I would say this class has sort of mixed reviews from my perspective. As a class, it’s a good class. It covers most, if not, all the psychology topics from many of the courses offered at UCLA so if you take this class in your junior/senior year, you should be able to remember most of the topics. The professor however is a different story. Professor McAuliffe is a great person but honestly, a pretty bad professor. In the beginning he said that he had more haters than supporters and I now see why. As a professor, he tries to incorporate jokes and personal stories into his lectures, which side tracks him a LOT. He can’t stay on topic for more than 7-10 minutes without bringing up his wife and daughter which isn’t a bad thing but sometimes the stories don’t relate to the topic at hand. His exams are horrible which only consist of a midterm and final. He gives you a study guide a week before each. The exams are basically what is on the study guide, however they are slowly tweaked a bit. What was most confusing is he would tell us to study one thing but then would leave out a lot of other crucial information that we should’ve paid attention to as well. His labs are pretty self explanatory, just him going over or expanding on the information from the lectures which ranged from slides to videos. If you’re looking for a class that has virtually no work with the exception of a midterm, final, and presentation at the end of the quarter, then take this class. However, it is advised that you take every little thing he says seriously, even if he makes a joke out of it because it will most likely be on the exam. Even if he brushes past it, review it and get is stuck in your mind.

I feel like he's a nice guy (kinda weird, but nice) but also, his tests are kinda difficult. I think my biggest tip if you're taking the class is to remember the answers from the study guide he gives you because many of the questions that were on the test were pulled from there verbatim. I say that the tests are kinda difficult because besides that aspect, it's basically a toss-up of what the rest of the questions on the test are gonna be. You kinda have to know a bit of everything, even small details that he might've discussed during his lectures and labs. If you're looking for a lab where you actually learn something useful, I probably wouldn't recommend this one.
I will say however that there are no homework assignments except for a presentation that you present during either week 9 or 10, and attendance is optional, which is a huge plus. I don't know what my final grade is yet but I know he said that he's probably going to have to curve final grades so even if your class does badly, just know that he probably will curve. Anyways, wanted to give you a more devil's advocate perspective bc I know a lot of people in my class aren't happy with him (which is valid cause the tests are just weird), but I don't think the entire class is terrible.

I've never left a review on a class and likely never will again. If you can help it AVOID this class- at all costs. Prof is a sweet guy, but an absolutely TERRIBLE teacher. Extremely unclear and unorganized, exams do not reflect what we go over in class. Just... don't take this class.

For everyone writing bad reviews, you're lazy and boring. This class is engaging and is a low workload. This lab information is very broad so get ready to learn a bit of everything. The professor gives interesting examples that help you remember the topics. There are 2 take home midterms which are 100% open note. Honestly, the discussions are long but helpful.

McAuliffe is the funniest teacher I’ve ever had the pleasure of taking a class with. I took his class while everything was online for Rona and it was a highlight of my week. He truly loves what he talks about. He goes on tangents sometimes, but I was fine with it because they were always informative or entertaining. There were two tests, each were open for 24 hours and you could find all of the answers in the lecture recordings. The class did EXTREMELY well this quarter. Most of us got A’s. There is also a presentation where you talk about ANY psychology study of your choice. It’s an easy project.
Overall, this class is entertaining and easy. If you’re a laid back person you’ll like McAuliffe. I can see someone who is very serious finding him too casual, but that wasn’t the case for me.

10/10 would recommend! TAKE THIS LAB YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.

Like other classmates had mentioned, professor McAuliffe teaches materials that are beyond psychology (very well integrated with psychology too). He values critical thinking and scientific literacy. He is also very helpful and friendly.

The majority of your grades will come from the two take-home exams. They were very straight forward (not tricky at all). And the final presentation was easily manageable considering they were assigned to us mid-quarter, so we had weeks to work on the presentation since there were no other projects/homework. The labs were long but he kept them really interesting and engaging. Lastly, attendance is not required. However, catching up on the recordings on the day of the exam is NOT recommended as they are lengthy.

