AQA A2 Psychology PSYA3/PSYA4 Revision Thread 2016

could someone please mark this essay for me:

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/attachment.php?attachmentid=157265

i will give a rep to anyone who marks it - im actually begging lol

Purpose of peer review -
The aim of the peer review process is to act as a kind of quality control. It helps to ensure that any research paper published in a well-respected journal is of high quality and valid, and it can therefore be taken seriously by fellow researchers by lay people. Any research that is incorrect or of poor quality is weeded out. Only the best becomes public. Peer review has been used since the middle of the twentieth century and has now become the focal point to the way science is conducted. it is the way that new knowledge becomes validated

Strengths -
- Peer review is essential as without it readers of published research would not know what is mere opinion and speculation, and what is real fact. It is a means of establishing the validity of scientific research.
- It is difficult for authors and researchers to spot every mistake in a piece of work so showing work to others increases the probability that weaknesses will be identified and addressed.
- It helps to prevent the dissemination of irrelevant findings, unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations, personal views and deliberate fraud.

Limitations -
- It isn't always possible to find an appropriate expert to review a research proposal/report. This means that poor research may be passed because the reviewer didn't really understand it.
- Anonymity is usually practised so that reviewers may be honest and objective. However it may have the opposite effect if reviewers use anonymity to settle 'old scores' or bury rival research.
- The reviewer's theoretical view may differ from that in the research report so they may judge it less favourably.
- There may be institution bias (tendency to favour research from prestigious institutions)
- There may be gender bias (tendency to favour male researchers)
- There may be publication bias as peer review tends to favour the publication of positive results (results supporting the hypothesis), possibly because editors want research that has important implications in order to increase the standing of their journal.

a01- 8
a02- 12

Guys can you please help me with non directional hypothesis. Why sometimes in MS it says "No marks for referring to association or difference"? Isn't it just a statement that there will be a difference, but we don't know which way. I'm really confused now.

Thankyou!!

Guys im so confused:
For 'Discuss research into...' Is that the same as 'Outline and evaluate' - so description of the general theory? OR is it specifically JUST research findings?

So is 'Discuss research studies into...' different to 'Discuss research into...'

No they all mean the same thing

Can someone please explain to me the science and psychology stuff about kuhn and popper. I cant seem to find a question on research methods from AQA worried it will come up im sure my teacher has showed us in class cant remember?

Would appreciate anyone helping give some information and/or provide a past question on this

Equal to or less than 5% chance that the results are due to chance, yes

That's actually fairly inaccurate, it's a little lower. It was 62~68 ums in the A2 papers to get an A. So if you had gotten As in the AS and hit around 65 ums for both then you've got an A.

It wouldn't make sense to get all As and it being a B because it's not 320 ums in total lol.


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Can someone please explain to me the science and psychology stuff about kuhn and popper. I cant seem to find a question on research methods from AQA worried it will come up im sure my teacher has showed us in class cant remember?

Would appreciate anyone helping give some information and/or provide a past question on this