Strengthening the Teaching of Psychology in the Philippines

Strengthening the Teaching of Psychology in the Philippines

Department of Psychology School of Social Sciences Ateneo de Manila University

Good morning, everyone.

I would like to begin with a bit of history about the teaching of psychology in the Philippines.

Historical accounts of psychology in the Philippines indicate that psychology was probably taught as early as the 17th century in two universities, namely, the University of Santo Tomas in Manila and the University of San Carlos in Cebu (Licuanan, 1985). However, formal records of the establishment of Philippine psychology as a discipline only date back to the founding of the University of the Philippines (UP) in 1908 (Guthrie & Bulatao, 1968). Initially, psychology was part of Philosophy in the School of Education at the UP, until the Department of Psychology was established in 1926. Agustin Alonzo, who received his PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Chicago in 1926, became the head of the country’s first department of psychology (Guthrie & Bulatao, 1968; Licuanan, 1985).

Since the first department of psychology was established in 1926, the number of schools with psychology programs has continued to increase. The latest CHED Directory of Higher Education Institutions in the Philippines lists 291 colleges and universities that offer psychology programs.

The mushrooming of institutions with psychology programs is an indicator of the popularity of psychology as an undergraduate major in many colleges and universities. Data from CHED show that for the SY 2011-2012, we had a little more than 41,000 undergraduate psychology students. In the SY 2010-2011, close to 6,000 students graduated with a AB/BS Psychology degree.

The numbers should make us happy and proud of our discipline. However, the increase in the number of schools offering psychology programs have brought about the following problems: (a.) nonstandardized undergraduate and graduate curricula across schools; (b.) the lack of qualified and competent faculty; and (c.) lack of updated materials and inadequate facilities.

Nonstandardized curricula: Across schools, there are differences in terms of the number and nature of psychology courses included in the undergraduate and graduate curricula. There are schools that offer specializations or tracks in the undergraduate level. There are curricula that include certain courses as part of the undergraduate curriculum when these should be taught at the graduate level. One good example of this is the inclusion of Projective Techniques in the undergrad curriculum.

Lack of qualified and competent faculty: The increase in the number of psychology students compromises the standards in the hiring of faculty for psychology subjects. There are faculty members who have little or no training in the psychology courses that are assigned to them. Many psychology faculty do not meet the degree requirement especially for graduate level teaching.

Lack of updated materials and inadequate facilities: Faculty members complain of the lack of updated reference materials, especially journals. There’s also the lack of laboratory facilities to effectively conduct

laboratory classes in statistics, experimental psychology, and psychological testing. For example, there are laboratories that do not have licensed psychological tests and a licensed computer software, like the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS).

The year 1994 was significant in our country’s history of educational reforms as this was when the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) was created to promote quality education in all tertiary educational institutions. To address the problems that were cited earlier, the CHED’s Technical Committee for Psychology reviewed the minimum requirements for undergraduate and graduate programs. In 1997, CHED MO no. 44 was promulgated. The prescribed undergraduate psychology curriculum by this CMO took effect in 1998. This CMO was revised and is now superseded by CHED MO no. 38 series of 2010, the Policies and Standards for Undergraduate Programs in Psychology. CHED MO no. 39 series of 2010, Policies and Standards for Graduate Programs in Psychology, was issued at the same time as CHED MO no. 38. This is the first CMO on policies and standards for graduate programs. CHED MO no. 38 provides the general principles and guidelines for the establishment and operation of undergraduate psychology programs in all Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the country. There is a section in the CMO that describes the prescribed curriculum, the answer to the problem about the nonstandardized undergraduate curricula. The CMO specifies the basic and required psychology courses, with the corresponding course descriptions. It states explicitly that Projective Techniques is a graduate level course and therefore should not be offered in the undergraduate level. The BS Psychology program requires an additional 20 units of natural science electives.

CHED MO no. 38 has a section on faculty requirements to address the concern about the lack of qualified faculty. It specifies the minimum qualification of the director/chair/head of the program, i.e., that the administrator of an undergraduate psychology program should have at least a master’s degree in psychology. It further requires that seventy-five percent (75%) of the major courses should be taught by faculty with at least a master’s degree in psychology.

There are pertinent sections on library requirements and laboratories and other facilities to address the problem about the lack of updated materials and inadequate facilities. For example, it specifies that there should be continuing subscriptions, in hard copy form, to the Philippine Journal of Psychology and to at least three (3) refereed journals listed in the Annex of the CMO; that there should be an up-to-date collection of psychological test materials; and at least three (3) computers with Internet access for the use of faculty and students.

