Student Teachers’ Perceptions of the Educational Content and Goal of Psychology Courses

The study aims to analyze the objectives of the teaching of psychology in teacher education related to the educational content. We analyze this aspect of a curriculum through the reflections of students who attended psychology courses at two faculties of education: one in the Czech Republic and one in Slovakia. Based on general objectives of psychology teaching (functional psychological literacy) the study presents a critical view of the applied level of psychology teaching, which is positively evaluated by students. It may, however, lead to general stereotypes about psychology:
(1) a main role of psychology is to advice, provide guides, so called „cooking books“, (2) psychology enables us to use „tests“ and to „test“ people. These stereotypes stand on the opposite pole to functional psychological literacy. More attention should be paid to the identification of these areas of learning objectives related to the applied teaching of psychology across the curriculum. We suggest developing critical and psychological thinking.