17 Making Connections (IntroPSYC and SDG4): Quality Education

By Meghan E. Norris and Riley J.T. Bonar

In this unit, we will explore a topic that you have experience with: learning! Did you know that most students do not study in the most effective ways? Students commonly re-read and highlight their readings, yet research shows these tend not to be the most effective ways to spend your study time. Closing your books and working to remember the content and engaging in practice testing are shown to be stronger strategies for studying. You’ll notice that we have a lot of practice testing opportunities throughout this course, and this is why! (See Dunlosky et. al, 2013 for a great overview of high impact study practices).

Connecting our unit on learning with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, SDG 4 is focused on Quality Education. Empowering people with high-quality, accurate information, and the tools to learn, is important for a healthy and equitable society.

As you are learning in this course, the science of learning and memory is a fundamental part of psychology. There are unfortunately a lot of myths about education. For example, did you know that experiments exploring “learning styles” show that they are not effective? Indeed, subscribing to educational myths like learning styles can actually cause harm. We want to ensure that students have equitable, and high-quality education. Teaching the science of learning can help limit pseudo-science in teaching. If this is an area of interest for you, please see the below video for a teaser of content to come in this course! Below is an excellent optional video introducing core concepts in learning and memory by Dr. Tesia Marshik at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse.

You can learn more about this SDG here: Goal 4: Education – United Nations Sustainable Development

If you are interested in learning more about the study of educational systems happening in our program, check out the work of Dr. Meghan Norris. Applying psychological science, she works to develop systems that facilitate learning in post-secondary spaces, with a keen focus on innovating systems that increase access and reduce barriers to learning.

References:

Dunlosky, J., Rawson, K. A., Marsh, E. J., Nathan, M. J., & Willingham, D. T. (2013). Improving students’ learning with effective learning techniques: Promising directions from cognitive and educational psychology. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 14(1), 4–58.

Marshik, T. (2015, April 2). Learning styles & the importance of critical self-reflection. TEDxUWLaCrosse [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=855Now8h5Rs

United Nations. (n.d.). Goal 4: Quality education. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/education/

How to cite this using APA Style:

Norris, M. E., & Bonar, R. J. T. (2026). Making connections (IntroPSYC and SDG 4): Quality education. In PSYC 100: Principles of psychology. eCampusOntario. https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/testbookje/chapter/making-connections-intropsyc-and-sdg4-quality-education/