national standards for psychological literacy and global citizenship

3.2 Progress toward achieving aims and intended outcomes
During the course of this Fellowship, (a) the scholarly development of the concept of
psychological literacy was progressed, (b) psychological literacy as the primary outcome of
the psychology major has been promoted and accepted by others, and (c) the creation of
teaching and assessment strategies for the development of psychological literacy has been
encouraged. The development of pedagogy (particularly in relation to the re-examination of
aims and thus outcomes) to guide curriculum renewal in UG psychology has been discussed
at almost all national and international meetings, in particular ICOPE 2010, 2010 APEN
Meetings, APS Annual conferences, the April 2012 Summit, and the UK HEA Psychology
Network Retreat 2011. The discussion continues (e.g., at national committee meetings such
as PIFOPS). Moreover, there is now evidence that others are taking up the notion of
psychological literacy and purposefully reshaping their curriculum around this outcome.
3.2.1: Scholarly development of the concept of psychological literacy
Evidence of outcome attainment:
Positively reviewed (UK, USA) edited book (Cranney & Dunn, 2011a) on psychological
literacy;
Contributions to that book by Bernstein and McGovern on the scientist educator and on
developing psychologically literate educators; subsequent book on the latter topic by
McGovern (2012);
Invited chapters for other books (e.g., Cranney et al., 2012); and,
Invitations to talk on the pedagogy (e.g., invited address at the International Conference
on Teaching Psychology [ICTP]).
Please see www.psychologicalliteracy.com for a full listing of publications relevant to
psychological literacy. In summary, the second aim, to develop future-oriented pedagogy for
UG psychology education, based on psychological literacy as the primary outcome, has
certainly progressed within the theoretical domain, however there remains the need for
further development in terms of practice.
3.2.2 Promotion and acceptance of psychological literacy as the key outcome
of UG psychology education
Along with 2.2.4 above, this represents the central work of this Fellowship. It should first be
noted that one way in which to conceptualise psychological literacy is in terms of GAs. Thus
one might wonder why it is a separate outcome. There are two reasons. First, the creation
of the intended paradigm shift in UG psychology education should be facilitated by the
utilisation of some key terms about which stakeholders have a shared understanding.
Psychological literacy is intended to be one of those terms. This is one reason why we
created www.psychologicalliteracy.com: to create a global presence and common
understanding of the term. Second, further developments of the concept include the
pragmatic taxonomy (Cranney et al., in press), which takes the UG psychology student’s
perspective, and includes scientific literacy, employability, and global citizenship. As
indicated in 2.2.4, psychology educators may be more comfortable with starting their
paradigm shift with scientific literacy: such educators are now focussed on knowledge
NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL LITERACY AND GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP 13