Psychology

Research methods and techniques

Here the researcher measures two things that already vary and asks how they vary together, manipulating nothing, which is exactly why no causal claim can follow. The data must be pairs taken from the same participant, each pair plotted as one point on a scattergram, and the coefficient that summarises the cloud runs from minus one through zero to plus one. Maguire et al. (2000) is the example worth carrying: the longer London taxi drivers had spent doing the job, the greater the grey matter volume in the posterior hippocampus and the smaller it was in the anterior region, so one study holds a relationship in each direction. Neither shows that driving changed the brain, since people with a larger posterior hippocampus may simply last longer in the work, and setting out that alternative is the evaluation examiners reward.

Correlation: obtaining data for correlational analysis; positive correlation; negative correlation; no correlation., Self-report: questionnaire; Interviews: structured, semi-structured, unstructured., Learners should have knowledge and understanding of the following research methods and techniques and their associated strengths and weaknesses. +2 more

Planning and conducting research

This topic covers the essential processes involved in planning and conducting psychological research, including the formulation of aims and hypotheses, selection of participants, experimental design, operationalisation of variables, and the design of observations and self-reports.

Experimental designs: repeated measures design; independent measures design; matched participants design., Designing self-reports: open questions; closed questions; rating scales: Likert rating scale, Semantic differential rating scale., Populations, samples and sampling techniques: target population and sample; random sampling; snowball sampling; opportunity sampling; self-selected sampling. +4 more

Data recording, analysis and presentation

Reliability is consistency and validity is truth, and a study can have one without the other. Internal consistency is checked by splitting a measure in half and comparing the halves, stability by retesting after an interval, and agreement between observers by correlating their records, as Bandura et al. (1961) did in reporting about 0.89. Validity asks whether the measure captures the construct, whether the result survives outside the setting and whether it holds beyond the sample, which is why Loftus and Palmer (1974) is strong internally and weak ecologically. Participants who guess the aim show demand characteristics, described by Orne (1962), and expectant researchers find what they expect, as Rosenthal and Fode (1963) showed with rats labelled bright or dull. The British Psychological Society code then sets the limits.

Methodological issues: representativeness; generalisability; reliability: Internal, External, Inter-rater, Test-retest, Split-half; validity: Internal, Face, Construct, Concurrent, Criterion, External, Population, Ecological; demand characteristics; social desirability; researcher/observer bias; researcher/observer effect(s); ethical considerations, including the British Psychological Society’s Code of Ethics and Conduct: Respect – informed consent, right to withdraw, confidentiality; Competence; Responsibility – protection of participant, debrief; Integrity – deception., Descriptive statistics: measures of central tendency: mode, median, mean; measures of dispersion: variance, range, standard deviation; ratio; percentages; fractions; frequency tables (tally chart); line graph; pie charts; bar charts; histograms; scatter diagram., Raw data: design of raw data recording tables; use of raw data recording tables; standard and decimal form; significant figures; make estimations from data collected. +3 more

Report writing

A journal article follows a fixed running order because each part answers a different question for the reader, and marks are earned by knowing which question. The opening tells you what was found in miniature, the next part argues from existing theory to a testable prediction, the middle tells you exactly what was done and to whom, then the numbers arrive stripped of interpretation, and only afterwards does the writer say what it all means and what was wrong with it. Milgram published his obedience work in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology in 1963 in exactly this shape, and Loftus and Palmer published their leading question experiments the same way in 1974, which is why any reader can still check them. Learn the order as a chain of purposes rather than as a list of headings.

Learners should have knowledge of the conventions of reporting research in a practical report and demonstrate understanding of the role and purpose of each of the main sections and sub-sections., Sections and sub-sections of a practical report: abstract; introduction; method (design, sample, materials/apparatus, procedure); results; discussion; references; appendices., Citing academic references: a familiarity with citing academic research using the Harvard system of referencing, e.g. Milgram, S. (1963) Behavioral study of obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67, (4), 371–378. +1 more

Practical activities

A folder of your own studies is the cheapest revision resource you will own, provided it holds finished work. Keep each practical as its own file with the write-up, the blank materials, the raw data and the workings. Spreadsheets do the arithmetic students most often get wrong by hand, including means, medians, ranges, standard deviations and the ranking that Spearman or Mann Whitney needs. They also draw the right graph, so long as you choose it rather than accept whatever the software offers first: separated bars for category totals, touching bars for continuous data grouped into intervals, and a scattergram where each person contributes two scores. Examiners can tell who has handled real data, because those answers describe what the numbers did rather than what they were supposed to do.

