Learning about psychological professions with the world‐wide web

Abstract

Teaching with the world‐wide web is becoming a common practice in modern education. The web serves two main interrelated functions, namely, retrieval and publication of information. To enhance learning and motivation, the student‐as‐teacher (SAT) principle was adopted in the study reported in this paper. Students were given the role of teacher of high school students and the general public about the subject matter they learned on a course. To achieve this goal, the students created educational web sites featuring two selected psychological professions. Being the major assignment for the course, the web sites created by students received higher scores than the assignments of their peers who learned the same materials through traditional pedagogical approaches. Course evaluation confirmed that the web implementation of the SAT principle enhanced learning, increased motivation and provided a transfer‐able skill, without compromising accomplishment of major course goals.