Effectiveness of a perceptual illusions contest as an innovative educational tool for gaining competences in a psychology university degree course

ABSTRACT

In this study, we implemented a visual illusions contest as an educational activity within the practical programme of the subject Perception and Attention (Bachelor’s Degree in Psychology). The contest was evaluated by verifying its effectiveness as a teaching tool for achieving the competences assigned to the course. We designed questionnaires for evaluating its effectiveness that were given to the students at the beginning and end of the course. The statistical analyses show that there are significant differences between the students’ knowledge of the psychological processes before and after the activity (A2 competence). There were also significant improvements in the use of bibliographic and search resources (C3 competence) between the initial and final questionnaire. We conclude that the proposed activity is effective as a teaching tool for helping students achieve the core knowledge of the subject and its assigned competences.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational innovation
• perceptual illusions contest
• competences
• perception and attention
• psychology
• higher education

Disclosure statement

The authors reported no potential conflict of interest.

The PRE questionnaire can be consulted online here: https://t.ly/LLgwA

The POST questionnaire can be consulted online here: https://t.ly/d6ZzY

The website of the contest can be consulted online here: http://gip-dpsico.urv.cat/~gip/illusion_web/

Notes

1. PRE and POST questionnaires can be consulted online. See supplementary material section.

2. The website of the contest can be consulted online. See section on supplementary material.

3. To assess A2 competences, only the first 31 objective content questions were taken into account.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Institut de Ciències de l’Educació (Universitat Rovira i Virgili), under Grant A04.18.

Notes on contributors

José M. Gavilán

José M. Gavilán is a lecturer in the Degree in Psychology and the Degree in Communications at Rovira i Virgili University (Tarragona, Spain). He is a researcher in language processing and is interested in the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), as well as in the development of new tools to improve the quality of teaching at the university.

Juan Haro

Juan Haro works as a postdoctoral researcher and associate professor in the degrees of Education and Psychology at Rovira i Virgili University (Tarragona, Spain). He is interested in the study of language processing and representation and has collaborated in various projects related to teaching improvement.

Daniel Crusellas

Daniel Crusellas is a psychologist and coordinator of the psychoeducational project ‘Sigues Tu’ (Be yourself), in which he gives emotional workshops and teaches life skills to students and teachers from different schools in the province of Girona (Spain).