International Journal of Comparative Psychology

Abstract

Establishing a place for comparative psychology within the curricula of undergraduate psychology programs in the U.S. can be challenging. Psychology majors typically take a core set of required classes and select the remainder from a menu of options or from purely elective courses offered by faculty that are primarily focused on human behavior. It is within this context that many of us who teach comparative psychology find ourselves competing for space in our undergraduate programs. In this paper I describe a way to make comparative psychology more visible in undergraduate psychology programs. Specifically, I outline a strategy for mapping undergraduate courses in comparative psychology onto the American Psychological Association’s (2013) guidelines for the undergraduate major. The aim is to bring our unique  contributions into focus, offer clarity on common course objectives, and hopefully offer something useful for assessing undergraduate student learning.