This class is definitely interesting and Chad is always well-prepared and entertaining. Here comes the caveat:

If you have amazing test-taking abilities, then you will have no problem in this class, as it is entirely test-based. However, if you tend to second guess yourself or get tripped up by the wording of tests, you should take a more focused class. I find the tests to be extremely difficult and the wording of questions to be intentionally confusing. Some test questions are undeniably easy, but others are extremely trivial (such as asking about a topic for which ONE SENTENCE appeared in the book and not at all on the slides). He emphasizes for every test that you "memorize the slides and read only where the book and the slides overlap", but this advice never helped me once.

Sorry to discourage anyone, but if you do not consider yourself to be a good test taker then I honestly do not recommend this class.

class is a basic 101. study the lectures and do the reading and you will get an A. You also get to drop one quiz which is nice

Dodson is one of the better lecturers at UVA. He always keeps it interesting with his classwide examples and volunteer-based demos. Tests are tough but not too tough.

I LOOOOOOOVE him! I think he is a great teacher. Lecturing to 200+ students for an 1.25 hours at a time could be challenging, but I find this class extremely interesting.

Definitely do the reading for this class. I didn't, and it hurt me in the end when I got a C+. The tests are really tricky and I think the reading helps. Also, Dodson's lectures are really engaging

Dodson is a pretty good intro professor, but it is an intro course. The entire basis of your grade is exams, which can suck if you aren't good with a multiple choice format, but hey, you did get into UVA. He drops the lowest non-final exam, but the curve is a "high school" type -he adds up everyone's final score, makes the highest a 100 and bases everyone else's on that, which again can suck if there's someone with psych experience or is just really good who aces every exam.

I hated this class. The readings were too long and I was already overloaded with my other courses. This class can be easy if you have time to absolutely memorize the chapters. I found the tests in the beginning of the semester to be very challenging.

Overall a really fun class. Dodson does a great job of making a lecture of 200 people really interesting by using videos and volunteers for in class experiments. Def. read the book and go to class.

He's funny and lectures are fun when he shows videos. But there's a lot of reading and this is a 101 course, so it's all bunched in together. Take something more specialized if you are interested.

All of his lectures are online in powerpoint format, and you could miss a lecture and still do fine on his exams. Only worthwhile thing was to see the videos he presents during lecture. Professor Dodson is exceptionally knowledgable in his subject but his lectures can be long drawn and boring at times. Other times they are really interesting.