Overall, this class's online format has helped me a lot during COVID-19. This is also one of the few classes I genuinely enjoyed at UCLA.

I took prof Mcauliffe during the pandemic where class was online, so our class' experience might not be indicative of most classes .

But for what it's worth, I thought prof Mcauliffe was a good professor w/ clear expectations, and you were capable of getting a good grade in the class if you put in the work. Your grade was broken down by- 78% exams (one midterm and final), 2% participation (free points for showing up to just ONE day of class, the day you presented) and 20% on a presentation.

lecture were all online, and attendance was optional (again, except for the one day where you presented). Prof. Mcauliffe kept things pretty interesting during lecture and he's definitely the king of dad jokes.
The material is pretty simple/straightforward; in fact, if you're a 4th year at least 1/2 of the stuff is straight up review. For me personally, I took this during my last quarter here to fulfill the lab requirement, and I'd say about 75% of the concepts were already things I learned about in detail in previous psych upper divs. You basically just learn a broad overview of various fields in psychology. There is no textbook, all you need are the lecture slides he uploads and the video lectures.
I thought the exams were straightforward as well. It was completely open note, and as long as you took good notes and rewatched lectures, you could get a pretty good grade on the exams. Questions essentially required us to transcribe what he said during the lectures. There was a drawing section that required you to apply some information tho. The only thing was, for the first exam, each question was worth quite a bit of points, some questions were worth as much 3-4% points of your overall grade (for one question) so you really had to make sure you answered every question sufficiently. We had 24 hours to complete it, so that gave you ample time to rewatch lectures if needed. He even gave us extra time for the final (If i remember correctly he gave us about 4 days) due to certain societal events that happened around finals week this year. He also put more questions on the final, so each question was not weighed as much as on the mt, and they were generally simpler.
The presentation was straightforward as well, you just pick any psychological research study and present it to the class. He seemed to be pretty lenient w/ the grading for this, and even let some students go well over the time limit.

All in all, I'd easily recommend this class (based on my experience) to fulfill your lab requirement. A lot of the concepts are review, there is no paper you have to write (unlike most of the other labs), and the exams + project were very straightforward. Again, one caveat is that I took this during remote learning so the class was structured very differently than usual.

This class is good if you're doing it online. I don't know about in class but I will say that I wouldn't have done as well as I did if it was in person. The tests are detail-oriented and short answers. There were answers I wrote word for word from his lectures and still missed points. For this course, it was only 2 midterms and a 6-minute presentation on any article you like (he gives a prompt of what he expects in it). This was perfect for me because I didn't want to work in a group or write a paper like every other lab class. He gave 24 hours for the tests so really its a good deal. The lectures are recorded too and in-class optional. He jokes a lot but you can count on the fact that all the answers to the test questions were mentioned during lecture. Plus he lets you watch the lecture vids while taking the tests. Win, win! The material really is interesting.

Go ahead and take this class online if you can and have a relaxed lab. Any way else? Well, the previous comments can tell you.

It's an alright class if you're a graduating senior and need to get your lab over with. Every week it's a different psychology field we go over. All exams are open response questions. Weekly quizzes and 2 exams. The online midterm study guide can only bring you so far.

To be fair , I must admit I was terrified about taking this class after I read a review here. I could not decide whether I wanted to drop it or take another Psych Lab. A classmate and I decided to dive into the unknown waters because the reviews were so mixed!
Logistically: Read the assigned weekly articles. Prepare for quizzes and you should do well.
Study the midterm practice examples Professor graciously provides!! Take time to memorize AND go over main points in lecture. You should do fine.
Re Professor McAuliffe— please cut the guy some slack for you haters out there. He really does seem to sincerely care for the students by reminding them that there is more to life than to get a 4.0 or above! He shares some wisdom in his lectures— and some personal views I may disagree with, but no reason to hate on him. You know he loves his wife , and daughter and is not ashamed to share it, for that, much respect!
Don’t let other reviews scare you from taking this class.... just enjoy it! I don’t know my grade yet so I wanted to be sure I would be as unbiased as possible.