Psychology reading list

I've uploaded the course handbook that was given to use for 12/13. Some things will be the same, some things would have changed. E.g. Dr Coral Dando is no longer there so the Forensic and Criminal Psychology part of the course will be changed by whoever is the new lecturer.
Also, brace yourself Psychology freshers, the Psych dept. is perceived as hugely incompetent by most students as they often take the most counter-intuitive route with their course.

Any specifics on how the department is incompetent?

They bombard you with cousework, in the first two terms: for 102 there are 15 web based assessments (WBA), and for 101 there are 10. Each WBA has 15-30 multiple choice questions, and thought you do them outside of class, they are not simply questions you can google, they are set in such a way that they require you to read long articles and reports. It's worth 20% of the first term and 20% of the second term. Whilst you have that to do, they also give you two reports and two essays to do, one in each term. Then there are also 4 class tests each term. With all these converging deadlines, you feel suffocated. They told us they believe there is psychological evidence to back up their constant testing mentality. Coming out of the first year, neither myself or my peers understood this, all it did was create too much stress.

They don't upload sufficient material onto their website that makes it clear what the essay or report requires. The WBA questions very frequently have mistakes in them, they can seem so awkwardly written that they come off as brainteasers, or they are just questions for the sake us asking questions. Here is an example of an odd question:



The correct answer was "wanting to make the other better". That doesn't make any sense, "A prosocial motive involves wanting to make the other better". How were we expected to select that as the correct answer if the answer make sense?
Prosocial behaviour are those directed towards another person that promote or sustain positive benefit to that person. So I don't see why our motive for that couldn't be 1. being rewarded for good behaviour 2. seeking to avoid own distress 3. thinking the other's distress is your own. So the answer could have been anything but the last answer, as it didn't make sense. This is just not one erroneous question out of many sound ones. There were many questions with problems. Sometimes it will be corrected by and the marks adjusted by the department, other times it won't. Even though overall the WBAs aren't worth much, we try to use it as reference to see how we're doing and when the questions let you down it's demoralizing.


When I flagged this up with the department on the board, the response I got was "this WBA is part of the 101 course. You have to take Hoffman's definition of a prosocial motive, and then I think the question does make sense, although I agree the language used could be more elegant! Best, Dina", The question did not tell us to go by Hoffman's definition, and Hoffman does not define it that way regardless, that sort of definition would not even make sense.


The department also seems to have a problem with making available the answers to the WBAs. Again, they have another philosophical justification just like their philosophy with obsessive compulsive testing. The response I got when I wanted to review WBA with correct answers was: "In general, we do NOT provide the correct answers as these are seen as a motiviation to revisit the questions you got wrong and to revise the areas. If after such a procedure you still cant determine the correct answer then you need to ask the tutor in the appropriate lab to explain." This sort of thinking is hugely flawed, as there are a number of reasons the answers need to be available, one big one being transparency. It is quite realistic that we can revisit a topic and still make the same errors. It takes far too long long to find a needle in a haystack looking for the where the right answer is.

When we were asked to produce an essay, we were given one example of one that was written very poorly and received a poor grade. When I requested an example of a well written essay, I was told that they won't provide this as it does not promote originality. I fail to see how an example of an essay on a different topic would affect the originality of our set essay. There are certain standards they expect, certain ways of writing and structuring which we do not have have innate knowledge of, yet they won't give us an example of this because of their counter-intuitive philosophy.

I hope you see what I'm saying here. The department has many 'beliefs' and when this seeps into your course you will often find yourself asking 'why?'.

Turns out they've changed the WBA's now so that we get instant feedback if we get the question wrong and a second chance to answer it correctly then and there!

Oh I'm really worried now, maybe I'll have to change my course! =(