Synoptic review of studies — Edexcel A-Level Psychology
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Synoptic review of studies explained
The skill here is comparison, not recall.
Read the full explanation
Each topic area carries one landmark study using various methods: Sherif studied boys at Robbers Cave through observation in a field setting, Baddeley ran a tightly controlled laboratory experiment on word lists, Raine scanned murderers' brains in a quasi experiment, Watson and Rayner conditioned a fear response in an infant, Rosenhan sent pseudopatients into psychiatric hospitals as covert participant observers, Loftus and Palmer also used a laboratory experiment to change a verb in a questionnaire about a filmed crash, and Bowlby worked backwards through case records. Set them against shared criteria, sample, control, type of data, ethics and usefulness, and the differences become the argument.
9.2.2 Review synoptically the classic studies of psychology in terms of issues and debates.
Synoptic review means asking the same set of questions of studies drawn from different topics. Ask which side of nature and nurture a study supports, since a conditioned infant fear and a finding of reduced prefrontal activity in murderers pull in opposite directions. Ask how reductionist the explanation is, and whether a brain scan or a list of words can carry the weight placed on it. Ask whether the sample carries gender or culture bias, as a study of American schoolboys does. Ask what society did with the finding, from the tightening of diagnostic criteria after psychiatric hospitals admitted healthy volunteers to the reform of police interviewing after work on leading questions. Ask whether the research was socially sensitive, which the work on maternal deprivation certainly was.
9.2.3 Use principles of understanding, evaluation and synopticity on unseen material.
The skills paper hands you a source you have never met, usually a short account of an unfamiliar study with a table of results, and rewards the candidate who treats it exactly as they would a named study. Work through it in a fixed order: aim, sample and sampling method, design and controls, how the variables were operationalised, the results, then the conclusion drawn from them. Evaluate with generalisability, reliability, application, validity and ethics rather than with vague praise, and quote the extract’s own figures when you criticise it. The final move is to reach outwards, linking the source to a classic study such as Raine and colleagues on reduced prefrontal activity in murderers, and to a debate such as reductionism.
Your focus
- Compare classic studies from different topic areas using shared criteria such as sample, control, and ethics.
- Evaluate the methodological strengths and weaknesses of classic studies in psychology.
- Draw on findings from classic studies to construct a comparative argument about psychological research.
Show all 5 objectives
- 9.2.2 Review synoptically the classic studies of psychology in terms of issues and debates.
- 9.2.3 Use principles of understanding, evaluation and synopticity on unseen material.
Synoptic review of studies exam tips
Marking Points
- Making the comparison explicit, stating a point of similarity or difference and then putting a study on each side of it, such as the controlled word lists of Baddeley against the covert hospital observation of Rosenhan as opposite answers to the problem of validity.
- Naming each method correctly, since a comparison built on calling the brain scanning study a true experiment collapses, because the murderers could not be allocated to their condition.
- Using findings rather than reputations, for example that acoustic similarity disrupted immediate recall while semantic similarity disrupted recall after a delay, or that the verb smashed produced higher speed estimates than contacted.
- Judging the studies against one criterion at a time, such as generalisability, where a sample of white American schoolboys and a sample of one infant fail in quite different ways.
- Naming the debate and then the evidence, so that a claim about biological determinism is followed by the finding of lower glucose metabolism in the prefrontal cortex and by the point that a brain difference is correlational.
- Handling socially sensitive research through its consequences, for example the use of maternal deprivation research to argue that mothers of young children should not go out to work.
- Arguing both sides of reductionism, that reducing behaviour to a brain region or a conditioned response yields testable predictions but leaves out meaning, culture and choice.
- Applying cultural and gender bias precisely, identifying what the sample was and what population the conclusion was then applied to, rather than asserting bias in general terms.
- Using a study to show how psychological understanding changed over time, such as the move towards operational diagnostic criteria after normal behaviour was reinterpreted as symptoms on a psychiatric ward.
- Credit follows use of the source: quote its sample size, its measure or one of its figures and then say what that fact does to the conclusion, rather than writing an answer that would fit any study.
- Method description is credited when the design is named precisely, such as independent groups, repeated measures, matched pairs, quasi-experiment or content analysis, and the independent and dependent variables are given as the source itself operationalised them.
- Each evaluation point earns most when it is built as claim, evidence from the extract, and consequence, for example that an opportunity sample of undergraduates narrows generalisation to the wider population.
- Synoptic credit is for a comparison carrying a reason, naming a study that used the same method or tested the same behaviour and saying what the two together show.
- An issue or debate counts as synopticity only when applied, for instance noting that a brain scan measure alone is reductionist because it leaves the situational trigger out of the account.
Examiner Tips
- 💡Learn each landmark study as a compact card of aim, method, sample, two findings, one conclusion and two evaluation points, because that is what a comparison can be built from at speed.
- 💡Comparison earns more credit than description, so spend most of the writing time on the linking sentences rather than on retelling procedures.
- 💡Where a question names a criterion, pick the two studies that differ most sharply on it rather than the two you happen to remember best.
- 💡The longest essays on these papers are synoptic, so plan around three debates with one study each rather than naming six debates in passing.
- 💡Discuss and evaluate questions expect a conclusion that takes a position, so end by saying where the weight of evidence falls and why.
- 💡Keep one reliable study per debate and reuse it across questions, rather than learning a fresh example for every issue on the list.
- 💡This sits in the review of studies section of the skills paper, so protect reading time and underline sample, design and outcome measure before writing a word.
- 💡The usual shape is a short outline or describe on method followed by a longer evaluate or assess, and the longer one carries the analysis marks, so plan three developed points rather than six one-line ones.
- 💡If numbers are supplied, do something arithmetical with them, comparing means or turning a raw count into a percentage, because candidates who use the data outscore those who only repeat it.
Common Mistakes
- Describing two studies one after the other and never comparing them; a comparison needs a shared criterion and a linking phrase such as whereas or in contrast.
- Getting the design wrong, most often by calling the pseudopatient study an experiment, or by treating the juvenile thieves study as experimental when it rested on interviews and records and drew a correlational conclusion.
- Quoting the famous headline instead of the finding, for instance saying that memory was proved unreliable rather than reporting the speed estimates and the responses about broken glass.
- Comparing only on method, when marks are also available for comparing samples, types of data, ethics and the use made of the findings.
- Defining the debates in the abstract and never attaching a study, which is the fastest route to the bottom band on a synoptic question.
- Treating free will and determinism as a choice between two boxes, instead of arguing for soft determinism where the evidence allows it.
- Calling a study ethnocentric or androcentric without saying what the sample was or what was claimed on the strength of it.
- Confusing socially sensitive research with unethical research; a study can be conducted impeccably and still carry damaging implications for a group.
- Paraphrasing the extract back at the examiner, which shows comprehension and not evaluation, so the answer stalls in the lowest band however long it is.
- Importing a memorised evaluation of a famous study onto the unseen source, such as criticising it for deception when the extract never says any deception took place.
- Naming a debate and stopping there, asserting that the study is deterministic without saying which behaviour is being treated as caused and by what.
- Calling the study unreliable when the criticism meant is about validity, confusing consistency of measurement with whether the measure captures the behaviour at all.