Learning better from real lives: Integrating life-reviews in psychology and education related courses

A challenge in understanding human development from a life-span perspective in university-level psychology and education courses lies in the limited life experience associated with our students’ age, most of whom are young adults. Conducting life-review interviews with older adults could help students to deepen their understanding of the theories and key concepts related to human development by analyzing their interviewees’ life stories from a life-span perspective. This project aims to develop an e-learning package using multimedia resources to guide students to conduct life-review interviews and to creatively present the interviewees’ life stories. The effectiveness of the e-learning package is empirically tested using a mixed design. Around 200 students will be recruited from psychology and education related courses and assigned be either the experimental group or the control group. The e-learning package will only be provided to the experimental group to assist their learning. All participants will to complete a pre-test at the beginning of the semester and a post-test after completion of the course. It is expected that there would be a larger increase of the levels of self-efficacy of learning, learning motivation, and the achievement of the generic learning outcomes in the experimental group compared to the control group. Focus-group interviews will be conducted to obtain the feedback from the related lecturers and students about this package and students’ learning. Data collection of the empirical study is still ongoing at the time of this abstract submission. Copyright © 2021 ICLT.