Psychologische Bildung im Psychologiestudium und Psychologieunterricht

Abstract

In British and USA higher education psychological literacy has become a key concept for the teaching and learning of psychology. Psychological literacy is also a laudable goal of pre-tertiary psychology education, as it could enable a subject specific contribution to liberal arts education. Nevertheless, McGovern et al.’s definition is not subject specific enough to focus introductory courses on psychology in upper high school and degree study. This paper shows, how Sternberg’s triarchic model of psychology learning and teaching could be used to elaborate a more subject specific understanding of psychological literacy which interlinks psychological knowledge, psychological thinking skills and reflective psychological attitudes necessary to make critical use of common sense psychology. If psychological thinking and reflective psychological attitudes were more efficiently conveyed in introductory psychology classes, the teaching content should not uncritically mirror the disciplinary structure of the field and its unquestioned topical approach, indeed, teaching subjects should be more carefully reflected and selected to meet this general goal of psychology education. Similarily, our subject specific understanding of psychological literacy refers to the aspects of liberal education, which should not be neglected in the professional psychological training of both psychologists and non-psychologists.