OCR Psychology G544 revision thread!

If it helps, I sat this exam last year, and in section A it was all about questionnaires, and section B was on nature/nature combined with the behaviourist perspective or case studies.

This is the thread from last year which may have some useful notes for you, if you want to take a look at it. Good Luck.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2282772&page=29

I remember you from the core studies thread last year haha :') hope you got the grades you needed!

Thanks dude, will check it out

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Haha ahh yes, i remember you too, yeah thankfully I did, I managed to get an A in Core Studies after a getting a D first time, and an A in this exam, so it's all good How did your G543 paper go?

Haha ahh yes, i remember you too, yeah thankfully I did, I managed to get an A in Core Studies after a getting a D first time, and an A in this exam, so it's all good How did your G543 paper go?

Thanks for the link, really helpful. Just a quick question, the mark-scheme is pretty vague for the "state your aim" question, and in all honesty just putting "to investigate attitudes on stress" seems too vague. Can you remember what you did?

well done ^.^
ahh I think it was a mean paper. after a guilty verdict came up in june13 twice, and it happened in our exam again -.- my school doesn't teach that section so I had no choice but to do the other two questions.

Due to my lack of revision I had a limited choice anyway. I had to answer the questions with the awkward question B's, which asked about ecological validity, ethics and quantitative data. But 2/4 of my predictions came up so I did my best! I feel it went okay though, just could have been easier.

Well that question threw a lot of people off, because in many past exams it's usually state a one-tailed/two-tailed hypothesis etc, and as far as I can remember I answered the "attitudes to stress" study and I think my aim was something along the lines of "the aim of this study is to investigate the attitudes towards stress in students when they sit an exam/revise" or something along the lines of that. I obviously can't remember exactly what I wrote, but when i worded the aim, i just structured it like the aims of a core study for example, the aim of Loftus and Palmer's study was "to investigate how information supplied after an event, influences a witness's memory for that event."

Hope that helps.

Oh that's brilliant thanks. I wouldn't have thought of stating the type of participants in the aim so now I know lol.

Hi, any tips on this paper :P?

Wow, OCR are evil. They're not as predictable as before then. Did they ask stress this year (after they completely missed out on both exams last year, which was my problem haha)?

YES thank the lord haha. Johansson came up and I love that study .

I still get soooo confused over the whole is psychology a science debate.... As what the hell is the argument?? Can anyone help?

Ah few, that's good then Did you re-do core studies or?

I always hate those questions. I normally state that Kuhn said a science should have a paradigm. He said psychology is only a pre-science, because it has too many differing approaches that essentially argue with each-other, whereas a normal science has an overall paradigm that has been established (so there is agreement about theories).

On the other hand we have scientific theories such as biological explanations e.g. genes and structural differences within the brain. We have lab experiments, objective data collection etc...

Another point is that Popper said theories should be falsifiable, so it can be proved wrong. Psychological research like Freud's theory is that some disorders are defence mechanisms, and its non-falsifiable, because you can't prove it wrong as it is all based on the unconscious mind.

Section A revision notes:

Reminder: In Section A of the exam you're required to design a practical project based on a piece of source material. Before you start the question, you will have likely been asked to state an operationalised hypothesis or to devise a research question.

Q1. What's the difference between a research question and a hypothesis? Research Q's are something you want to find the answer to and a hypothesis is a prediction of what you expect to find.

Q2. Write a research Q for the topic of phobias. E.g. Are females more scared than males of spiders?

Q3. Write an operationalised hypothesis for your research Q above. E.g. There will be a difference between males and females fear of spiders through a 1-10 rating scale.

Describing the method for the 'big question' aka the 19 marker:

- Remember to keep the design simple (only 2 experimental conditions)
- Remember to keep the design practical and ethical.
- Remember that all the details have to be included to make it replicable.
- Do NOT evaluate your method, just describe it!

Marking:

13 marks for REPLICABILITY and appropriateness

- Could someone else carry out the experiment from your instructions?

6 marks for quality of DESIGN and its feasibility

- Is your study practical and ethical, and does it follow the instructions given in the question?
- Your design must be appropriate to the Q, e.g. if the Q says it must be independent measures, then you'd get 0/6 marks if you instead designed a repeated measures experiment.
- It must be pragmatic - i.e. feasible and practical, e.g. target population is all the members of a sixth form/college you attend from whatever area you live in i.e. Manchester, NOT THE WHOLE POPULATION OF THE UK!
- It should be something YOU could do, i.e. it should be inexpensive, quick and easy to carry out.
- It must be ethical and conform to the BPS Ethics (remember not to use any participants under 16).

topics that haven't come up as a whole yet:
individual differences
psychodynamic
behaviourist
validity
observation
ethnocentrism
is psychology a science
determinism vs free-will
reductionism vs holism
usefulness of psychological research


however DO NOT rely on this, because some approaches have repeated - the cognitive and social approach.

and here's the june13 paper and mark scheme

Section A revision notes:

Reminder: In Section A of the exam you're required to design a practical project based on a piece of source material. Before you start the question, you will have likely been asked to state an operationalised hypothesis or to devise a research question.

Q1. What's the difference between a research question and a hypothesis? Research Q's are something you want to find the answer to and a hypothesis is a prediction of what you expect to find.

Q2. Write a research Q for the topic of phobias. E.g. Are females more scared than males of spiders?

Q3. Write an operationalised hypothesis for your research Q above. E.g. There will be a difference between males and females fear of spiders through a 1-10 rating scale.

Describing the method for the 'big question' aka the 19 marker:

- Remember to keep the design simple (only 2 experimental conditions)
- Remember to keep the design practical and ethical.
- Remember that all the details have to be included to make it replicable.
- Do NOT evaluate your method, just describe it!

Marking:

13 marks for REPLICABILITY and appropriateness

- Could someone else carry out the experiment from your instructions?

6 marks for quality of DESIGN and its feasibility

- Is your study practical and ethical, and does it follow the instructions given in the question?
- Your design must be appropriate to the Q, e.g. if the Q says it must be independent measures, then you'd get 0/6 marks if you instead designed a repeated measures experiment.
- It must be pragmatic - i.e. feasible and practical, e.g. target population is all the members of a sixth form/college you attend from whatever area you live in i.e. Manchester, NOT THE WHOLE POPULATION OF THE UK!
- It should be something YOU could do, i.e. it should be inexpensive, quick and easy to carry out.
- It must be ethical and conform to the BPS Ethics (remember not to use any participants under 16).