Best way to structure Alevel psychology -Approaches Essay

What exam board are you with?

And yes, Bandura's SLT falls under the behaviourist approach.

If your exam board is Edexcel, I can help you if you'd like. I did behavioural/social/cognitive/biological last year (year 13 now) so I have notes on it all

I'm doing aqa,would help still work? Lool I'm really confused I would appreciate it if you could help.If you don't mind me asking what is your current grade for psychology?

I can't help you with exam structure, but I can definitely help you with content! I got an A in my AS and am predicted an A* this year.

Yh mate that would be brilliant. But how we gonna do this ( I'm new to tsr)

I can PM you on here if you'd like?

I'm doing AQA and have to revise all of that content for this year's exams so can help if you'd like, I got an A last year. In terms of structure, it depends what year are you in? If you're doing AS exams this year then you'll only be doing 12 markers (6 for content and 6 for eval) and they're a lot easier to write because the marks are distributed evenly.

That will be much appreciated ,I'm in year12 but doing A level so it's linear. Like we just started today doing 16 markers

Sorry, I keep thinking all college's make Year 12 do the AS exams even though they don't count.
Ok, well depending on which you find easier, this is how I would recommend doing it.

Explain the approach - its main assumptions.
Add a study if relevant (e.g Pavlov)
After making each point, evaluate it - positive or negative (is it detrimental to the approach?)

Or do the first two points, add all the information required to obtain the required 6 marks and then evaluate the approach in depth (supporting its validity or not) research methods are always easy marks to obtain (it would need to be more in depth for a 16 marker obviously)

Thanks, you know when You say explain the approach and it's main assumption. Does it meaning this for example behaviourist approach-skinner theory ,operate condition>explain what that is. Then skinner believe that humans don't have free will-past history reinforcement .However human complex may not follow reward systems like rat in his study . Human free will have choice consciously to do say whatever they want .

Oh yeah and the free will thing would be good when introducing the approach.

For behaviourism, this is how I would structure it:
You could use Watson to introduce the theory (methodological behaviourism). Behaviourist's were one of the first to use experimental methods in psychology following the likes of Wilhelm Wundt (with his metronome) (derived from philosophy - like you learned in the beginning of approaches with Descartes etc.)
Then state that behaviourists are only concerned with behaviours that can be observed and measured. State that behaviourists believe that all behaviour is learned from experience. You could say they believe that we are born as blank slates (tabula rasa, used by John Locke). Their assumptions are antipodean to the cognitive approach (more suitable if you're comparing the two approaches) as Cognitivists believe mental processes can be observed and measured.

Introduce the forms of behaviourism: The two predominant forms of learning identified by behaviourists are classical and operant conditioning....
Explain what classical conditioning is : learning by association, use Pavlov's dogs study - explain the use of a neutral stimulus how this became a conditioned stimulus to produce a conditioned response (salivation).
You can evaluate here if you'd like or wait until you've explained both forms of conditioning. I'm going to continue because I would have to type two eval paragraphs on here. I would recommend doing the eval after explaining it as then you won't forget anything as you're mind is already in the classical conditioning mind frame.

Explain what operant conditioning is: Operant conditioning conveys that behaviour is shaped and maintained by its consequence, the consequences of the behaviour may be positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement or punishment. You could give examples of scenarios involving these forms of reinforcement. Use Skinner's rat as a study. Explain what happens etc.

Eval: Give 5 if 16 marker or 3/4 if its a 12 marker (advice given by my teacher).
These could include, ethical issues involving the animals e.g the rats and the shocks. The difficulty extrapolating between organisms such as rats and humans. It's scientific - objective methodology used - useful for replication to decipher validity of results etc. You have to be more in depth when writing the paragraph obvs.

Hope this helps. It's helped me remember stuff I haven't done since September 2015 (it didn't come up in my AS exams.)

I'm in A2. Last year we were told for a 12 mark essay, in terms of structure, to do 6 detailed descriptions and 3 detailed evaluations in the format of PEC: point (what is the weakness or strength), example/elaboration/evidence, conclusion (why is this a weakness or strength).

However for 16 mark essays this year my teachers are saying different things. One teacher keeps going on about 5 really detailed evaluations while the other us emphasising on quality not quantity. Also I'm not sure if I should still structure it as all description followed by all evaluation. Not to mention that the evaluations in the textbook we use aren't as clear cut as last year's book (especially in terms of issues and debates). ALSO, last year we could guess what and how much we needed to write by looking at the marks awarded but it seems to be more complicated this year Maybe I'm just over thinking this