In order to become fully familiar with the content of this component, it is suggested that learners create a research portfolio using appropriate information communication technology and write-up the practicals they conduct., Learners are expected to conduct and analyse their own small-scale research practicals, including appropriate risk assessment and management, (please see appendix 5d)., Learners should have experience of the following practical activities: self-report; observation; experiment; correlation.

How science works

Psychology does not stay in the laboratory. Findings reach practice through bodies that weigh evidence in public: research councils choose what gets funded, ethics committees decide what may be done, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommends which treatments the health service will pay for, which is why cognitive behavioural therapy is a first line offer for depression and anxiety. The economic argument was made explicitly for the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies programme, on the grounds that treating common mental disorder costs less than the lost output and benefit payments it prevents. Memory research reshaped police interviewing, attachment research reshaped hospital visiting for young children, and shift work research reshaped rostering. Cost, ethics and evidence are weighed together by people.

Learners should understand how society makes decisions about scientific issues and how psychology contributes to the success of the economy and society., Learners should be aware of the nature and principles of scientific enquiry through knowledge and understanding of the following concepts: the study of cause-and-effect; falsification; replicability; objectivity; induction; deduction; hypothesis testing; manipulation of variables; control and standardisation; quantifiable measurements.

Section B: Option 1 Child psychology

Attachment is the enduring emotional tie that turns a caregiver into a secure base, and it develops from indiscriminate social responsiveness, through a clear preference for one figure, to separation and stranger anxiety in the second half of the first year. The key research supplied the standardised laboratory procedure that made individual differences measurable, using short episodes of separation and reunion to see whether a baby uses the caregiver as a base for exploring and what it does when she comes back. Failure to form an attachment is studied through delinquency research, through children raised in institutions and through adoption follow ups, and the applied question asks what a nursery, a ward or a foster placement should do differently once that evidence is taken seriously.

Development of attachment (Social) – The development of attachment in babies and the impact of failure to develop attachments. Ainsworth and Bell (1970) Attachment, Exploration and Separation: Illustrated by the Behavior of One-year-olds in a Strange Situation. At least one strategy to develop an attachment friendly environment., Intelligence (Biological) – What psychologists mean by intelligence and what biological factors could affect intelligence. Van Leeuwen et al. (2008) A twin-family study of general IQ. At least one method of assessing intelligence., Perceptual development (Cognitive) – Perceptual development in children and how this can be studied in babies and animals. Gibson and Walk (1960) The visual cliff. At least one play strategy to develop perception in young children. +3 more

Research methods (Component 01)

Applied psychology (Component 03) requires learners to study one compulsory section, Issues in mental health, and two out of four optional applied psychology topics: Child psychology, Criminal psychology, Environmental psychology, or Sports and exercise psychology. The component focuses on background, key research, and applications, while requiring learners to apply methodological issues and debates across these topics.

Section B: Areas, perspectives and debates

A perspective is a set of assumptions about where behaviour comes from, and these two disagree about almost everything. The behaviourist view treats behaviour as learned from the environment through association and consequence, which is why the inflatable doll work and the whistling inhaler belong to it: children who watched an adult attack the doll reproduced the same distinctive blows and phrases, and Chaney and colleagues (2004) found that asthmatic children given a spacer fitted with a spinner and a whistle completed the recommended breathing cycles far more often than with the plain device. The psychodynamic view treats behaviour as driven by conflicts a person cannot report, which is what was read into a boy's horse phobia and what a word pattern analysis claims to find in the way an offender narrates a killing.

