Christmas is gone but the Assignments haven’t

As I write this, the snow has all but melted away, there are a couple of extra inches on the waistline and thoughts go towards the end of the holiday.  When I get around to it...

Assignment 4 Again


Enough of that! But just in case you are still struggling with Assignment 4, here are some suggestions that may help.


Possibly the most difficult part is finding a health improvement programme on which to base your assignment. You could look in at your local surgery, where there will be leaflets for all kinds of health issues. Your local chemist may have some. But the internet is helpful here. Try looking for anti-smoking campaigns – here is a helpful site - http://www.smokefreeaction.org.uk/archive/images/pdfs/GoingSmokefree.pdf
And because it is a pdf it can be downloaded and printed easily.
The NHS has loads of campaigns on its website. 
 http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/Pages/Livewellhub.aspx
You could take “NHS weight loss” as a general health campaign for the purposes of the assignment, and flag up all the examples and references to the two models you need.


Is there a part of the programme where you have to decide whether or not you will carry on with your present behaviour even though it might be considered antisocial? e.g. smoking, unprotected sex, flu injections, child immunisation? If so, show how the theory of reasoned action/theory of planned behaviour are involved. Is there a part of the programme that tries to encourage you to continue, even though you may have tried before and failed? Could this be explained by perceived behavioural control?


Applying the Health Belief Model (HBM) to a health promotion programme is similar. Think in terms of perceived susceptibility and severity. Does the promotion play on how likely you might suffer if you continue your present behaviour? e.g. scare tactics for smoking (lung cancer photographs, heart disease statistics) or obesity. Perhaps it will ask “Do you smoke a lot? Are you coughing up green lumps every morning?” - the idea being that if you fit the profile, you had better do something about it, i.e. a cue to action. Is there a section that describes – directly or indirectly – the benefits of taking up the programme? Direct benefits may mean better health, longer life. Indirect benefits might mean better job or social prospects. Does the promotion suggest how you might overcome any barriers? A clinic that opens in the evenings and at weekends, for example. And if there are no suggestions as to how barriers might be overcome, you could perhaps suggest some. That could point to a higher assignment grade!


How successful is your chosen campaign? Any assessment or evaluation should surely contain some statistics or statement of success (or failure!). What can you find?
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/loseweight/Pages/middleagespread.aspx is an example of a case study, which could be acceptable in the assignment.


Assignment 5 - That Essay Thingy


I've put together a powerpoint which may be helpful.  Link to here.  Depending upon your browser software, you may have to enable the active-X stuff.  Look for an annoying little yellow bar at the top of the screen when you try to play it.  You will need sound, as I have made a couple of Xtranormal videos as part of the powerpoint.  You must also play it in slideshow mode to catch the videos.


AND FINALLY ... if you're stuck, email me.

Three and Four - just to keep you busy in the snow!

How to do assignment 3

The assignment really only does ask for notes.  You can do an essay if you want to, probably about 3000 words to do it justice I suppose.  Try  to think of the style you get in a revision book.  Not too worried about punctuation,  might be just bullet points and one liners.  But how do you make your own notes? 

If you look at the assignment,  you might notice that the headings follow the sections in the course booklet.  So you will probably want to start with the health belief model.  Describe it.  Who first devised it?  Aha!  A possible reference here! 

You will see some evaluative points mentioned, but the Health Belief Model and the Theory of Reasoned Action are seen as social cognition models.  You might want to evaluate them jointly.  Fine! 

… and so on to the end of the assignment.  Don’t forget a reference section. 

How to do Assignment 4

You should find this one easy and enjoyable.  Well, enjoyable if you like.  First pick yourself a health promotion campaign.  Anti-smoking, perhaps?  Or the chlamydia campaign in the college.  What about obesity, dental health, or immunisation of infants?

What I want you to ultimately submit is a kind of portfolio, with some leaflets, possibly some web material  and some writing.  Think of anti-smoking promotions.  Do they see smoking as social or anti-social?  Do they try to make smokers frightened?  And what about the benefits of a cure?  To do the assignment, you should look for such things in the campaign literature and say how the health belief model or theory of reasoned action/theory of planned behaviour apply.  You can be critical or supporting or neutral, it doesn’t matter as long as you give a  balanced evaluation of the campaign.

Here’s an example:  how to lift things properly at work (or in the home).  Do you have to lift things?  Do you do it properly?  Why not?  Perhaps you don’t think you are likely to slip a disc.  Perhaps you haven’t got the equipment.  Perhaps, as a young man, it’s macho to lift heavy things?  All these are the kind of balances and pressures on people to take on a particular health behaviour. 

Here’s a site with some campaign ideas – for example, how serious is smoking portrayed?  Will it happen to me?  - these are some of the possible beliefs in the HBM.

http://www.bhf.org.uk/keeping_your_heart_healthy/preventing_heart_disease/smoking.aspx

The format for the assignment is really up to you.  A small folder with some leaflets, cuttings etc. and the written assignment or notes will be fine.  But you must have a reference section somewhere.  You can obtain a pass with the course booklet alone, but the really good assignments will have gone into some extra resources.  Gross is good, and so is any other major text book.

