NOV11 Psych HL P2 and 3

[laryxle]

Might not be around tomorrow so just wanted to post my thoughts now.

Psych P2=one of the best exams ever! I got EXACTLY the questions I wanted for both options! I do Dysunctional and Social psych as my options. For Dysfunctional I did 9 (discuss concepts of normality and abnormality); I had so much prepared on pretty much this exact question - I talked about 4 different ways of defining the concepts and evaluated them, showing how they were limited, then talked about cultural variations in the concepts, culture-bound syndromes and the role of diagnostic systems in shaping the concepts.

For Social I did 21 (a-Distinguish Prejudice from discrimination, b-describe 2 studies and explain how they contribute to an understanding of the origins of prejudice); my strongest area of social is origins of prejudice! My two studies were Sherif et al (1961) and Tajfel (1970), I think I went really in-depth on my description (especially for Tajfel which has to have one of the most annoying and hard to explain methods ever!) and my explanations might have suffered a little, but I was able to use my evaluations of the studies to boost up the analysis.

Usually I have like 20 minutes left at the end but I was flat out for the whole 2 hours, taking an hour for each essay. I wrote heaps and I feel so good about this exam. Everyone in my class loved the exam (questions 8 and 19 were also good so lots of choice).

Paper 3 was not the trainwreck it could have been For a paper I did no study for, and spent the night before the exam looking at past papers and being unable to answer most of the questions, it was good Q1 was so obscure though! I thought the question was phrased weirdly, and they didn't make clear if they wanted you to discuss the use of a questionnaire, or e-mail, or both. I wrote a lot more about limitations than strengths but felt a bit ridiculous with some of them (e.g. poor parents might not have access to e-mail, some people in my class said some might not understand English etc.)

Q2 was okay, I didn't know what a conversational interview was but thought it had to be similar to an unstructured interview.

Q3 was the best, I wrote heaps for it.

Overall really great! I was feeling unsure after P1, but P2 was sooooo good and P3 not bad, so I feel super-confident about Psych now

[Matthew Sinclair]

So I was going to go to sleep as I need to be ready for graduation tomorrow, but this thread is much more interesting. Ignore my grammar mistakes as I will be typing this quickly!!

I also do dysfunctional and social!!!!! high-5!

I also did question 9!! Normally (lol) I would never chose such a question, but I'd prepared that topic well the night prior by going over powepoints I hadn't looked at since last year. I took a similar approach and wrote 10 pages First I said that they were hard to define/distinguish. Then a brief paragraph on how our understanding has been changing over time. Then I talked about the same four methods of defining and had strengths/limitations and examples (probs not the best examples though!). Then I did cultural reletivism, culture bound syndromes etc, then I discussed the criteria/manuals, with the DSM as an example - western, male, middle class bias etc.. then I used Rosenhan's 1973 study "On Being Sane in Insane Places" to illustrate everything (pretty much) I'd just said and the difficulty in distinguishing between normal and abnormal. I felt this question was AMAZING! =)

For social I did 19 I think. First outline a study of obedience - Milgram of course! I wrote HEAPS and had so many useless facts, like what inspired him, how he had the question "were Germans different" from the Neurenburg trials, how participants were paid $4 an hour etc etc and of course the actual, necessary details. Then the culture and methodologies, I said TO A GREAT EXTENT. First culture = individulistic/collectivist with examples and linking, then heaps of methodology with reference to Milgram. I was going to bring in Hofling and King but was too pressed for time. Hopefully my detailed Milgram will suffice.

Paper 3 was pretty good. I don't like how 1 and 2 were example-based. And the example in question 2 was stupid and hardly psychological!! I wrote quite a bit for each and I had studied quite a lot of evalution

Question 3 part B I discussed 1) adopting a more objective methodology with an example, 2) observer triangulation, and 3) double-blind procedures

Anyway, must sleep now!! Graduation tomorrow!!!!!!

[laryxle]

Wow we had like exactly the same answer for question 9 Except I didn't use Rosenhan, I used Ryder (2008) and Kleinman (1982) instead.

For Q3 I think I put forward 3 things; for participant observation when the observer is self-reporting getting them to reflect on their own beliefs and expectations, for unstructured interviews making them semi-structured/structured so they could be standardised and analysed statistically and in qualitative research in general observer triangulation.

[dsquared]

Wow we had like exactly the same answer for question 9 Except I didn't use Rosenhan, I used Ryder (2008) and Kleinman (1982) instead.

For Q3 I think I put forward 3 things; for participant observation when the observer is self-reporting getting them to reflect on their own beliefs and expectations, for unstructured interviews making them semi-structured/structured so they could be standardised and analysed statistically and in qualitative research in general observer triangulation.

I completely fudged the obedience question for social psychology. I went in a completely different direction to you guys as the question specified, to me at least to discuss the to what extent cultural and methodological considerations affect RESEARCH on obedience so I talked about the ethical debate with covert methodologies and deception and if the Benefit of the results outweighed the ethical violations as well as touching on some cultural stuff.

[Matthew Sinclair]

What you did sounds fine. I pretty much did that. It was a research/methodologies question, so the focus, as you said, should be on how it affects the research/methodologies, the supported by a study (most likely the study in part a). Damn, I hope I made the distinction clear enough in my essay that I was taking about the research and just using Milgram as support oh lol