Studies that come from a behaviourist perspective include Bandura’s research into transmission of aggression and Chaney’s Funhaler study, while psychodynamic ideas are referred to in the research by Freud (Little Hans), Kohlberg (stages of moral development) and Hancock (language of psychopaths); however, learners may refer to other studies., Debates: Nature/nurture; Freewill/determinism; Reductionism/holism; Individual/situational explanations; Usefulness of research; Ethical considerations; Conducting socially sensitive research; Psychology as a science – The defining principles and concepts of each debate. Different positions within each debate. Research to illustrate different positions within each debate. Applications of different positions within each debate. How each debate is different from and similar to other debates., The specification places core studies within particular areas, but learners may make reference to studies from across the components and may also argue that a core study placed within one area can be seen as falling within another area. +2 more

Section C: Practical applications

This is a three step skill and the steps are marked separately. First, spot what is psychological in the material, naming the process rather than the behaviour. Second, propose something that could actually be done and tie it to evidence, for example a token economy built on operant conditioning for a child who will not follow classroom rules, systematic desensitisation with a graded hierarchy for a fear of flying, a cognitive interview drawing on Loftus and Palmer (1974) for a witness who was asked leading questions, or the kind of redesign Chaney et al. (2004) used when they made an inhaler rewarding for children to use. Third, turn on your own idea and weigh it, since the last marks go to candidates who say what their suggestion costs, who it might not work for and how anyone would know whether it had worked.

The practical applications of psychology: Recognise the psychological content in the source. Make evidence-based suggestions in relation to the source. Consider the strengths and weaknesses of the suggestion(s) they themselves are making., In order to encourage awareness of practical applications of psychology, this section will require learners to apply their knowledge and understanding of psychology to a novel source as provided in the examination. The source could be a newspaper or magazine article, a blog, a diary entry, email exchange or equivalent written source.

D.1 – handling data

An inferential test turns a difference between conditions into a probability that it arose by chance, and this board restricts the calculation to non-parametric ones. The binomial sign test is worked by giving each participant a plus or a minus for the direction of their change, discarding anyone whose score did not move, counting the less frequent sign, and taking the number of remaining participants as the sample size. Wilcoxon signed ranks is worked by finding each difference, ranking the differences by size while ignoring whether they are positive or negative, then totalling the ranks belonging to the less frequent sign. Mann-Whitney is worked by ranking every score across both groups together. Chaney and colleagues (2004) compared the same asthmatic children using a standard inhaler and the Funhaler, which is the repeated measures shape the first two tests are built for.

Use a statistical test (to include: calculating a non-parametric test of differences using data from a given experiment), Know the characteristics of normal and skewed distributions (to include: being presented with a set of scores from an experiment and being asked to indicate the position of the mean (or median, or mode)), Use a scatter diagram to identify a correlation between two variables (to include: plotting two variables from an investigation on a scatter diagram and identifying the pattern as a positive correlation, a negative correlation or no correlation) +14 more

Section B: Option 2 Criminal psychology

Accounts of offending divide into the physiological, such as inherited temperament, monoamine oxidase activity, autonomic underarousal and frontal damage, and the non-physiological, such as Eysenck's criminal personality, differential association, cognitive distortions and labelling. Raine and colleagues scanned forty-one people charged with murder who were pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, matched one to one with controls on age and sex, using positron emission tomography while participants worked at a continuous performance task. The offenders showed reduced glucose metabolism in the prefrontal cortex, the corpus callosum and parts of the parietal lobe, with abnormal left and right asymmetry in the amygdala and thalamus, while regions such as the caudate and cerebellum did not differ. Raine himself warned the data neither excuse murder nor prove biology causes it.

What makes a criminal? (Biological) – Physiological and non-physiological explanations of criminal behaviour. Raine et al. (1997) Brain abnormalities in murderers indicated by positron emission tomography. At least one biological strategy for preventing criminal behaviour., Effect of imprisonment (Social) – Punishment and reform as responses to criminal behaviour. Haney et al. (1973) Study of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison. At least one strategy for reducing reoffending., The collection and processing of forensic evidence (Biological) – Motivating factors and bias in the collection and processing of forensic evidence. Hall and Player (2008) Will the introduction of an emotional context affect fingerprint analysis and decision-making? At least one strategy for reducing bias in the collection and processing of forensic evidence. +3 more

Section A: Core studies

Every pairing sits under a theme, and every theme sits inside an area, so a complete answer travels down both. The social area treats behaviour as a product of the situation and of other people, which is where responses to authority and responses to people in need belong. The cognitive area treats the mind as a processor whose workings are inferred from performance, so memory and attention sit there. The developmental area asks how behaviour changes with age and experience, the biological area explains it through body and brain, and individual differences asks how and why people vary. A study earns theme marks by showing the theme in its findings, and area marks by showing that its assumptions and its method are the ones that area works with.

