The Student Room Group

PSYA3: Could someone please mark my essay

Hi,
I was wondering if anyone would be so kind as to mark my essay and give me any points of improvement. Or alternatively just suggesting some generic essay tips. I'm really struggling with writing my essays. I'm aiming for as high mark as possible so I would love to know what I need to add to go from where I am not to full marks. Thank you.

Spoiler

Sorry honey, 0+0 ... some marks for QWC,

All the best,

Legendairy
I took aggression as a PSYA3 module and got an A* in Psychology, so hopefully my advice will be useful, although your teacher is obviously the best source.

Firstly, you need more content. Ideally quote a few more studies or academics, but at the moment you simply lack the content to achieve the highest marks, in both AO1 and AO2 (especially the latter).

Your AO2 should start with the research that supports, and then the research that contradicts, the theory. The bulk of AO2 is evaluating the evidence for and against the theory you described for AO1. At the moment, the study you cited was only described, so would count at AO1. I suggest expanding your description of the theory and using that study, and others, as AO2 by explicitly stating how they relate to the validity of the theory.

Be careful with saying that evolutionary theories don't take account of biology - they almost certainly do. Evolutionary theories explain the overall trends and ultimate causes and explanations for behaviour, whereas biological theories explain the immediate causes. You also in the paragraph about biology stray too far from the question. The question is about evolutionary theories, don't get bound up describing biological theories in any great detail.

Expand upon your determinism point - what evidence is there to suggest that people can mediate their responses to infidelity or aggressive feelings?

Lastly, spice up your final point. Evolutionary theories are fairly unscientific; they lack falsifiability and proper empiricism - two of Popper's criteria for effective, valid science. You can't falsify evolutionary theories for the same reason you can't find proper empirical evidence for them - we can't observe evolution of the brain or behaviour.


I'm not experienced enough to give you a grade, but I doubt this would be an A/A*. Take on board some of my suggestions and you can definitely get your essays up to the highest grades. PSYA3 is a tough module - I'd say it was the hardest of any of my A-Levels, so don't feel bad if you're finding it tough, because it is!
Reply 3
Original post by PythianLegume
I took aggression as a PSYA3 module and got an A* in Psychology, so hopefully my advice will be useful, although your teacher is obviously the best source.

Firstly, you need more content. Ideally quote a few more studies or academics, but at the moment you simply lack the content to achieve the highest marks, in both AO1 and AO2 (especially the latter).

Your AO2 should start with the research that supports, and then the research that contradicts, the theory. The bulk of AO2 is evaluating the evidence for and against the theory you described for AO1. At the moment, the study you cited was only described, so would count at AO1. I suggest expanding your description of the theory and using that study, and others, as AO2 by explicitly stating how they relate to the validity of the theory.

Be careful with saying that evolutionary theories don't take account of biology - they almost certainly do. Evolutionary theories explain the overall trends and ultimate causes and explanations for behaviour, whereas biological theories explain the immediate causes. You also in the paragraph about biology stray too far from the question. The question is about evolutionary theories, don't get bound up describing biological theories in any great detail.

Expand upon your determinism point - what evidence is there to suggest that people can mediate their responses to infidelity or aggressive feelings?

Lastly, spice up your final point. Evolutionary theories are fairly unscientific; they lack falsifiability and proper empiricism - two of Popper's criteria for effective, valid science. You can't falsify evolutionary theories for the same reason you can't find proper empirical evidence for them - we can't observe evolution of the brain or behaviour.


I'm not experienced enough to give you a grade, but I doubt this would be an A/A*. Take on board some of my suggestions and you can definitely get your essays up to the highest grades. PSYA3 is a tough module - I'd say it was the hardest of any of my A-Levels, so don't feel bad if you're finding it tough, because it is!

Thank you for your response and congratulations on your A*. :smile: I'm really struggling with PSYA3 at the moment and it's really getting me down. :frown:

I thought by bringing in the biological approach I could use the mice castration study as my evidence against the theory? Or does it have to be more specific?

I was wondering what materials you used to help you obtain your A*? My teacher uses the AQA textbook which is very limited but she assures us that it's adequate.
Original post by lovex
Thank you for your response and congratulations on your A*. :smile: I'm really struggling with PSYA3 at the moment and it's really getting me down. :frown:

I thought by bringing in the biological approach I could use the mice castration study as my evidence against the theory? Or does it have to be more specific?

I was wondering what materials you used to help you obtain your A*? My teacher uses the AQA textbook which is very limited but she assures us that it's adequate.


The mice castration study does not count as evidence against the theory - it doesn't disprove that evolutionary mechanisms lead to aggression. It could just be that testosterone is the chemical released to cause aggression, but that is coded into genes. They aren't mutually exclusive.

I mostly used my textbook, then google to find a bit more related to the course, but also to look up studies on google scholar if you find that you don't have enough studies or want to make a point but don't know what the evidence shows.
Reply 5
Original post by PythianLegume
The mice castration study does not count as evidence against the theory - it doesn't disprove that evolutionary mechanisms lead to aggression. It could just be that testosterone is the chemical released to cause aggression, but that is coded into genes. They aren't mutually exclusive.

I mostly used my textbook, then google to find a bit more related to the course, but also to look up studies on google scholar if you find that you don't have enough studies or want to make a point but don't know what the evidence shows.

Oh of course. So I should have used a social psychological theory instead?

I have had another attempt which I typed up instead so it's a lot longer (I'm such a slow writer). I'm still feeling pretty unconfident with these essays though.

Spoiler

Original post by lovex
Oh of course. So I should have used a social psychological theory instead?

I have had another attempt which I typed up instead so it's a lot longer (I'm such a slow writer). I'm still feeling pretty unconfident with these essays though.

