(2022)WHAT’S ON THEIR MINDS? SEMANTIC NETWORKS INPSYCHOLOGY TRAINING FOLLOW-UP

摘要

Research is part of psychologists’ everyday life. Their own object of study requires the use of scientificmethod for understanding and analysis. Thus, as they advance in their training, regardless of theirarea of expertise or interest, they formulate several questions about human behavior and its relation toa number of variables. Hence the interest in research is present as a feature of the psychologist inrelation to other health professionals. Psychology program at Universidad de Monterrey encompassesthe academic, professional and practical knowledge in order the students grow personally andprofessionally and thrive in an ever-changing world. The curriculum connects core academic strengthsand hands-on professional education with the development of the research skills. Nevertheless, wehave found that on arrival at the Seminar of Psychological Research Project -a course in whichstudents prepare and design their research protocol for further implementation in the next semesterduring their Final Assessment Program- most students have difficulty in designing their protocols bythemselves. This would mean that our educational model, based on professional competences, seemsto have developed research competence only to the solution level, that is, if the professor shows indetail what and how to do something, the student produces. This level is distant from a strategic levelwhere, in addition to determining autonomously what to work, the student is capable to innovate andproject the scope and impact of their research. As part of a larger research, we used natural semanticnetworks technique because of there constructive process that takes place when a set of words areselected by memory from the cognitive structures. This allows collecting information on knowledgeand understanding of the individual. We can also picture the cognitive map that people have about aconcept based on associations or logic and analog networks as well as the semantic memoryorganization. This also provides a glimpse of the scale of values. Results based on semantic networkssuggest that for students close to start their final assessment project, psychology is mostly associatedwith clinical and health (help, listening, counseling, health);;that the effort to apply understanding toknow something is associated with research and analysis;;that competences are primarily associatedto effort and skills;;and that dedication is related to the development and improvement of skills andethical and responsible behavior, typical of the descriptions of professional competences of our socioformativePsychology program, in particular, and the way in which values education in Universidad deMonterrey permeates the curriculum, in general.