Key themes and areas of psychology: How each core study relates to its key theme. How each core study relates to the area of psychology it is placed within., Individual differences – Measuring differences: Gould (1982) A nation of morons Bias in IQ testing; Hancock et al. (2011) Language of psychopaths, Cognitive – Attention: Moray (1959) Auditory attention; Simons and Chabris (1999) Visual inattention +12 more

D.3 – graphs

A record sheet is raw, so the first move is numerical: total or average each condition before anything is drawn. The display then has to match the data it came from, with separate conditions taking bars that are spaced apart, continuous scores grouped into intervals taking bars that touch, and paired scores from the same participants taking a plot of dots. The conditions belong on the horizontal axis, the measured variable on the vertical one, both labelled with the variable and its unit, the scale even and starting at zero, and a title naming what is shown. Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) is the familiar case, where mean imitative aggression scores for the aggressive model, the non aggressive model and the control group sit side by side and the difference can be seen before any test is run.

Translate information between graphical, numerical and algebraic forms (to include: using a set of numerical data (a set of scores) from a record sheet to construct a bar graph), Plot two variables from experimental or other data (to include: sketching a scatter diagram using two sets of data from a correlational investigation)

D.0 – arithmetic and numerical computation

An observation produces tallies, and a tally says nothing until it is expressed as a share of the total number of coded behaviours: divide the count for one category by that total and multiply by one hundred. The same arithmetic converts inter observer agreement into a percentage, and converts a before and after difference into percentage change, where the divisor is always the original value. Piliavin and colleagues report their subway data in this form, with the victim who carried a cane helped on the great majority of trials and the apparently drunk victim on roughly half, and the comparison only works because each figure is a share of its own trial total. Fractions and ratios express the same relationship in different clothing, and a good answer picks whichever makes the comparison clearest.

Use ratios, fractions and percentages (to include: calculating the percentages of cases that fall into different categories in an observation study), Estimate results (to include: commenting on the spread of scores for a set of data, which would require estimating the range), Recognise and use expressions in decimal and standard form (to include: converting data in standard form from a results table into decimal form in order to construct a pie chart)

Psychological themes through core studies (Component 02)

Applied psychology (Component 03) requires learners to study one compulsory section, Issues in mental health, and two out of four optional applied psychology topics: Child psychology, Criminal psychology, Environmental psychology, or Sports and exercise psychology. The component focuses on background, key research, and applications, while requiring learners to apply methodological issues and debates across these topics.

Section A: Issues in mental health

Applied psychology (Component 03) requires learners to study one compulsory section, Issues in mental health, and two out of four optional applied psychology topics: Child psychology, Criminal psychology, Environmental psychology, or Sports and exercise psychology. The component focuses on background, key research, and applications, while requiring learners to apply methodological issues and debates across these topics.

Alternatives to the medical model – The behaviourist explanation of mental illness; The cognitive explanation of mental illness; One from: the humanistic explanation of mental illness, the psychodynamic explanation of mental illness, the cognitive neuroscience explanation of mental illness. Szasz (2011) The myth of mental illness: 50 years later. Non-biological treatment of one specific disorder., The historical context of mental health – Historical views of mental illness; Defining abnormality; Categorising mental disorders. Rosenhan (1973) On being sane in insane places. Characteristics of an affective disorder, a psychotic disorder and an anxiety disorder., The medical model – The biochemical explanation of mental illness; The genetic explanation of mental illness; Brain abnormality as an explanation of mental illness. Gottesman et al. (2010) Disorders in offspring with two psychiatrically ill parents. Biological treatment of one specific disorder.

Section B: Option 3 Environmental psychology

Two related ideas run through this topic. Territory is a place a person claims and marks, and the useful distinction is between primary space that is owned and controlled, secondary space that is shared but familiar, and public space that nobody holds. Personal space is the portable bubble described in work on proxemics, shrinking for intimates and expanding for strangers, and it is invaded rather than entered. Workplaces stress both at once, since an open plan floor removes the walls that marked a primary territory and hot desking removes the desk itself. The prescribed survey of office personalisation asks what employees gain by marking their space, and finds the answer runs through satisfaction with the physical environment to job satisfaction and wellbeing, with managers underrating the benefit.

