A2 Level Psychology : A2 Level Psychology G543 Options in Applied Psychology
Online Revision #1
Objectives : Objectives Re-cap of topic areas:
Forensic
Health and Clinical
Brief outline of Forensic studies for each topic
Consider key evaluation issues for each topic:
Illustrate with studies
Build discussion points worth 5 marks
Know the exam criteria and questions
Re-cap : Forensic Psychology : Re-cap : Forensic Psychology
Re-cap : H&C Psychology : Re-cap : H&C Psychology
Forensic Studies: Turning to Crime : Forensic Studies: Turning to Crime
Forensic Studies: Making a Case : Forensic Studies: Making a Case
Forensic Studies: After a Guilty Verdict : Forensic Studies: After a Guilty Verdict
Part (a) Questions : Part (a) Questions Describe / Outline something!
Describe the bottom up approach to creating a profile.
Describe one type of offender treatment programme.
Outline a biological explanation of why males commit more crimes than females.
If you know your psychology, you should be able to do this – studies are good evidence, but you can use your knowledge generally too.
(Unless it asks you to “Describe one study…”, which is a bit mean, apart from if it’s Farrington or Johansson!)
Part (b) Questions : Part (b) Questions Important point:
The part (b) questions in G543 usually specify an evaluation issue, for example:
Evaluate the usefulness of explanations for why a person might turn to crime.
Assess the reliability of offender profiling.
Sometimes the question is not in this form:
To what extent does the biological approach provide an explanation of criminal behaviour?
Evaluation Issues and Forensic Topics : Evaluation Issues and Forensic Topics Turning to Crime
Validity, reductionism, determinism, reliability, usefulness, generalisability
Making a Case
Reliability, validity, methodology, reductionism
After a Guilty Verdict
Reliability, validity, reductionism, usefulness, effectiveness
Evaluation Issues : Evaluation Issues Remember – evaluations can be good and bad.
These make for comparisons and contrasts in your discussion point.
Let’s explore this using:
Validity
Turning to Crime
An example…
Evaluate the validity of explanations for why people turn to crime. : Evaluate the validity of explanations for why people turn to crime. (Start by defining validity and mentioning that a number of factors affect the validity of explanations for why people turn to crime, listing these).
The methods used can improve validity significantly, as seen in Farrington’s longitudinal study. Because data has been collected over a very long period of time, Farrington is able to support his early predictions about patterns of behaviour with actual crime rates for his participants in adulthood. This provides extensive evidence for a relationship between upbringing and criminal behaviour, although the specific causes are unclear. However, longitudinal studies do not always guarantee high validity, for example: Yochelson and Samenow’s research was longitudinal but was retrospective, so seeks to fit an explanation to previous behaviour rather than predict future behaviour, which may produce a valid explanation for these offenders only and is not particularly useful for preventing crime in general. My example is a bit rubbish, but I didn’t want to use one you could try for yourselves!
Exam Questions Summary : Exam Questions Summary You pick 2 questions
You answer both parts of the 2 questions
(a) Describe / Outline [10]
(b) Discuss / Evaluate [15]
You have 30 minutes for each question:
2 hours total
2 Forensic
2 H&C
What Next? : What Next? What further work do you need to do?
What help do you need?
How are you feeling about the exam?