AS edexcel biology coursework

What topic shall I do my coursework on? I have chosen schizophrenia but I think I might need to change it, because I don't know how to fit it in with the specification. :confused:

What topics have you all chosen? Has anyone done schizophrenia, how would I link it in with the specification?

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Reply 1

Working2hard

Really wish I could help but I have the same predicament. Let me know please of you get any ideas or get any brain waves during the week :smile:

Reply 2

Dalilsp

Let me say this: IT DOES NOT HAVE TO FIT WITH THE EDEXCEL GCE BIOLOGY SPECIFICATION. You can choose ANY topic you choose to. I for one, have chosen "acoustic neuroma", which is a type of brain cancer. All you have to do is, choose a biological problem (ie a disease imo but there are more options) which you find INTERESTING - it has to be interesting to you, so its easier to research, trust me! - making sure that you can find enough material on it, so don't choose a really obscure disease, but one that is common. Not so common like the flu, but a type of cancer, or asthma, or leprosy.

I'm doing it too atm.

Reply 3

HaliKay

Original post by Dalilsp

Do you know if DID (Multiple Personality Disorder) will be okay to do? Or is that tooooo Psychological?

Reply 4

Dalilsp

Well the point of the thing is, is to find a biological problem, and to write about the solutions. So whichever topic you choose has to have plenty of research material from trials taken place by medical professionals. It has to have more than 1 treatment. So with your multiple personality disorder, you have to have enough research material to write about 1500 words on it's causes, why it happens, what is different in the brain of someone suffering from it, compared to a healthy person, the treatments they use - advantages and disadvantages, and secondary treatments - advantages and disadvantages.

Hope this helped :wink:

Reply 5

Selym95

I was exactly the same when i did this last year; just didn't have a clue! I recommend choosing a topic which has lots of studies (found in google scholar etc.) that you can use.

Reply 6

Me123456789

Original post by Dalilsp

Original post by Selym95

I was exactly the same when i did this last year; just didn't have a clue! I recommend choosing a topic which has lots of studies (found in google scholar etc.) that you can use.

So would it be better if I didn't do schizophrenia? :confused:

Reply 7

Selym95

Original post by Me123456789

So would it be better if I didn't do schizophrenia? :confused:

Not sure, you'll have to search google scholar and see if you can find any relevant case studies that you can use. Don't worry if it takes you a while, it took me bloody ages to find one and even then, i had to rely on my teacher to find one :colondollar:

. Consult your teacher (if he/she is approachable) and ask for some help :smile:

Reply 8

Dalilsp

Thank you for that pro-tip: Google Scholar! Never heard of the bloody thing before today =p Thanks.

How can I get full access to one or two artices? Would I have to pay? (if so, whats the fastest way to close the tab?)

Reply 9

HaliKay

Original post by Dalilsp

How can I get full access to one or two artices? Would I have to pay? (if so, whats the fastest way to close the tab?)

Thank you! Your advice helped a lot! Think I'll do some research and try finding what you adviced. Andd.. sorry to butt in, but yeah, sometimes you do have to pay for the articles on Google Scholar. =\ But, apparently, certain sixth forms may have access to it. Depends on the school =] Other than that, many of them should be free.

Reply 10

TheNoobyPotato

Argh! The AS coursework is the worst.

I did mine on HIV ( most common type of cw :ahee:

). Whatever you choose, make sure there's a problem, a relatively new solution (so 2005ish onwards), the advantages disadntages, implications, and also alternatives.

Reply 11

Revd. Mike

Original post by Me123456789

What topic shall I do my coursework on? I have chosen schizophrenia but I think I might need to change it, because I don't know how to fit it in with the specification. :confused:

What topics have you all chosen? Has anyone done schizophrenia, how would I link it in with the specification?

I'd advise against doing schizophrenia and choose something more biological like a somatic disease. There's definitely a strong biological component to schizophrenia (e.g. the dopamine hypothesis, certain genetic features, etc.) but a lot of it is still under investigation and hotly debated. You'd get a better grade if you wrote about something that's more solidly biological.

Original post by HaliKay

Do you know if DID (Multiple Personality Disorder) will be okay to do? Or is that tooooo Psychological?

Absolutely, categorically do not write about DID. For one thing, it's very controversial in terms of whether or not it's a real disease (it often 'presents' with other psychiatric disorders and so is hard to establish as an individual condition, it's very often factitious, it's been shown to be able to be induced by therapists and there's not even a scientifically determined definition of 'dissociation'). For another, there has never been any biological basis confirmed empirically.

Original post by Dalilsp

You almost certainly won't be able to access full articles on most journals, apart from a few which will mostly be older articles. The fee to access papers is hugely expensive. Also, the institutional subscription charge is ridiculously expensive, so it's extremely unlikely that your school or even sixth form colleges will have access to anything but a couple of low impact journals.

Here's the thing though: you don't need to read the full paper. For starters, it's going to be *way* above your level. Secondly, it's going to be rather dull and full of information you don't need unless you're trying to replicate the study.
All you need to read is the abstract, which is always available free to read. The abstract will briefly (typically about 100 words) introduce the topic, the aim of the study, what they did, what they found and a possible implication of the findings. That's all you need to read! You don't need the technical details of the methods, or the rigorous statistical analysis or anything. Heck, I've completed a degree in molecular biology and currently work in neuroscience research and I rarely read full papers!

Reply 12

Me123456789

Original post by TheNoobyPotato

Argh! The AS coursework is the worst.

I did mine on HIV ( most common type of cw :ahee:

). Whatever you choose, make sure there's a problem, a relatively new solution (so 2005ish onwards), the advantages disadntages, implications, and also alternatives.

What was your question like?

Reply 13

sparkle.098

Heyy guys,

By reading all the answers in the thread above I'm having second topics about my chosen topic now :frown:

.. I was thinking on doing it on 'genetic identity disorder' for e.g people who get sex change operations and all that but i don't think there's a biological problem in that .. is there? :s-smilie:

Reply 14

Dalilsp

Lol, I wouldn't choose that topic, as it is very controversial topic. I would go for a disease or something, that could be treated by a min of 3x treatments (ie drugs, surgery, radiotherapy/physiotherapy/[insertwordhere]therapy)

Reply 15

xstarsx67

Sorry to intrude, but I have a question about my coursework - I'm planning on playing it safe and going with something like cystic fibrosis, with gene therapy as my main solution, but after researching it, I've found good info on clinical trials but no like graphs or other results of the studies to show that they've been successful! And I'm aware that having evidence like that is a key part of the coursework and I don't want to lose valuable marks :frown:

so I don't know whether I should stick with gene therapy as my main solution? Has anyone done cystic fibrosis or have any ideas on where to get statistics for the results of the clinics trials?
any help would be much appreciated....maybe I'm just not looking hard enough :P

Reply 16

Revd. Mike

Original post by xstarsx67

Pretty sure I saw a good paper recently. At work at the moment, so remind me later.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 17

xstarsx67

Original post by Revd. Mike

Pretty sure I saw a good paper recently. At work at the moment, so remind me later.

Posted from TSR Mobile

thank you!

Reply 18

xstarsx67

I'm now struggling to choose between cystic fibrosis and gene therapy as a solution, infertility and ivf as a solution or diabetes and stem cells as a solution.....
which do you think would be better? :confused:

Reply 19

emilyo

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could help me? I've started my coursework and I'm doing it about ADHD and the various treatments (meds, diet etc) as there is no cure. Is this okay? I'm worried that its not a big enough problem because although it cannot be cured, the treatments are largely successful...