Psychology of Learning

Dr. Kiersten Renee Baughman earned her Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Baughman is an associate professor of psychology at the University of the Cumberlands, where she teaches courses in introductory psychology, social psychology, and learning and cognition. Her research interests include intimate relationships, and the culture of honor and its role in perpetuating intimate partner violence. Dr. Baughman's article (coauthored with L.L. Couch), The Aftermath of Romantic Betrayal: What's Love Got to do With It was recently featured in Current Psychology.

I began Dr. Baughman's Learning and Cognition course without my books and had only the assignments to see what that class would be like. I was immediately intimidated when I saw we would be studying correlations, components of research and design, and other complicated characteristics of learning like conditioning. While conditioning itself does not seem too complicated (after all, we all learned about Pavlov's Law early on), dissecting the conditioning process and discussing UCS, UCR, CS, and CR, as well as how they interact and affect each other to create the experience of learning, is an entirely different story! When my book, The Psychology of Learning: Everyday Life Applications, arrived and I began reading it, I was really excited to be using a book written by my professor! As I made my way through the chapters, it was as if a lightbulb came on. I was able to easily make connections in learning theory. I could understand when and why these things were happening and being applied. My excitement for learning grew! The examples that pertain to real life and the stories in the text really made the material come to life. I even found myself going back into previous courses and making connections that I had not been able to make earlier, thanks to Dr. Baughman's text." —Crysta West, Student in the Psychology Program, University of the Cumberlands