Blogging the Psychology A Level experience one week at a time. This Blog will help you pass your A-level Psychology course! Please read before and after every lesson. (Materials and resources are a combination of my own, Psychology websites and AQA recommended resources. Thank you to those that have freely shared their resources)
Hopefully you have already started revising ‘issues and debates’ which appear on paper 3 as stand alone questions, but which are also useful as evaluation issues on any of the papers.
I thought you might like to get prepared for revisiting the issues and debates with me in class this week ….. this is a fascinating idea….should we be able to control certain behaviours or temperaments by implanting electrodes directly into the brain?
This info sheet should be read before the lessons this week if possible >>Biological determinism
This power point should give you a head start on the determinism vs freewill debate. It is straight forward and linked to some you-tube clips – so again, I suggest you work through it before the lesson if you can. >>> power point fw & D
Bring your Determinism-Freewill notes to class, plus any questions you have 🙂
Don’t forget to check out the digital PHG -there are model questions and answers at the end of each chapter. Use them to help improve your own answers 🙂
Lesson 1 – We started to consider determinism vs freewill – see above
Lesson 2-4 – Only 3 students present today – so we used the time for personal revision. Think about how you are revising – make it active – brainstorm the topic first- then fill in the gaps. Recall takes effort and is the only way that revision is 100% effective. Reading and making notes is too easy – it is passive – challenge yourself for maximum learning.
Lesson 5- 6 – Still only 3 students in lessons again today. However we forged ahead and finished of the determinism vs freewill debate. We completed 2 x PHG exercises then a past exam question from 2017 paper 3. After planning the answer we looked at the mark scheme and examiners report. Students then did a mix and match activity and finished off by completing a whole bunch of mini 2 and 4 marks questions to check that concepts could be put into your own words.
Prep:
Next week we are going to focus on research methods and specifically how to select the appropriate statistical test. I also want to look briefly at holism and what we mean by socially sensitive research. Read ahead to make the learning more effective.
I hope you had a bit of a break over Easter, and I also hope you feel you have revised a sufficient amount. We need to finish off the gender unit so it would be super helpful if you were knowledgeable about Gender Identity Disorder which is the final topic.
This NHS website is easy to read and extremely informative – please look at it before our first lesson on Tuesday.
You linked GID to the definitions of abnormality which you had previously examined in year 1. You also researched various explanations for GID. You need to be able to describe and evaluate both a social and a biological explanation. See power point above.
Remember to look at the T2U pack and Information pack sent again via email today- both are excellent resources. Well worth reading.
Gender identity disorder
Individuals who identify much more with the opposite sex than the sex they were given at birth.
Brain sex theory
BSTc is around 40% larger in males. Post-mortem studies of transgender males found the BSTc to be similar size to that of a typical female brain.
Genetic factors
Concordance rates of 39% for MZ twins and 0% for DZ twins suggest heritability.
Psychoanalytic theory
Child fantasies and becomes the mother and thus adopts a female gender identity.
Cognitive explanation
Gender schema directs attitudes and behaviour and the individual’s personal interests may become more dominant than the gender identity. In most people this leads to androgyny but for some may lead to GID.
Prep:
You were asked to complete exercise 6.18 in the PHG pack which will need to be finished for prep.
Economic Implications of Psychological Research
You need to be able to explain the economic implications of the research. Below are a few examples but there are many others.
Attachment research
There are opportunities for discussion of economic implications here. Bowlby’s WHO report in the 1950s was taken to suggest that babies needed the constant care of the mother for healthy psychological development. This led to ‘stay at home’ mothering. Later evidence has shown that good substitute care childcare either in nurseries or by other family members e.g. father does not have a detrimental effect on social development. As an example then, this means that mother can happily return to work after having a child, remaining economically active.
Psychopathology research/Schizophrenia
Anything to do with treatment and people’s ability to work and contribute as effective members of society would be relevant. For example, studies often compare the effectiveness of different therapies. If research shows that people with a disorder such as depression are less likely to suffer a relapse after having cognitive therapy then, even though cognitive therapy might initially be more expensive than drug therapy, in the long-term it might be more economically sound to offer cognitive therapy as people would have less time off work.
Memory research
Any evidence relating to more efficient use of public money would be relevant. For example, research showing the cognitive interview facilitates accuracy of eyewitness reporting enables better use of police time and resources.
Stress research
Again, this would relate to people’s ability to work effectively. Research showing how to cope with workplace stress could be useful to companies whose productivity would increase if members of the workforce are better equipped to deal with stress.
Forensic Psychology research
Obvious economic benefits relate to the cost and effectiveness of treatments, custodial sentencing and alternatives to custodial sentencing. If research shows that custodial sentence does not necessarily result in lowering of recidivism rates then perhaps it would be more economical to focus on alternatives such as restorative justice.
Lessons 4-5 During our final 2 lessons we completed the GID unit by looking again at the power point from last lesson. You then completed the remaining activities in the PHG pack.
We then went on to look at the examination/prediction grid which I emailed you. This is a useful starting point for understanding the likely look of your summer examination. However, it cannot replace actually DOING at the past papers yourself, checking your answers with the mark schemes and really reading and learning from the examiners reports. All these things have been emailed to you already.
READ AHEAD: Next week we will be looking at the determinism vs free will debate, holism and reductionism and research methods too. We will also look at some different statistical tests.
Totally Psyched 2 