David Copeland, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada Las Vegas and Principal Investigator at UNLV's Reasoning and Memory Lab. Dr. Copeland was inspired to co-author the book Success as a Psychology Major after "seeing how some students were reaching graduation and they weren’t prepared for their future. They didn’t know about options. They didn’t know the variety of areas they could pursue as psychology students and they didn’t take advantage of opportunity to prepare while in college."

As the Undergraduate Director for psychology majors, Dr. Copeland also teaches a course called Introduction to the Psychology Major, which all UNLV psych majors take immediately after completing their Introduction to Psychology course. Dr. Copeland hopes similar courses will be offered at other colleges and universities.

"You get a program like engineering or nursing, you know what the students going to be: they’re going to be focused and trained to be engineers and nurses. But in a major like psychology, there’s so many options that are available to students. And so by exposing them to those options they need to pick from...they can tailor their their education so they can properly prepare for their career of choice. I think is a very important step that we need to take as educators."

One of those options, of course, is I-O psychology, so Dr. Copeland included information on I-O psych as a career and field of study in both his book and the course. The goal of the Getting I-O into Intro Task Force is, as our name suggests, ensuring that I-O psychology is included in introductory psychology textbooks. Someday, every new psychology student will be exposed to what I-O psych has to offer as both a field of study and as a career. In the meantime, books like Success as a Psychology Major and courses like Introduction to the Psychology Major can help meet this need.

If you're a program director or instructor, consider offering an Introduction to the Psychology Major course to your undegraduates if your institution doesn't already offer it. And, if you're a textbook author or an instructor interested in including I-O psych in your book or course, visit www.teachiopsychology.com for SIOP's Educators' Resource Page.

  • What is GIT? Check out our first blog post for our origin story.
  • Have ideas for how SIOP members can contribute to the GIT mission? Reach out to the blog's author, Ben Butina, and he'll share your feedback with the task force.