Spoiler



Again, I'll provide some advice on how to improve this essay. Hopefully some of it will apply more generally. I'm sorry if I come across as overly negative or critical.

Provide a reference, e.g. (Smith et al., 1992), for studies you cite. Remembering all the names can be difficult, but it will improve your answer and make it seem like you know the studies and aren't just making them up.

Don't say that because the research is on animals it cannot be applied to humans - look up brain imaging studies on humans ( http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=amygdala+activity+and+aggression&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp= ). In general, your neural mechanisms section could be improved by bringing in newer studies. At the moment, you seem to be writing off the theory based upon old, invalid studies, but there are decent studies out there, especially newer ones that might not be in your textbook. Don't be afraid to go above and beyond the textbook to google scholar - it will impress the examiner if you can cite studies that aren't in most textbooks.

The Phineas Gage case study is not 'correlational' - anything with one piece of data cannot be correlational. A correlation plots two variables against each other. You're correct that we cannot isolate which factor caused his aggression, however; it's just a case of semantics.

Reciprocal* ; there are other SPAG errors in there I haven't corrected, but getting the name of the theory correct is important.

If the study only shows evidence for men, then it has poor population validity, not ecological validity. Poor ecological validity is when a scenario is too artificial and doesn't accurately represent real life. Also, don't just leave it at 'this study is on men, so we can't generalise' - not all studies will have been on men, and there will be tens if not hundreds of studies on testosterone that include or exclusively examine women as well. You're still not putting enough evaluation of the evidence/research into your answers. In general, the bulk of AO1 should be description of the theory and the bulk of AO2 should be on whether the evidence supports the theory or not. Once you've looked at the evidence, then you can go on and do some IDA.

What is the basal model? Explain it before you present evidence for it - you need the AO1 marks as well.

I'll give you the same advice my teacher gave me - avoid talking about reductionism. All theories and studies in psychology are somewhat reductionist - they have to be in order to say anything valid beyond 'there are a lot of factors that influence this behaviour'. Your last point could just be about nature and nurture and the relative effects of each. Bring in some more studies that specifically look at the interplay of nature and nurture - there are probably twin studies that looked at aggression and home life.

But I'd also be careful around nature-nurture with hormonal/neural explanations rather than genetic/evolutionary. Hormonal and neural mechanisms are the proximate cause - they are what physically trigger aggression. Clearly something biological must trigger aggression, given we're essentially a complex set of chemicals. But explanations like SLT and genetics are 'ultimate' causes - they explain the over-arching reasons for a tendency towards aggression. So if you're using nature-nurture in this case, I would put something in about ultimate and proximate causes, and how perhaps nurture is a better explanation for ultimate causes.

Overall, I still think you lack enough content for the highest mark bands. Put in a few more studies, explain the theories in a bit more detail (you may have to look at papers online to get a bit more than the textbook tells you - they are often very brief with biological explanations) and you should get yourself into the higher mark bands. Bringing in higher level stuff can also be good - don't be afraid to go beyond the textbook in search of more evidence. Ask yourself whether you feel a theory has validity - if you're writing it off just based on a couple of old studies from your textbook, chances are you might be oversimplifying it (although saying this, there are some old and discredited theories).

Again, I don't want to appear overly negative. Your essays aren't bad, but they definitely have a lot of room for improvement.
Reply 7
Original post by PythianLegume
x

Thank you so much again, I really appreciate the time you've taken to read through my essays and respond with lengthy and detailed advice. :smile:

I now see that my description of the theory/approach asked in the question needs to be a lot more detailed for my AO1. However, my teacher has mentioned that you can describe studies for AO1, how would I go about this without it just being marked as AO2? Also if I am simply evaluating is a simple outline of the findings of a study enough for AO2?

Furthermore, what kind of evaluation of studies should I be doing? I have heard that research methods are only 4 marks in total so where would be other evaluative marks be coming from?

I have read some sample essays of A/A* material, all of which used the following essay plan:
Detailed description of theory/approach
Brief outline of 2 or 3 supportive studies with a brief evaluation.
One IDA of the theory/approach which is quite elaborate?

Is this sufficient? I find myself trying to squeeze every evaluative point in my notes into my essays and then neglect to elaborate enough. How many evaluative points should I be making?

Thanks again for your help and sorry for all the questions lol.
Original post by lovex
Thank you so much again, I really appreciate the time you've taken to read through my essays and respond with lengthy and detailed advice. :smile:

I now see that my description of the theory/approach asked in the question needs to be a lot more detailed for my AO1. However, my teacher has mentioned that you can describe studies for AO1, how would I go about this without it just being marked as AO2? Also if I am simply evaluating is a simple outline of the findings of a study enough for AO2?

Furthermore, what kind of evaluation of studies should I be doing? I have heard that research methods are only 4 marks in total so where would be other evaluative marks be coming from?

I have read some sample essays of A/A* material, all of which used the following essay plan:
Detailed description of theory/approach
Brief outline of 2 or 3 supportive studies with a brief evaluation.
One IDA of the theory/approach which is quite elaborate?

Is this sufficient? I find myself trying to squeeze every evaluative point in my notes into my essays and then neglect to elaborate enough. How many evaluative points should I be making?

Thanks again for your help and sorry for all the questions lol.


That A/A* response structure seems about right - it's what I mostly did.

With regards to making studies AO1 or AO2, it depends on where your focus is. If you describe the study's procedures in detail but just leave it at that, it's AO1. If you mostly look at the study's findings and their implications for the theory, then you're using it as AO2.
Reply 9
I'm really not sure how to further improve. This is the best that I could do with 25 minutes and hand cramps lol. :frown: I really don't understand how I'm ever going to get a good grade in this exam.

Spoiler

Quick Reply

Latest