ALERT!!  ALERT!!  OMG I’ve just noticed a major problem for you.  There are no references for Health Belief Model or Theory of Reasoned Action in the Course Booklet.  I’ll sort them out for you in the next few days.

Assignment 2 already.

You will be getting Assignment 2 this week – that is if you haven’t got it already!  As I write I know that there is at least one completed assignment 2 waiting to be marked. 

So, some hints as to how to do this one.

First, look at the hints on the assignment brief.  I’ve copied and pasted it here:

Hint:  The key word here is “assess”.  So, if you are considering for example the issue of informed consent, in order to achieve a pass you must identify the issue, explain it, and show how it applies to your chosen investigation.  Did the investigation meet the demands of the ethical issue?  Could it have been done differently?  Did the ethical requirement impact on the aim of the investigation, and if so, how?  Was the whole investigation ethically sound?

But there are more issues to discover than informed consent.  Look in the class booklet, at the ethics section tables.  “2.9  Ethical Guidelines for conducting research” For human research, there are seven headings, not all of which will apply to your experiment.  But even so, you should list them all.  In fact, if you really want to please me then present it this way:

• Consent:  what it means, did it apply to your experiment, and how was it dealt with?   (or controlled – means the same thing.)
• Deception:  was there a deception in your example?  Probably not, in which cased you can say so and move on.
• Debriefing:      (and so on…)

 There is quite a bit about ethics in the booklet.  Much of it is centred around the research of Stanley Milgram and obedience to authority.  Although we will look at Milgram in much detail later (Unit Conformity and Obedience) his research makes fascinating reading.  If you get a chance, try and read it up for yourself.

I’ve updated the “What’s New” link in the resources section with some interesting articles.  And there are some items in the Health Psychology link.

Assignment 1 - The Need For Speed

OK, so here are some hints for assignment 1.  I’ve tried to include as many as possible of the problems you encountered during the workshops, so that all three groups  can share each other’s problems.

You can find everything you need in the research methods section of the class booklet.  You should by now have read all of the section, including the tables about non-experimental methods and ethics.  If you haven’t, then get a move on.  Turn off the telly, make yourself comfortable and get reading!

First, the assignment itself is really in three parts.  Questions 1 – 8, 9 – 21 and 22 – 26.  Each part deals with a particular type of research method:  Experiment,  correlation and the others – but not necessarily in that order.  Remember that the experiment is a specific research method, as is the used of correlation.  Also mentioned are case study, unstructured interview and questionnaire survey. 

 

Correlation is a method which looks for a relationship between two variables.  The graph involved is a scattergram.   (Whoops! I wasn’t supposed to give that away!)

The experiment section also asks for a graph.  Look in the booklet.  The two bar chart of means is the preferred and most appropriate here.  Keep it simple.  Make sure that all the axes are labelled properly.

Some of the questions need simple one line answers.  However, several give scope for discussion and evaluation.  And in most cases, it’s a good idea to say why you arrive at a particular answer.  

Make sure that you look up experimental design before you do questions 15 and 16.

Questions 17 and 18 should be taken together.  For each extraneous variable that you deal with,  you should say why it is an EV, what would be the effect on the results if it was not controlled and for question 18, how was it controlled.  (Or how you would control it if it was not mentioned in the assignment brief.)

 

Well, by now you should be needing some sustenance.  Coffee OK?  Or perhaps something a bit stronger?

Many of you asked about demand characteristics.  They are a problem in research, particularly in survey questionnaires and also in experiments.  Basically, if a participant knows the aim of the experiment or survey, then there is a tendency to behave in the way the participant thinks the experimenter wishes, so that the experiment is not perceived by the participant to be a failure.  Similarly, participants will often give a questionnaire answer which they believe the experimenter wants, rather than their true attitude or belief.  How might5 this be a problem?  And how can it be overcome – if at all?

Finally – handing it all in.  As I said, please give it to me personally, and get it date stamped.  Otherwise, hand it to reception and get a receipt.   I would love to make this year the year when I don’t lose any assignments!

And finally finally.  Give yourself a pat on the back for completing  your first psychology assignment! 

 

This is you when you've done the assignment.

Unless you're one of the blokes. In which case I'll find a suitable picture for a later post.

Getting Ready....

It's nearly half term already!  Soon, you'll all be doing those lovely assignments, keeping you indoors on those cold winter evenings.

Main reason for this post is that some of you have asked for the ambiguous figures in the practical workshops.  Here they are:

You can save them to stick or disc or whatever by right clicking on the image, then choosing either copy or save image as.

Also, here is a link to the experiment powerpoint that we used in class.  By the way, you could do worse than look at the Research Methods page to see loads of simple, useful materials.  Will definitely help when you start the assignment (oops, there I go again!)

Welcome to Psychospace2011

Title says it all really.

This blog is the place to be if you are one of my access students, or if you're just interested, or - no reason really I guess!

You most probably arrived here via my website, and this link  will return you to the homepage.  Or, you could always just press the back button in your browser.

Last year's blog, "PsychoSpace"  was a great success.  It was a point where students could find that extra bit of help and encouragement when the assignment was becoming impossible, or perhaps you just missed the lesson where the answers were explained, or whatever.  I hope tthat the success from last year is continued