AQA A2 Psychology PSYA3/PSYA4 Revision Thread 2015

This one and thanks I'll have a look


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doesn't allow me to see the attachment what book is it called? and no problem

Oxford the complete student companion book 3rd edition


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that's the new book has recent studies so definitely worth using alongside your teachers notes and finding new studies online!

Thank god for that!! Do examiners accept new studies then, there's not a set list of researchers or anything?


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I'll do it on here so others can benefit too

AO3 IDA/MAID:

Methodological Issues
Validity is a big one here - external (population validity (age/gender/occupation of participants) and ecological validity (is it like real life?) are two main ones) and internal validity (has there been any demand characteristics or a participants fault memory? If so, this may be because you've used a self report technique such as a survey or questionnaire)

Approaches
Biological, Behavioural, Psychodynamic, Cognitive - which one is your theory most like? Why is it this and not another one? Does focusing on one theory make it reductionist or deterministic (and so you bring in a debate)? The Biological Approach is often a commone offender of these two!

Issues
Gender Bias - are the findings women dominated (gynocentric) or male dominated (androcentric)? If so, they can't be generalised to the other gender as we may not know if they'll behave in a similar way!
Cultural Bias - where has the study been done? If it's somewhere like America, a Western, individualistic society then can it be generalised to Israel, a non-Western collectivist society.
Ethical Issues - look at some common ethics to follow like informed consent, deception, right to confidentiality, privacy, protection from harm and stress and confidentiality. Do any of your studies used have any of these ethical issues present?
Use of Animals - for this one, my teachers say it's better to argue that animals are different from humans so we may not be able to fully extrapolate the data from an animal study to human behaviour. While you can argue that there are some similarities, you could also argue the differences too. If you want to add a bit extra, you could finish off this AO3 point by saying "however the ends justify the means of using animals, as it furthers our understanding of human behaviour as some studies are unethical to undertake on humans (e.g manipulating aggression and observing the outcome)

Debates
Reductionism - if it has only focused on one factor and reduced it down to its simplistic form of say, biology for example, then it fails to consider other approaches such as behaviour or cognitive. This means it goes against a holistic (whole - looks at lots of difference factors) approach
Determinism - does one factor determine our behaviour and completely ignore the fact that we humans have free will to change our behaviour?
Nature/Nurture - is it an internal, innate thing that we do not learn or is it external and is learnt from our environment (such as our experiences)? Or maybe, is it a combination of both nature and nurture in a form of interactionism?

Real World Application
Has this theory been shown to be evident in the real world? For instance, for Bandura's Social Learning Theory, the researcher Philips found that in the week after a boxing match US homicide rates increased. You could argue that SLT has a real world application of applying to adults who observed the boxers (the models) and imitated their actions.

Positive/Negative Implications
Positive - can this research be used to develop something else? For example, research into depression treatment. Can this be used to further improve how depression is treated in diagnosed patients. If therapy has shown to be effective in treating the causes and drugs the symptoms of depression, can a combination be used to effectively treat depression?
Negative - has this theory/research got negative implications for humans? It could, for instance, remove blame from a patient suffering from AN because it says it's not their fault and is just a result of their biology (e.g their neurotransmitters like serotonin) having an effect.


This is all I can think of at the moment and I'm sorry if my examples aren't related to what you're studying but I hope this helps with AO3 points and has shed some light on some common points you can make.

Also - does anyone have the June 2914 questions for: Sleep, Relationships and Eating? This info would be so helpful!


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This is brilliant! Thank you for sharing this!


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whats the best way of revising research methods for PSYA4 , do you think its too early to do past papers

Hi guys, I did AQA Psychology A last year, and I got an A* - 82 UMS in PSYA3 and 100 UMS in PSYA4. The topics I did were relationships, biological rhythms & sleep, perception (PSYA3) and schizophrenia and media psychology (PSYA4). So, if anybody has any questions, feel free to ask me!!!

Hi guys, I did AQA Psychology A last year, and I got an A* - 82 UMS in PSYA3 and 100 UMS in PSYA4. The topics I did were relationships, biological rhythms & sleep, perception (PSYA3) and schizophrenia and media psychology (PSYA4). So, if anybody has any questions, feel free to ask me!!!

For eating it was: Discuss evolutionary explanations of food preference (8+16 marks)
Relationships: Discuss sex differences in parental investment (8+16 marks)
Sleep: Outline lifespan changes in sleep (4 marks)
Outline and evaluate one or more restoration explanations for the functions of sleep (4+16 marks)

All the past questions are here: http://www.loopa.co.uk/aqa-psychology-level-past-questions-psya3/

Don't you have get 90 UMS in both exams for an A* - or is it UMS altogether? I'm confused.

Hi guys, I did AQA Psychology A last year, and I got an A* - 82 UMS in PSYA3 and 100 UMS in PSYA4. The topics I did were relationships, biological rhythms & sleep, perception (PSYA3) and schizophrenia and media psychology (PSYA4). So, if anybody has any questions, feel free to ask me!!!

Hi guys, I did AQA Psychology A last year, and I got an A* - 82 UMS in PSYA3 and 100 UMS in PSYA4. The topics I did were relationships, biological rhythms & sleep, perception (PSYA3) and schizophrenia and media psychology (PSYA4). So, if anybody has any questions, feel free to ask me!!!