Psychology

Di Long

Year 10 students continued to promote the importance of scientific rigour within psychological investigations by creating and implementing their own research on fellow Year 10 Knole Academy students. Students operationalised their independent and dependent variables through two-tailed hypothesis and used the self-report method to gather their data on a wide variety of topics; from the effects of social media on mental health, to possible conflicts arising due to the Covid restrictions. This highlighted the need for clear standardised instructions, objectivity when producing the questions and running the procedure, appropriate statistical analysis and careful evaluative reflection with regards what had been discovered and potential improvements that could improve the validity and reliability of their studies. Students were required to write-up their research in the formal scientific manner, creating raw data sheets, standardised instruction, descriptive statistics tables, graphical representations of their findings and recommendations for future investigations. Some students successfully navigated excellent computer packages for their analysis and graphical representations.

As Year 12 IB students are required to conduct, analyse, evaluate and formally present their own research study and have a high degree of critical thinking and evaluation within their work.

Therefore, students have focused their research methods studies on finding creative but objective and scientific ways of improving key studies. Split-half technique, counterbalancing and test-retest have all been implemented to enhance the internal validity, while cross-cultural meta-analysis, gender and age diverse target populations have all been recommended for greater external validity; in the form of ecological, population and face validity. In addition, students have now mastered Harvard Referencing for the purposes of writing up their study.

The Biological Approach to human behaviour plays a huge part in psychological content; both within the IB and GCSE syllable, which is why the IB course started with numerous investigations of localisation and functions of brain lobes, the limbic system, the nervous and endocrine systems. Students put together a 3D model of the key brain areas and attempted to match key terms, functions and results of damage or infection, through the Shower-Cap activity. Thankfully, initial confusion and misplacements, which had auditory stimuli being processed by the occipital lobe (the visual area) and displays of empathy popping up in the parietal lobe (responsible for spatial orientation), all got clarified and students are now well prepared for the forth-coming dissection activity on a pig’s brain, which had to be initially postponed.

The GCSE Language and Communication topic investigates both animal and human, verbal and non-verbal communication; focusing on the reasons for such actions as bottom sniffing by dogs, scent spraying an area by moose during the mating season or elaborate figure eight dances to indicate food sources by bees. Some students found the restrictions of only being able to communicate using eye contact quite challenging and there were a multitude of humorous and embarrassing miscommunications by both Year 10 and Year 11 students. Student role play creations around personal space, also generated much discussion about cultural differences and application of this knowledge to the real world. Year 11 students in particular were surprised to discover that many of the highly successful, global companies have specialised trainers and programmes to promote effective non-verbal communication in order to enhance business transactions.

Although students were not able to attend this year’s Science and Psychology conference, we still analysed Ex-Dancer and Principle Psychology Lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, Dr Peter Lovatt’s dance experiment in relation to both the biological approach and research methods. This experiment demonstrates how hormones and genes link to our dance moves and potential reproductive success. Students got to discuss, evaluate and analyse the nightclub experiment in relation to the methods and technology used, possible variables that could invalidate the findings and whether they felt his conclusions about a woman’s menstrual cycle; monthly hormone levels affecting particular hip movements being correlated to corresponding gyration and effort levels in men, were valid. This also allowed us to delve into the nature v nurture debate, with some students taking a staunch evolutionary approach, while others felt learning theory played a greater role in the dance experiment findings. This in turn led us to consider cross-cultural variations of dance and its purposes, which produced fantastic eclectic explanations for human communication and behaviour, moreover, it help students develop their long mark exam answers. The Psychology Clinic has continued throughout the year to provide revision support and exam practice for key stage 4 and 5 students; developing their understanding of the key terms, concepts and research methods but this year with additional focus on the structuring of 9 mark evaluation and 12 mark long answer questions, as well as any content gaps due to the lockdown periods. Students were guided to develop initiative revision resources using new technology and are now much more open to using Teams, Zoom, WhatsApp or simply their mobile phones to guide their preferred learning technique, making the sessions much more personalised and interactive; utilising the best revision resource of all – each other.

These interactive activities and worksheets, in addition to replication of experiments and the analysis of the data continued during the lock-down period. Students were surprised to discover that family members have better memory recall when working without music (interference), contrary to a wealth of existing psychological research that suggest productivity increases with music. They also tested Loftus & Pickrell’s study on false memories, attempting to implant a made up event into their family members’ memories. Students were quite shocked at how easy it was, which generated discussions about real world application in the form of eye witness testimony and advertising techniques. However, it became imperative to address the ethical issues surrounding such research, as some students saw themselves as the next Darren Brown or master manipulator.