The Laboratory for SoTL in Psychology (Room 2432 Lagomarcino Hall)
Dr. Prieto is always looking for individuals who are highly responsible, motivated, and willing to commit time to learning basic research skills that can be applied to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology (SoTLP). Experience in the SoTLP lab would be ideal for individuals whose future plans include instructing psychology students. Most research out of the lab is based on social cognitive theory, and currently focuses on improving the research and statistical training of undergraduate psychology students. Undergraduate psychology students who are willing to spend at least one year, preferably two years, to work in the lab are encouraged to apply. If you are interested, please contact Dr. Prieto (lprieto@iastate.edu) to submit application materials and set up an appointment for an interview.
CURRENT DOCTORAL STUDENTS IN THE LAB:
CEDAR ANDRAE, M.A.
Cedar entered with the Class of 2023. He earned a Bachelor's Degree in Psychology and Neuroscience at Coe College in Iowa. His research interests center around factors that affect men's help seeking behavior and the use of clinical means safety interventions for suicidal clientele.
Recent SoTLP publications out of the lab (Bold print identifies student authors):
Prieto, L., Richmond, A., & Loomis, A. (in press). The Culturally Responsive Teaching Behaviors Scale. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology.
To date, instruments assessing instructor responsiveness to culturally diverse perspectives among students have typically relied on instructor self-reports, which can introduce bias. In response, we created the Culturally Responsive Teaching Behaviors Scale (CRTBS). This behavior-based instrument enables students to provide feedback to instructors on actual verbalizations reflecting cultural responsiveness in the classroom. Exploratory factor analysis on the measure demonstrated that, although the CRTBS was initially designed for three different domains of instructor cultural responsiveness, a single-factor structure best fit the data. Confirmatory factor analysis verified this single-factor structure. Additionally, we observed strong correlations among the CRTBS and measures of rapport building, learning alliance, and students’ sense of the importance of intercultural communication. We discuss limitations and potential uses for our newly created instrument.
Prieto, L., & Loomis, A. (2026). Outcome expectations, motivations, achievement goals and research self-efficacy within high quality research training environments. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 12, 404-420.
The goals of the current study were to ascertain, within the context of high-quality research training environments (RTEs), whether self-efficacy outcome expectations, motivations toward research (including an interaction effect between internal and external motivations) and achievement goals toward research significantly explained undergraduate psychology student efficacy expectations toward research. We also examined whether research outcome expectations partially mediated the direct effect between higher quality RTEs and research efficacy expectations, in line with expectations from Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986). We found a significant relation between higher quality RTEs and student research efficacy expectations. Research efficacy expectations were also significantly related to outcome expectations, intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and a mastery approach goal orientation. In addition, we found higher quality RTEs and research outcome expectations to be significantly related. Research outcome expectations also had significant direct relations with intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, mastery approach goal orientations, and a performance avoidance goal orientation. In terms of best predicting research efficacy expectations, only higher quality RTEs and intrinsic motivation did so. Higher quality RTEs, mastery goal orientations, and extrinsic motivation best predicted research outcome expectations. The interaction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation did not significantly explain variance in either research efficacy or outcome expectations. Finally, we found that research outcome expectations partially mediated the direct effect between high quality RTEs and research efficacy expectations. We discuss the implications of our findings for future research in this area, and for the research training of undergraduate psychology students.
Prieto, L. (2023). Concerns about teaching culturally diverse students in a cross-disciplinary sample of higher education faculty. Teaching in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives, 28, 772-783.
I examined concerns surrounding teaching culturally diverse students held by a cross-disciplinary sample of higher education faculty at a major Midwestern university in the United States. Findings indicated as faculty levels of acceptance of culturally diverse students increased, negative faculty attitudes toward these students decreased, as did faculty concerns that these students might hold negative perceptions toward them. A greater acceptance of culturally diverse students was also associated with faculty assigning greater importance to incorporating content regarding cultural diversity into their courses, and spending more time discussing diversity issues in class. Faculty identified chief barriers concerning the incorporation of diversity issues into their course content as: (1) not finding diversity issues relevant to their course content; (2) time constraints; and, (3) student apprehension about faculty including diversity content in courses.
Prieto, L., Siegel, Z., & Kaiser, D. (2021). One fish, two fish, red fish (or green fish?): Assisting students with color vision deficiency. Teaching of Psychology, 48, 90-94.
