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schizo- compare and contrast

i read a thread cant recall from who regarding section A PYA4 saying that most prob schizo likely to come up n da question will be "compare and contrast".Apart from anxiet disoders where it is possible to compare and contrast as ur can compare behavioral and biologice (i.e both use scientific methos and in terms on contrst one focues on internal - biological and one external behavoural) but how da hell can u compare psy and biological in relation to schizio? sure theres a few things u can say but not enough for a essay question! Do you guys think that if the question is on schiz that they ask a compare and contrast question ? what are the chances? for anxity disorder i can see how u can compare and cotrast but for schizo its really difficult!!!! not much to say!and for others i got essay ansers but for this sort of question i havent i'm using key topis in psychology i doesnt cover compare and contrast schiz but the book is veryyyyy good!

Reply 1

scorpy66

Schizophrenia etc. is PYA5 not 4!

Which psychological explanations have you done?

Whichever they are, you should still be able to do some comparison/contrast re. core concepts/assumptions, main methodology, degree/quality of supporting research, testability, application (has the theory produced a treatment?), ethics, reductionism/complexity, etc.

Reply 2

zoea85

2

Yeah I think it was me who asked the same thing. I had a strong feeling that schizo will come up but judging by the pattern it also looked like a compare/contast question could come up but like you I found it very difficult to see how you could do a compare/contrast on schizo. I've been looking in various books and on the net etc and I think you could talk about reductionism, determinism, nature/nuture, biological theory has more evidence in support than psychological, stuff like that but I still think its a very difficult question and if it came up the grade boundaries would probably go down, put it that way! Also, compare/contrast wasn't listed as a possible question for schizophrenia in the cardwell exam companion book, yet it was for anxiety and depression, whether that means anything I don't know...

Reply 3

~*Sar*~

1

i dont think they'll ask us to compare an contrast schizo, like u lot, i don't really see how you can (without rabblin on about trivial stuff lol). Fingers crossed they wont ask us...

Reply 4

scorpy66

Why is compare/contrast more difficult for schizophrenia than any of the other disorders? :confused:

Reply 5

.butterfly.x.

11

On the mark schemes for past papers there are 2 different ways in which this question can be answered, and it is entirely upto each individual in which they feel most comfortable with.
Personally I prefer describing the explanation and then using evaluation style points to get the AO2 marks, however you can also explain it within each point.
I did an essay plan in the form of a table and found loads of different points as I went through.

Reply 6

PsychNick

8

Whats the what, just do bio explanations, psych explanations and try as best you can to tie them in. There's always a problem that essays in this area don't actually 'contrast' but hey apparently you can still get full marks anyway!

Reply 7

PurpleMonster

Yeh, we looked at compare and contrast essays for depression and phobias but not for schizophrenia....hopefully one won't come up. For depression and phobias we've been told to explain the different types, look at convinng research and see which one shows most support, look at effective therapy and link to the debates.

Reply 8

Miss.P

13

omg I am so confused here!! My teacher hasn't said anything about compare/contrast :confused:

I've revised depression so far for unit 5,
done the biological and psychological explanations, then what do I do, just compare/contrast both..in terms of how useful they are..i.e both lead to treatments? biological more scientific?

...Stuff like that!? arghh

Reply 9

Theresa Smells

1

COuldn't you do something like: Biolgoy has attempted to explain schizopherneia through brain sturcture. For example Pahl et al reviewed 50 stuides into the disorder and found a high proportion of large ventricles in the brain, these would cause masses of oxygen to enter the brain. However, there is a clear cause and effect issue here, for example it could be possible that schizophrenia caused the large ventricles in teh brain to appear rather than the large ventricles causing schizophrenia.

Would that not be comparing and contrasting? Or does it have to be between 2 different 'types'?

Reply 10

PsychNick

8

Theresa Smells

COuldn't you do something like: Biolgoy has attempted to explain schizopherneia through brain sturcture. For example Pahl et al reviewed 50 stuides into the disorder and found a high proportion of large ventricles in the brain, these would cause masses of oxygen to enter the brain. However, there is a clear cause and effect issue here, for example it could be possible that schizophrenia caused the large ventricles in teh brain to appear rather than the large ventricles causing schizophrenia.

Would that not be comparing and contrasting? Or does it have to be between 2 different 'types'?

Yeah and then there's the easy conclusion point of 'a combination theory is most appropriate like the diathesis stress model.'

Reply 11

~*Sar*~

1

i getcha...!
so you could do AO1 relatively separately(with lil tie in bits like similar to... different from...), then for AO2 compare therapies and levels of success, levels of reductionism, determinism etc.. actually when thinkin about it there's loads you could write about, i guess you just have to adapt what you've learnt to the question. If you know enough about each subject it should be ok.

Reply 12

Miss.P

13

Theresa Smells

COuldn't you do something like: Biolgoy has attempted to explain schizopherneia through brain sturcture. For example Pahl et al reviewed 50 stuides into the disorder and found a high proportion of large ventricles in the brain, these would cause masses of oxygen to enter the brain. However, there is a clear cause and effect issue here, for example it could be possible that schizophrenia caused the large ventricles in teh brain to appear rather than the large ventricles causing schizophrenia.

Would that not be comparing and contrasting? Or does it have to be between 2 different 'types'?

That's like in depression.. kety (1975) who put forward the permissive amine theory of mood disorder. So can you say that it's not clear whether it is the low levels of serontonin/noradrelanine that's causing the depression, or wheter it is depression altering the levels of these neurotransmitters??

By 'types' do you mean between genetics or brain biochemistry, or biological and psychological?

Reply 13

jhighmore

I hate compare and contrast. And apparently you're not meant to compare and contrast applications of the theories, because it's not relevand :confused:

Reply 14

Miss.P

13

^ Yeah I just went on the aqa website, and it says you must compare/contrast bewteen psychological/biological, not within each!