Making the Grade: Evaluating the Construct Validity of MyPsychLab as a Measure of Psychology Mastery

Kenneth M. Cramer, Craig Ross, Emily S. Orr, Ann Marcoccia

Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada.

DOI: 10.4236/ce.2012.33046                

Abstract

Publishers of resources for secondary and post-secondary education are becoming more innovative in developing tools for mastery of the course material. Pearson Education Inc.’s MyPsychLab is an example of such a tool. MyPsychLab consists of online exercises, flashcards, and demonstrations; but also includes pretest and posttest assessment tools (which can be taken repeatedly until mastery is reached). Given this tool promotes material mastery, it is expected that MyPsychLab performance would be related to course performance in more traditional formats. The present study investigated the relation between MyPsychLab, and five additional means of course assessment in a large sample of students enrolled in an introductory Psychology course. Results indicated that MyPsychLab was significantly correlated with all other measures of course performance. Moreover, performance on MyPsychLab was the highest loading item on both a latent component and factor assessing overall course performance and psychology mastery.

Keywords

Online Learning Environments; MyPsychLab; Material Mastery

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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