00 PM EST: VIEW THE RECORDING APA has a new Introductory Psychology Initiative that provides recommendations for teaching the intro psych course, training teachers, and assessing student learning. In this webinar, Jane Halonen (University of West Florida) will discuss the Initiative's recommendations regarding student learning outcomes and assessment strategies to improve the quality of the introductory psychology experience. November 5 - Abnormal Psychology in the Era of COVID-19 with Ron & Jon Comer- 1:00 PM EST Join Ronald J. Comer (Princeton University) and Jonathan S. Comer (Florida International University), the renowned best-selling authors of Abnormal Psychology and Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, as they review the rapidly growing body of research on how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the state of mental health and its treatment. November 12 - Making a Smooth Transition to Online Assessment with Scott Cohn- 1:00 PM EST Looking for simple solutions? Professor Scott Cohn (Western Colorado University) will demonstrate tips and techniques for creating a positive online assessment experience for students. Resource options will be compared with specific examples from his Introductory Psychology course. November 19 - A Hidden Strength in the Psychology Classroom with Debra Roberts - 2:00 PM EST Debra Roberts (Howard University), lead supplements author of My Psychology, draws on her years of teaching and research to share strategies for talking about diversity in psychology classes.   Register today to save your seat! REGISTER HERE *NOTE: You must follow this link to register.  ... View more

Between 2001 and 2003, the Program for Research on Black Americans—founded and led by the late James S. Jackson—conducted “the most comprehensive and detailed study of mental disorders and the mental health of Americans of African descent ever completed.” The discussion below would be appropriate when covering surveys in the Intro Psych research methods chapter, when covering the psychological disorders chapter, or when covering stress and coping. While the instructions are written for an asynchronous (online) discussion, these instructions may be adapted for a synchronous (face-to-face/virtual) discussion. Initial post Dr. James S. Jackson, University of Michigan social psychologist, passed away on September 1, 2020. Read his New York Times obituary. [Instructors, find his obituary in your library database and link to it there as the New York Times limits the number of free articles non-subscribers may access each month.] Part A. Quote Find a quote from the obituary that you found interesting and in 100+ words of reflection, explain why. Be sure to use quotation marks for your quote; the quotation is not part of the 100+ word count. Part B. Research Dr. Jackson founded the Program for Research on Black Americans. Visit the Program’s website. Review their five research themes found under the Research tab. After reading about each theme, which theme would you say is most important right now? In 100+ words of reflection, explain why. Part C. Publications On the Program for Research on Black Americans website, visit the Publications page. Much of the Program’s recent research is at least partly based on the National Survey of American Life. Please read through the journal article titles (either adolescent or adult). Based on the article titles, identify at least one article you would be interested in reading. In 100+ words of reflection, explain why. Responses Please respond to the initial discussion posts written by at least two of your classmates. Part A. In 50+ words, respond to the quote chosen with at least two of the following: A compliment, e.g., "I like how... because...," I like that... because..." A comment, e.g., "I agree that... because...," "I disagree that... because..." A connection, e.g., "I have also thought that...," "That reminds me of..." A question, e.g., "I wonder why...," "I wonder how..."  Part B. In 50+ words, respond to the research chosen with at least two of the following: A compliment, e.g., "I like how... because...," I like that... because..." A comment, e.g., "I agree that... because...," "I disagree that... because..." A connection, e.g., "I have also thought that...," "That reminds me of..." A question, e.g., "I wonder why...," "I wonder how..."  Part C. In 50+ words, respond to the publication chosen with at least two of the following: A compliment, e.g., "I like how... because...," I like that... because..." A comment, e.g., "I agree that... because...," "I disagree that... because..." A connection, e.g., "I have also thought that...," "That reminds me of..." A question, e.g., "I wonder why...," "I wonder how..."    ... View more

