What's in a name? When it comes to labeling undergraduate psychology programs, plenty. At colleges and universities across the country, psychology departments are offering challenging programs to educate students in psychological science. Yet many of those programs are identified with outdated codes that lead them to be classified outside of the STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
"Psychology is a rigorous science, and colleges and universities have done a great job in recent years in teaching it as that," says Howard Kurtzman, PhD, APA's acting executive director for science. "By formally classifying psychology as STEM, that work is properly recognized and psychology will be included in national efforts to strengthen and expand STEM education."
Cynthia Legin-Bucell, PhD, the former chair of psychology at Edinboro University in Pennsylvania, has made it a mission to help academic psychology departments ensure their programs are classified correctly. "Psychology is the scientific study of behavior and mental processes, and it's important for us to be factually represented," she says. "Misclassifying undergraduate psychology programs can give a distorted view of what we actually offer."
At issue is a coding system known as Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP), which the National Center for Education Statistics of the U.S. Department of Education uses to collect data on undergraduate degrees across disciplines. Most students who receive bachelor's degrees in psychology do so under the General Psychology code (42.0101). The description of that classification emphasizes the study of behavior and the analysis and treatment of behavior problems and disorders.
But that description doesn't describe what most psychology majors today are actually learning, says Legin-Bucell. Nor does it reflect the principles in the APA Guidelines for the Undergraduate Psychology Major, which were updated in 2013 to emphasize psychology's status as a science. The updated guidelines recommend students develop a broad knowledge base in psychology, as well as skills in scientific inquiry and critical thinking.
A more appropriate CIP code, Legin-Bucell argues, is Research and Experimental Psychology (42.2799), which covers sub-areas such as cognitive, comparative, experimental, physiological and quantitative psychology. While different agencies and organizations maintain their own lists of which CIP designations qualify as STEM, the Research and Experimental Psychology classification typically falls under the STEM umbrella. General Psychology usually does not.
At Edinboro, Legin-Bucell worked with administrators to change the CIP code to reflect the science-based nature of the university's psychology major. She presented on the topic at the annual meeting of the Association of Heads of Departments of Psychology (AHDP) in 2013 and has briefed leaders of APA's Education and Science Directorates on the importance of CIP codes for psychological science. She has also submitted a proposal for a panel to discuss the issue at APA's 2015 Annual Convention in Toronto, Aug. 6–9.
It's an uphill battle. Many department heads have never even heard of the coding system. "CIP codes were not on my radar," says Lee Gillis, PhD, head of the department of psychological science at Georgia College. Yet after learning of the issue at the 2013 AHDP meeting, he launched a successful effort to reclassify the psychology program at Georgia College.
Like many undergraduate psychology programs, he says, his program has evolved to become increasingly grounded in science. The college's psychology major now requires courses such as statistics and research methods, he says, and the department recently changed its name from the department of psychology to the department of psychological science. The updated CIP code simply confirms what the program was already doing. "The central piece for me is accurately describing what we're offering to undergraduates with a psychology major," Gillis says.
Susan Putnam, PhD, chair of the psychology program at Canisius College in Buffalo, New York, also petitioned successfully to change the department's General Psychology code. Like Gillis, she says it's clear that the Research and Experimental Psychology label is a better fit for the things her students are learning.
"Psychology is a much different discipline than it was 50 years ago," Putnam says. "We require courses in research methodology and statistics, and we focus on scientific discipline and inquiry." At her institution, in fact, STEM programs such as biology and physics often send their students to the psychology department to learn research methods and statistics, she adds. "Yet we didn't have the STEM code."
Worth the effort
Unfortunately, there's no clear-cut process for changing CIP codes. "It depends on the institution," says Legin-Bucell.
To start, she recommends talking to the school's institutional research officer. From there, the dean and/or provost will probably need to approve the proposal. In public institutions, someone from the system level must also give the OK, she says — typically the system's institutional research officer and the vice chancellor for academic affairs.
When Putnam started this process, she first spoke with two of the psychology department's former chairs. Neither was familiar with CIP codes or knew how to go about changing them. After asking a lot of questions and talking to many people, she says, she learned her institution has no formal process for changing CIP codes. She sent her proposal to the school's institutional research office and to the registrar, and was thrilled when she received word that the change had been approved. "I was swimming in completely unknown waters," she says, "but I was determined to get this through."
Proponents believe it's worth the effort. CIP codes provide the basis for most local, state and national reports relating to college majors and degree outcomes, Legin-Bucell says.
When a program is classified under the General Psychology designation, psychology students and faculty can miss out on grants that are available only to STEM disciplines. And given recent public interest in STEM education, an official STEM degree may make psychology grads even more marketable.
"We want our students to be recognized as being competent in the areas that they are competent in," Putnam says. "And I think it will ultimately elevate the discipline of psychology."
Despite the scientific sophistication of modern psychology programs, "there is still a view from some disciplines that psychology isn't a real science," says Legin-Bucell. "This is another means for us to affirm our status as a science. It really is truth in advertising."
