International Journal of Education and Social Science (IJESS)

Most studies of the use of feature films in psychology classrooms focus on undergraduates and on aspects of psychology that are unrelated to counseling. However, the study reported here explores the way graduate students in counseling psychology responded to feature films that were integrated into three courses during an eight-week summer term. Results showed that almost all participants demonstrated highly favorable or favorable attitudes toward the use of films for teaching and learning counseling psychology. Most students believed that feature films enhanced their classes and improved conceptual understanding and discussion. Additionally, written comments by students indicated that the use of films influenced the way they viewed future clients and helped them understand professional issues and case assignments more deeply. Video images are omnipresent in our media-drenched society. Feature films are instantly available on Youtube, on DVDs, and at local movie theaters. Because of the importance of feature films in society at large, students have come to expect their curricula at universities and in graduate schools to refer to such films, and some innovative teachers of psychology have incorporated feature films into their courses (see, e.g., Christopher, Walter, Marek, & Koenig, 2004; Roskos-Ewoldsen & Roskos-Ewoldsen, 2001; Simpson, 2008). Almost all articles on the use of feature films for teaching psychology have centered on undergraduate psychology courses, as will be shown in the literature review. There is a serious gap in research on the employment of feature films in graduate courses in psychology. Our study bridges the gap, providing evaluative data on the impact of feature films on students in three graduate courses in counseling psychology, a field that has been largely ignored in discussions of using films to teach psychology. At the same time, the ideas presented in the current article are useful for teaching undergraduate psychology as well. Another contribution of this article is to show highly divergent ways to use feature films for teaching psychology. The three courses highlighted in the current study used well-chosen films to reflect particular themes and stimulate students’ understanding and discussion, but we used films in different ways across the three courses. In addition, the number of films used in each of the three courses differed.