CHED MO no. 39 provides the policies and standards for graduate programs in psychology. The sections of this CMO are parallel to those of CMO no. 38.

The quality standards are clearly spelled out in these CMOS so compliance with these will strengthen the teaching of psychology in the country. If you have not read them, you can visit the CHED website. All higher education institutions, including SUCs and LUCs that offer psychology programs are given a period of three years from the effectivity of the CMO to fully comply with all the requirements. This then also serves as a gentle reminder if your institutions have not yet complied with the CMOs.

Having a well-conceptualized and well-designed curriculum, updated reference materials, and adequate learning materials and facilities will surely help in strengthening the teaching of psychology in

the country, but the most important consideration in the education, training, and formation of our psychology students would be the qualifications and competence of the faculty members. For this part of my talk then, I will focus on what we psychology teachers should and can do to improve our craft which is key to strengthening the teaching of psychology. My sharing will be based on my experiences as a faculty member of the Ateneo Psychology Department for the last 30 years. I know that many of you will also have your own best practices to share as psychology teachers.

1. Work toward a graduate degree. If you have not started with your MA or PhD, please aim for it. If you lack just a thesis or a dissertation to complete your requirements, set a deadline for its completion. If your financial resource is not enough, you can apply for a scholarship grant. CHED has scholarship programs and so are a number of higher education institutions. The Ateneo Psychology Department has the Bu Eagle Doctoral Fellowship for Psychology teachers from province-based higher education institutions who are interested in earning a PhD in Psychology from Ateneo de Manila University.

2. Let us update/upgrade our skills and knowledge through continuing professional education

activities/programs. For many of us, this comes in the form of attending seminars, workshops, conferences, and short-term certificate or diploma courses. The Ateneo Psychology Department has had summer public offerings on seminar-workshops in the Teaching of General Psychology, Fundamental Statistics, and Experimental Psychology, as well as other modular psychology seminars. I know that similar workshops are offered by other schools. These days, with the certification program of the PAP, certified psychology specialists need to take part in continuing professional development activities so they can renew their certification. To date, PAP has accredited 4 schools, 12 centers/clinics, and 4 organizations as service providers to meet the needs of certified psychology specialists. The increase in the number of service providers is a welcome development because it means that we have more seminars, workshops, and other learning activities to choose from. But we don’t have to be certified or licensed to attend these continuing professional education activities. If we are keen on upgrading our knowledge and skills, we will take the initiative to do so. Our presence in this Convention is a way of updating ourselves. We learn from the presentations and the workshops that we sign up for.

3. Practice psychology; let us not just confine ourselves within the four walls of the classroom. If you have an MA degree, then you most likely have an area of specialization, which means that you can engage in some kind of practice. If your area of specialization is counseling or clinical psychology, then you can do assessment and therapy. If it is industrial-organizational psychology, you can design and run training programs for organizations or do organization diagnosis and strategic planning. And so on. You can carry out research activities in different areas of psychology. Our practice can enhance our teaching because we bring to the classroom our actual experience, and thus, the psychological theories and concepts become more alive and our students will learn and appreciate the lessons more. The discussion in class can also enhance our practice. (Our practice, of course, will also bring in additional income.) It has been one of my blessings that when I was taking my graduate studies in clinical psychology in Ateneo, I was taught and mentored by professors who did not only possess the academic credentials but were also practitioners in their respective areas of specialization. They taught me not only the theories from books, but also shared generously what they have learned from their practice as psychologists. The tradition continues: I am proud to be in

the company of colleagues who have the passion to excel in teaching and in the practice of their respective areas of specialization.

Having a center or a similar structure affiliated to a department or home unit provides the faculty and students very good opportunities for practice. The Ateneo Psychology Department has two practicum and extension centers. Through these centers, our faculty practice as psychologists, and in the process, they train and mentor our students through their involvement in the centers’ projects. It is a model that some of you may want to explore if you have not done it yet.