We discuss the ways in which psychology educators can assist students who have color vision deficiency (CVD). We outline basic information concerning CVD, offer tips for instructors to help students with CVD access content materials in the classroom, and suggest class activities to help all psychology students learn about CVD.
Burke, K., & Prieto, L. (2019). High-quality research training environments and undergraduate psychology students. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 5, 3, 223-235.
We examined the ratings of students on the quality of their research training environments and the relation these ratings had to their reported research self-efficacy as well as their willingness to engage in future research activities. Students who reported higher ratings of the quality of their research training environments also reported higher research self-efficacy, (r = .31, p < .01). In line with Social Cognitive Career Theory, we also found that student research self-efficacy partially mediated the direct effect of high-quality research training environments on student willingness to engage in future research activities (t = 2.63; p < .01). We discuss the implications of our findings for training and future research.
Kaiser, D., & Prieto, L. (2018). Trainee estimates of working alliance with higher and lower social class clients. Counseling and Psychotherapy Research, 18, 154-165.
Background: Although social class is recognized as an important variable within multicultural psychology, relatively little research has been conducted on the effects of social class on psychotherapy processes and outcomes. Aims: Using a vignette-based methodology, we examined the effects of therapy trainees’ social class identity and attitudes on their estimation of forming a working alliance with clients from an upper- and working-class status. Materials & Methods: Participants were randomly assigned to read one of two clinical vignettes of either an upper- or working-class client presenting for individual therapy. Participants then rated the anticipated strength of their working alliance with the client and their attitudes related to social class. Results: Regarding training, our results indicated that participants received very few clock hours of instruction related to social class issues. After controlling for socially desirable responding, although we detected no statistically significant bias against lower-class clientele, we did find a measure of bias among trainees towards those from the upper class. Lower trainee social class; a greater belief that social class status is earned through personal actions, merit and ability; and a greater level of anticipated difficulty working with their vignette client explained the greatest amount of trainee bias towards those from the upper social class. Discussion: We discussed the implications of these findings for training and future research.
Boysen, G., Prieto, L., Holmes, J., Landrum, R. E., Miller, R., Taylor, A., White, J. N., & Kaiser, D. (2018). Trigger warnings in psychology classes: What do students think? Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 4, 2, 69–80.
Sensitive topics are an inherent part of psychology education, but some college students have begun to demand prior notification before the coverage of potentially disturbing content. This call from students for “trigger warnings” has been controversial among faculty, and no research has documented psychology students’ perspectives on the topic. In order to fill this gap in knowledge, we collected data from six different psychology departments across the United States. Undergraduate psychology students (N = 751) reported their attitudes toward, and experiences with, trigger warnings in the psychology classroom. Results indicated that many psychology students held favorable views about the use of trigger warnings, viewing such warnings as necessary for topics such as sexual assault, child abuse, and suicide. Despite this, the overwhelming majority of psychology students reported little discomfort with discussing sensitive topics in class and indicated that any discomfort they felt had little or no effect on their learning. Most psychology students also agreed that potentially distressing topics have an appropriate role in the pedagogy of psychological science; that students should expect to encounter potentially disturbing content during psychology classes; and, that experienced distress does not warrant student avoidance of sensitive topics. The implications of our findings for teaching are that relatively few students report the type of distress that trigger warnings are intended to prevent, but students are generally supportive should teachers choose to provide trigger warnings. However, these implications may not generalize across all types of students or institutions of higher learning.
Boysen, G., & Prieto, L. (2017). Trigger warnings in psychology: Psychology teachers' perspectives and practices. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology, 4, 1, 16-26.
The content of psychology courses can include topics that may be sensitive to some students, especially those with personal histories of trauma. Increasingly, the news media has reported student requests for teachers to provide trigger warnings before covering sensitive topics in college classrooms. However, little empirical data has been published about the use of such content warnings in undergraduate education. The current research consisted of a national survey of psychology teachers (N = 284) assessing their attitudes and practices related to trigger warnings. Thirty-nine percent of the sample had given a trigger warning, but the frequency of warnings was rare. Few teachers had received requests from students for trigger warnings or accommodations related to sensitive topics. Although teachers’ attitudes about trigger warnings tended to be more positive than negative, they did not believe that teachers held primary responsibility for preventing student discomfort with content or that potentially distressing content should be avoided in the psychology classroom. Overall, the results of the study indicate that offering trigger warnings to students about potentially sensitive topics does not appear to be a typical practice in psychology.