Explore Undergrad at SPS - An Interview with Psychology Professor Ben Gorvine
Northwestern University School of Professional Studies (SPS) recently sat down with Associate Professor of Instruction Ben Gorvine of Northwestern’s Department of Psychology at the Weinberg College of Arts and Science. In addition to teaching for Weinberg, Gorvine teaches in SPS’s evening undergraduate program and has done so for the past nine years. Currently, he teaches the courses: Statistical Methods in Psychology, Research Methods in Psychology, and Introduction to Clinical Psychology, which attract SPS undergraduate students as well as post-baccalaureate certificate students. In our interview, Gorvine shares insight into his classroom as well as advice for students interested in part-time undergraduate study at Northwestern. He also touches on what factors led him to teaching psychology and the direction of his current research. Read highlights from our conversation below.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
SPS: What attracted you to teaching for SPS’s part-time undergraduate program?
BG: I like diversity in my teaching and I enjoy teaching non-traditional students. In my classes, I see a mix of somewhat recent graduates who are re-specializing and were on one career track but early on realized that they’re interested in psychology or counseling in particular; older, later career-changers; and also older students who are completing a bachelor’s degree for the first time. I like that there’s a lot of age diversity, somewhat different from the traditional undergraduate population. I enjoy working with the generally diverse student population at SPS.
SPS: From a faculty member perspective, do you have any advice for working professionals who are interested in going back to school but might be afraid to take the jump?
BG: This is kind of cliché, but the first thing that came to mind is that they should take the leap. My experience has been that the SPS program in particular is well-tailored to the realities of being a student while you’re doing something else full-time, both with regard to when courses are offered and with regard to the school’s culture. Most of the faculty I know who teach in SPS are pretty willing to make reasonable accommodations to help students balance their academics with everything else that they’re doing. In my classes at SPS, I’ve sometimes had students who report to me that this is their first class that they’ve sat in for twenty years. This is probably the most challenging category of students with whom I’ve worked since they often come to SPS with a fair amount of anxiety about re-engaging with school, but SPS is a good place to land for returning students.
SPS: What are your research interests and are you working on any new projects right now?
BG: Most of my research right now is focused in the area of pedagogy. It’s kind of “low hanging fruit” as a research topic because teaching is also what I spend most of my days doing. Recently, I’ve collaborated with another faculty member in psychology to look at outcomes related to different teaching methods, particularly group work and collaborative work, in the teaching of statistics. In the last 5 or 10 years, most of my research interests have migrated in that direction. The other writing with which I have been recently involved is my co-authorship of a research methods textbook with a former colleague at Northwestern. We have completed that first text, which I make use of in my teaching, and we’re now working on a second text.
But, my own academic research has looked at the teaching of statistics in psychology undergraduate programs. We often see in undergraduate psychology courses that there is a fair amount of anxiety about quantitative topics, particularly because psychology tends to select for people who are not as mathematically oriented. I have found that this anxiety is characteristic of both the “traditional” undergraduate students as well as SPS students. Many students come into psychological statistics courses with preconceived notions about what it’s going to be like to take a course in statistics. The data for my research has mostly been collected from undergrads in the day school, not from my SPS students in the evening. I’ve actually thought about expanding to include SPS students as well, but since my SPS classes are smaller in size, the only constraint would be the smaller numbers in terms of getting data. In my teaching of statistics in the day school, there are about 100 students per class; at night, it’s usually about 15.
SPS: What attracted you to psychology and how did you get to where you are at right now?
BG: This will sound cliché again, but I suspect many people would likely answer this way if they’re in the field of psychology; fundamentally, I have always had a lot of interest in people and how they work. Much of my early motivation to study psychology was because I enjoyed talking to, helping, and advising people, even when I was growing up. Incidentally, this motivation, which is an admirable one, is something I hear about from students all the time and I often have to tell them that it’s not something that they should put in a grad school application because it’s seen as cliché even if it’s true of them.
SPS: How did you get to where you are at right now? What brought you to teaching psychology?
BG: For a number of years, I was doing part-time private practice. Over time, even though there were parts of that work that I enjoyed, I started to realize that the things that I liked the most about clinical work were the elements of that work that most resembled teaching. In addition, there were things that were terrifying about clinical work, like worrying about people harming themselves—and I had a hard time making my peace with that sort of worry. At a certain point, I realized that my favorite elements of clinical work, I could also get in teaching. Even though I’m not currently an active clinician, I do love teaching the Introduction to Clinical Psychology course at SPS. It’s a fun and rewarding class to teach, and it provides me with a good opportunity to talk about the clinical experience I’ve had. Because of my clinical background, I am really attracted to the advising part of teaching, and this is a major part of the work I do with SPS students as well. I would say that I do a fair amount of career advising with my SPS students, trying to help people figure out what is the right path for them, whether they should pursue graduate work, and what sort of graduate program would best fit their goals.
To learn more about Northwestern’s part-time undergraduate program, visit the Evening Undergraduate Programs page.