4. Let us engage in collaborative activities/ explore and create linkages and network. Before we think of colleagues from other schools, we can start with our colleagues in our place of work. How can we collaborate with them to strengthen our teaching? Let me share some of the things that we do in the Ateneo Psych Dept. We have more than 600 undergraduate psychology students and more than 200 graduate students. We also service the college population of more than 8,000 undergrad students because General Psychology is required of all undergraduate students. We offer as many as 27 sections of General Psych in a sem, and as many as 5 sections of a course, like Psychological Testing, for our psych majors. We have created the structure of having a course coordinator for the various psychology courses, so we have a course coordinator for General Psychology, Statistics, Psychological Testing, Personality, etc. We then have clusters of faculty members who get together every now and then, especially in the beginning of the sem to review the syllabus for the purpose of standardizing the course description, course requirements, grading system, etc. They decide on what should be uniform for all the sections and what will be left to their own discretion. Some of our courses, like General Psychology, have departmental exams which the faculty of the cluster also construct together. The faculty also meet to share about their class experiences and class activities, so they end up sharing instructional materials. Or they invite colleagues who are experts on a topic to lecture in their classes. Or they sit in a colleague’s class to learn from the teaching style of the colleague, or for the colleague to be given feedback about her way of managing the class. This structure of having clusters has been a great help in enhancing the teaching performance of the faculty members because of the sharing of ideas, instructional materials, and teaching strategies, and also helps in forming and strengthening interpersonal relationship among faculty members.

Other examples of collaborative efforts among the faculty of my department come in the form of research activities. The faculty members collaborate on a research project; in the process, the senior faculty mentor the junior faculty. We also have research laboratories where faculty and students work together. Our students learn not only how to interview and encode and pilot test instruments, but also how to analyze the data and write a paper that can be presented in a forum like the PAP Convention, through the mentoring of our faculty members.

And then we can explore linkages with other institutions. Through the years, our department has greatly benefited from the local and international linkages that our faculty have formed.

The creation of the different Specialty Divisions of the PAP also provides good opportunities for forming linkages. If you are a member of any of these 8 divisions, you have probably already expanded your network. With the new technology, like having a Facebook account, it has become relatively easier to communicate with our colleagues and to be updated of their activities.

At this point, I would like to share some of the findings of the recent online survey of the Teaching Psychology Division (I would like to thank all of you who participated in the survey). The last question was, What have you found to be the most effective strategies to achieve the learning objectives of your

courses? Please explain how you do it and why you consider these strategies effective. The similarities in

the responses from 45 respondents who come from different parts of the country are quite striking. The most effective strategies have to do with the challenge to make the subject matter applicable and relevant to the lives of our students. What the respondents have found to be effective are:

• the use of structured/experiential learning activities • allowing students to conduct research

• the use of group dynamics activities • giving student- centered learning/ projects • interactive sharing and discussion

• requiring service learning projects • use of multimedia approaches

I would like to echo though what one respondent said, that psychology should be taught as a science, and I add, because in the process of making the subject matter of a psychology course interesting, relevant, and applicable to the lives of our students, we may forget the scientific nature of our discipline.

5. Let us serve as good examples to our students. We are teachers whose discipline is psychology. As psychology teachers, we are expected to have a better understanding of human behavior and mental processes, the subject matter of psychology. I believe that our students expect more from us compared to teachers from other disciplines with regard to the way that we conduct our personal affairs because we are psychologists. And so, the way we live our lives is an effective tool in the education and formation of our students. Many of us who are in the teaching profession have made the choice in spite of the low monetary reward. We should be proud of ourselves for making that choice. Having a great number of dedicated and committed psychology teachers throughout the country is one of the blessings of our discipline. When I reflect on the great impact that we can make on our students, I end up with the realization that we owe it to them to be the best that we can be by constantly finding ways to grow and develop so we can be of better service to them.

Psychology remains a popular choice among our college students. Psychology is very broad-- there are many areas of specialization. We have a great potential to make a contribution to nation building because we have the number, and the diversity of the sub-disciplines within the discipline will allow us to make contributions in many areas of national life. But we can only maximize such potential if we educate and train and form our students well. This is the challenge to the concerned government and higher education institutions. This is the challenge to us psychology teachers!

References:

Commission on Higher Education. (1997). Memorandum Order No. 44. Commission on Higher Education. (2010). Memorandum Order No. 38. Commission on Higher Education. (2010). Memorandum Order No. 39.

Guthrie, G.M., & Bulatao, J.C. (1968). Psychology in the Philippines. Psychologia, 1, 201-206.

Licuanan, P.B. (1985). Psychology in the Philippines: History and current trends. Philippine Studies, 33, 67-86.

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