Abstract
Many psychology majors indicate helping others as a reason for majoring in psychology, yet many enter positions not closely related to the field. This discrepancy may be due to a lack of student knowledge of the applied areas of psychology. The purpose of this study was to investigate the coverage of clinical, counseling, industrial/organizational, and school psychology in a sample of current, full-length introductory psychology textbooks. This study explores the extent and accuracy of coverage of applied areas in 32 full-length textbooks published between 2001 and 2006. Industrial/organizational psychology had the most extensive coverage, followed by clinical, counseling, and school psychology. Counseling psychology had the lowest rate of accuracy in coverage.
Notes
a Ten of the 26 textbooks that included school psychology described it as part of the field of educational psychology.
b Percent accurate is based on the number of textbooks that included a description of the specialty area: clinical, n = 32; counseling, n = 29; I/O, n = 30; school, n = 24.