Values in Psychology

The final step to the major learning outcome ladder is that of major learning outcome number five.  After successfully completing major learning outcomes one, two, three and four students are then able to take courses that will fulfill the fifth major learning outcome.  I feel that this major learning outcome is one of the most important ones because it sums up all the other major learning outcomes.  Students will use all the knowledge and skills that they learned in the previous major learning outcomes and apply them to courses that are needed to complete the fifth major learning outcome.  Although there are no true specific required courses, this is the same for major learning outcomes one and three but courses that I would believe to fulfill this outcome include: PSY110, PSY310, LING392 (In place for cognitive psychology), and PSY320.

The first class that I took that I feel fulfilled part of the requirement for this major learning outcome is PSY110.  I took this class at De Anza Community College before coming to Cal State Monterey Bay.  This class is human biology, but because my community college didn’t have human biology I had to take general biology.  It would have been good to take human biology but my teacher for general psychology did go into detail about chapters focused on human biology.  Secondly, I took PSY310 at Cal State Monterey Bay, which is biological psychology.  I was able to use what I learned in my general psychology class at De Anza to better understand the concepts in this course.  Thirdly, I had to take a linguistics course in place of cognitive development because at the time of registration all of the cognitive classes were filled.  While taking linguistics I honestly was not interested in it at all but after learning how I could connect it to psychology it made being in the class a lot easier.  I do feel that if I would have been able learn more if I was able to take cognitive development but comparing both of the classes I hope that I can maybe take this course at the community college I went to or even study it on the side to gain a better insight about the topic of cognitive psychology.  The last class that I would say would be included into this major learning outcome would be that of PSY320.  PSY320 is called psychopathology and is where I learned more about abnormal psychology.  Overall all of these courses together help fulfill this major learning outcome.

This major learning outcome is quite important, as it is the last step of the major learning outcome ladder.  Although I don’t have evident for successfully completing his major learning outcome I can honestly say that after taking the classes listed above that I am now able to use evidence of a study and find out if it is either an ethical study or an unethical study as well as be able to understand the need for ethical behavior, tolerance, ambiguity, demonstration of skepticism and intellectual curiosity, and respect for human diversity.  I feel like I also fulfilled this major learning outcome by taking PSY302.  Even though PSY302 belongs to major learning outcome number two, I learned how to identify if a study was ethical and to determine why the study was either ethical or unethical.  During class our teacher presented us with 10 studies and as a pop quiz we had to determine if that study was ethical and if it wasn’t we had o describe what aspects of the study made it unethical.  Overall all of the major learning outcomes are important but it seems like this one would be one of the most important because it includes factors from the other major learning outcomes.  After I was able to finish the classes listed above and successfully complete this major learning outcome I finally finished all the steps on the major learning outcome ladder.