I recently read Michele Harper’s memoir, The Beauty in Breaking, about her experience as an emergency room physician. In one chapter, she writes about people coming to the ER who have so much more broken in their lives than, say, their arm. With some gentle probing, Harper may learn that the cause of the broken arm is the boyfriend sitting in the waiting area. She writes: [W]hat's even worse is when I ask the question, and the patient declines assistance. Their doing so shouldn't feel like a personal affront, but for an instant, it can. Of course, if a patient declines help, that has nothing to do with me personally. Clearly, I'll go home to my life and not be beaten just the same. Perhaps what bothers me most is the raw realization that I care more deeply for the welfare of another human being than he cares for himself, and that that human being will leave my care to suffer more needless violence. While Harper is speaking of physical danger, this section resonated with me as an educator. A student may come to me because of a poor grade on an assignment. With some gentle probing, I may learn that the student has an abusive boyfriend, has three part-time jobs, is a single parent to an infant and a toddler, is battling addiction/anxiety/depression—or some combination of all of these. When these are the cause, and my offers of help—such as a referral to our college counseling center—are declined, I feel sadness, certainly, but it doesn’t affect me as deeply as it seems to affect Harper, most likely because our roles are different. These are students who I believe value their education—they care about their education—but there are significant barriers in them achieving their educational goals. And my ability to help them navigate life’s choppy waters is limited.   Major life circumstance barriers aside, there are times that I do find myself with a similar raw realization—that I care more deeply for a student’s education than they care for it themselves. I feel this most acutely with students who seem to have none of those life circumstance barriers, but who see education as something to be slogged through with minimal effort, not as something worthwhile in its own right—they seem to want the degree without the learning that it represents. In some cases, they don’t even seem to particular want the degree; they’re in college because of someone else’s expectations. It’s difficult to write supportive and constructive comments on the assignments of such students when I know that the comments will likely go unread—or if read, unheeded. I was probably in the first year of my first full-time teaching job in the mid-1990s when one of our counselors spoke at a faculty meeting. She said, to paraphrase, “I know all of you mean well when you give students 3rd, 4th, and 5th chances, but you are not doing your students any favors. Students need to at least meet you halfway.” And then she said, “Students have a right to fail.” As a young faculty member, that was mind-blowing. I could deliver material that was important and relevant. I could present it in the most compelling way. I could construct meaningful assessments of their learning. I could not, however, do the learning. My students were the only ones who could do that. Twenty-five years later, that is still true. I’ve been teaching at the same college long enough to have students come back for a round two. They’ll say, “I took your class 7 years ago, and I didn’t do very well.” They mean that they failed. “I wasn’t ready to go to college then, but I am now.” And they are. Invariably, they do much better than they did the first time. I see students with those significant life barriers again—they got away from the abusive boyfriend, they have a better-paying job, their children are older and more independent, their mental health is better. When a student doesn’t do as well in my course as I believe they can, I cannot let myself think that I care more deeply about their education than they do. Instead, I have to think, “I look forward to seeing you again.” ... View more

"Albert Bandura is Psychology legend." Positive Voices features Macmillan's beloved author, Albert Bandura, in their latest Positive Conversation interview with Larry King where Bandura speaks on his theories, including social modeling, social cognitive theory, and moral disengagement, as well as tips for building up self-efficacy.  #psychstudentrss ... View more

"Together, the results from these studies suggest that individuals with social anxiety show an irregular attentional pattern when they are viewing emotional faces." Eye Tracking Evidence Shows that Social Anxiety Changes the Picture http://ow.ly/CfaM30r1XvU #psychstudentrss  ... View more

It’s not very often we get to watch the birth of a social norm. Or at least not on this scale, nor at this speed. Mask-wearing was practically non-existent in the U.S. in March 2020. In late July, while certainly not universal, mask-wearing has become more common. As I’ve watched the norm shift in my community over these last few months, I’ve wondered about how other norms came into being. For example, seat belt use. In 1968, the U.S. law went into effect requiring all vehicles to have seat belts—except buses, such as the ones that carry children to and from school. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s that many states enacted seatbelt laws—wear a seatbelt or get fined. Now 90% of people in the U.S. wear seatbelts, with just about every state showing increased percentages since 2004, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (data for 2004 to 2011; data for 2012-2019). In looking at the data, my first thought was, how did they get these data? Self-report surveys? Nope. The data come from observational studies conducted by each state using a uniform set of observational criteria, called “Uniform Criteria for State Observational Surveys of Seat Belt Use.” I kid you not. After covering observational research, present this scenario to your students (in a synchronous or asynchronous discussion): Congratulations! You received a federal grant to conduct research on seat belt use in our state/territory. Your task is to estimate seat belt use. How would you select where you are going to do your observations? Are there particular places you would exclude? Explain your rationale. What time of day would you do your observations? Are there particular times you would exclude? Explain your rationale. Who would you observe? Just the driver or also passengers? Explain your rationale. If you’re observing at an intersection, would you observe all cars at the intersection? Or just those traveling, say, north/south or east/west? How would you decide? Explain your rationale. If you’re observing a two-lane road, would you observe cars traveling in both directions, or just one direction? How would you decide? Explain your rationale. Because of the scope of this study, you will need to hire and train people to do the observations. How would you ensure that the observations they make are accurate? Explain your rationale. After students have made their responses to these questions: Visit the Uniform Criteria for State Observational Surveys of Seat Belt Use. These are the criteria the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gives to states to conduct their annual seat belt studies. The reports are then compiled and sent to the NHTSA. You can see the compiled data for 2012-2019. For A through F, compare your criteria with those of the NHTSA, particularly sections 1340.5 through 1340.8. Would you be in compliance? If not, what would you need to change? In reflecting on everyone’s initial observations plans, who came closest to the NHTSA criteria? Explain your choice. If you’d like to expand this discussion, consider asking students to take what they learned from the NHTSA criteria and use it to answer these questions about the prevalence of mask-wearing in your state/territory. How would you select where you are going to do your observations? Are there particular places you would exclude? Explain your rationale. What time of day would you do your observations? Are there particular times you would exclude? Explain your rationale. Who would you observe? Adults only or children, too? Explain your rationale. Where would you do your observations? How would you decide? Explain your rationale. Because of the scope of this study, you will need to hire and train people to do the observations. How would you ensure that the observations they make are accurate? Explain your rationale. How would define “mask-wearing”? Would any facial covering count? Does it need to be covering the nose? Explain your rationale. ... View more