The document discusses how a capstone course in psychology was able to help students integrate knowledge from across their core curriculum. Students in a history and systems of psychology capstone course wrote essays connecting content from the course to other areas of their general education core. Their essays were coded and found to primarily connect to physical/life sciences and humanities/arts, with fewer connections to social sciences and communication/quantitative skills. This suggests that a discipline-specific capstone course can successfully help students integrate knowledge from different areas of study.

1. The majority of students were able to make primary
connections to core area classes in the physical and life
sciences and humanities and arts categories, with the
fewest connections to social sciences and
communication and quantitative skills. The fewest
amount of primary connections were made to classes in
the ethical and cultural perspectives category. The
figure below shows percentages and average counts of
coded primary and secondary connections based on the
core curriculum list in Table 1.
Capstone courses are an essential assessment tool
for student learning, general education goals, and how
well a curriculum has met its learning objectives. Many
universities have found that using capstones as a
measure of assessment improves the quality of the
curriculum and enhances student learning (Berheide,
2007). Upper-level students are encouraged to
reactivate previously learned information through
capstone courses which, in large part, tend to be
major-specific. One desirable, but often not attainable,
goal of capstone courses is to emphasize the value of an
interdisciplinary education.
In psychology, the capstone is typically history and
systems of psychology, which, if executed well,
capitalizes on the diverse background of psychology and
allows students to link information gained as a
psychology major to the key core curriculum areas
(Williams, McCarley, & Kraft, 2013). This course
incorporates integrated learning through the general
core areas of study and is designed to fit the academic
level of senior psychology students. Our goal is to
demonstrate how a key course in the discipline of
psychology can integrate a broad community of
disciplines and potentially enhance long term student
learning.
INTRODUCTION
RESULTS
DISCUSSION
REFERENCES
Berheide, C. (2007). Doing less work, collecting better
data: Using capstone courses to assess learning. Peer
Review, 9(2), 27-30.
Hart Research Associates. (2009). Trends and emerging
practices in general education. Washington, DC:
Association of American Colleges and Universities.
Ferren, A. & Paris, D. (2013). How students, faculty,
and institutions can fulfill the promise of
capstones. Peer Review, 15(4), 4-7.
Kinzie, J. (2013). Taking stock of capstones and
integrative learning. Peer Review, 15(4), 27-30.
Williams, J. L., McCarley, N. G., & Kraft, J. R. (2013).
History and systems of psychology: A course to unite
a core curriculum. College Quarterly, 16(4).
Department of Psychology, Armstrong State University
Kelly Long, Kayla McKissick, Kelli Middleton, Tiffany Whetzel, Nancy McCarley, & Joshua L. Williams
Connecting a core curriculum:
The case for history and systems of psychology
METHOD
Figure 1. Percentage of essays classified as primary and
secondary connections to each core area.
Undergraduate students at liberal arts universities
are required to complete a core curriculum, which is
designed with the intent of creating an intellectually
well-rounded structure. Capstone courses are composed
to integrate all parts of the college education and are
taken by students in their senior year (Ferren & Paris,
2013). These capstone courses are created to enhance
integration by taking the previously learned information
and applying it to new topics or to solve problems. The
culminating experience is considered to be the final
opportunity to bring a holistic understanding to a
student’s educational journey. However, it is difficult
to achieve integrative learning across disciplines in a
single senior capstone course. Linking information
across courses in the first year and reinforcing
connection making in subsequent years may ensure that
students reflect on what they’ve learned and thus
deepen their understanding of material. Reflection
helps students gain a clearer understanding of
information and encourages them to explore new
perspectives (Kinzie, 2013). Kinzie (2013) argued that
capstone experiences that involve focused questions in
a discipline may not successfully provide the preferred
outcome of integration across disciplines. However, data
from the coded history and systems of psychology essays
suggests that a key course in the discipline of
psychology may positively impact the integration of
information.
Contact info:
Kelly Long
kl7753@stu.armstrong.edu
Table 1
A topical list of general core areas of study
Core Area Title Topics
Communication and Quantitative Skills
Ethical and Cultural Perspectives
Humanities and Arts
Physical and Life Science
Social Sciences
English composition
Mathematical skills and reasoning
Societal ethics and values
Global perspectives of gender, race, religion, and politics
Anthropology
Philosophical standpoints
Literature
Fine arts
Biology
Chemistry
Physics
Astronomy
Historical concepts and civilizations
Economics and society
Sociology
Psychology
Note. Core area titles adopted from the 2009 report by Hart Research Associates entitled, "Trends and emerging practices in
general education." Table adapted from Williams, McCarley, and Kraft (2013).
Percent of Total Essays
0 10 20 30 40
Communication and Quantitative Skills
Ethical and Cultural Perspectives
Humanities and Arts
Physical and Life Sciences
Social Sciences
Primary
Secondary
Participants
Twenty-nine senior students enrolled in a history and
systems of psychology course across two semesters at
Armstrong State University in Savannah, GA, wrote a
total of 47 essays which were coded for analysis.
Procedure
In this descriptive study, students were required to
write essays for the history and systems of psychology
class in which they connected course content to
content from any one of the core areas in which they
took a course. Essays were examined to assess whether
students were able to make interdisciplinary
connections and thus reactivate information gained in
previous core curriculum areas.
Core areas included physical and life sciences,
humanities and arts, communication and quantitative
skills, social sciences, and ethical and cultural
perspectives (see Table 1). To begin data
interpretation, 47 essays were coded by identifying
primary and secondary connections. Connections
included anything related to the five main topics
above. If a student made a direct connection from
information they learned in the course and related it
to a core area, the essay was coded as containing a
primary connection. An essay was coded as containing
a secondary connection if a student noted or
indirectly linked knowledge gained in the course to a
different topic in the same, primary core area or to a
topic in a different core area. Reliability computed
from two independent coders for primary connection
classification on 20% of the essays in the sample
ranged from r = 0.687 and r = 1.00 with an average of
r = 0.843. Reliability for secondary classification on
20% of the essays ranged from r = 0.808 to r = 0.869
with an average of r = 0.839.
Presented at the annual meeting of the Southeastern
Psychological Association (SEPA), Hilton Head, SC,
March 2015