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.