Territory and personal space (Social) – Territory and personal space in the workplace. Wells (2000) Office clutter or meaningful personal displays: The role of office personalization in employee and organisational well-being. At least one office design strategy based on research into territory or personal space., Ergonomics – human factors (Cognitive) – Cognitive overload and the impact of observation in the workplace environment. Drews and Doig (2014) Evaluation of a configural vital sign display for intensive care unit nurses. At least one workplace design based on ergonomic research., Psychological effects of built environment (Social) – The impact of the built environment and urban renewal on our wellbeing. Ulrich (1984) View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. At least one example of environmental design used to improve health/wellbeing. +3 more

Section B: Option 4 Sport and exercise psychology

Start by separating the words the specification keeps together. Arousal is a physiological state of activation with no direction, anxiety is a negative emotional response that has a cognitive component of worry and a somatic component of bodily symptoms, and the two are measured differently. The old drive and inverted U accounts treat performance as rising with activation to a peak and then declining gently. The prescribed monograph argues that this is the wrong shape whenever worry is high, because performance then falls off a cliff rather than a slope, and getting it back demands a much larger drop in activation than the level at which it collapsed. That asymmetry is the point examiners look for, and it is why a competitor cannot simply calm down mid game.

Arousal and anxiety (Biological) – Optimising arousal, controlling anxiety and measuring anxiety in sport. Fazey and Hardy (1988) The inverted-U hypothesis: A catastrophe for sport psychology. At least one technique for managing arousal and anxiety in sport., Motivation (Cognitive) – Self-efficacy and sports confidence, including imagery and sports orientation. Munroe-Chandler et al. (2008) Playing with confidence: the relationship between imagery use and self-confidence and self-efficacy in youth soccer players. At least one strategy for motivating athletes., Audience effects (Social) – How an audience can facilitate or inhibit sports performance; home advantage. Zajonc et al. (1969) Social enhancement and impairment of performance in the cockroach. At least one strategy for training for and playing spectator sports. +3 more

2c. Content of Applied psychology (Component 03)

Every topic in the applied paper has one named study behind it, and describing it means method, sample, procedure, findings and conclusion in that order, with enough numbers to show you know the study rather than the story. Rosenhan (1973) sent healthy volunteers into twelve hospitals, where all but one were admitted with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and ordinary behaviour such as note taking was recorded as a symptom. Gottesman et al. (2010) followed Danish national registers and found the risk of schizophrenia in offspring rose steeply when both parents had been admitted with it. Hall and Player (2008) gave fingerprint experts the same ambiguous mark with either a low or a high emotional crime report and found that context changed what many said they felt but not the identifications they made.

Key research: Learners should be able to describe the key research and appreciate how it relates to the topic area., Application: Learners should be able to relate the application to a novel situation., Background: With reference to psychology, learners should be able to explain and exemplify the background and consider relevant issues and debates in relation to the topic area. +3 more

D.2 – algebra

Most statistics marks are lost before any arithmetic, in the step where figures from a table are placed in the wrong slots. The routine never changes: say what each letter stands for, check the data are in the state that test requires, and keep one unit throughout. In a test of association the letters stand for the frequency actually counted and the frequency expected if there were no relationship, and an expected cell value comes from its row total multiplied by its column total and divided by the overall number of observations, so that total has to be counted before anything else happens. The counts must be people or events, which is why Piliavin et al. (1969) could analyse how many passengers helped the cane victim and how many helped the drunk victim, but could not feed an average helpfulness score into the same formula.

Substitute numerical values into algebraic equations using appropriate units for physical quantities (to include: inserting the appropriate values from a given set of data into the formula for a statistical test e.g. inserting the N value (for the number of scores) into the Chi Square formula), Solve simple algebraic equations (to include: calculating the degrees of freedom for a Chi Square test), Understand and use the symbols: =, <, <<, >>, >, ∝, ~ (to include: expressing the outcome of an inferential test in the conventional form by stating the level of significance at the 0.05 level or 0.01 level by using symbols appropriately)

Applied psychology (Component 03)

Applied psychology (Component 03) requires learners to study one compulsory section, Issues in mental health, and two out of four optional applied psychology topics: Child psychology, Criminal psychology, Environmental psychology, or Sports and exercise psychology. The component focuses on background, key research, and applications, while requiring learners to apply methodological issues and debates across these topics.