What elements do you need in your Psychology LAQ to get a good grade?

[KarenHermione]

What are the elements you need to include in order to get a good grade?

[anthropo]

Criterion A - Knowledge and Comprehension (9 marks)

• You will need to describe studies accurately and including details such as gender of participants and where the study was conducted.
• The studies have to be described accurately.
• Use the format Aims, Procedure, Findings, Conclusion to describe each study.
• Make sure the studies are relevant to the question and make sure they back up your point. Don't just describe and evaluate studies without linking them back to the question and your point.

Criterion B - Critical Thinking (9 marks)

• Evaluate each of the studies considering some of these aspect:
  • the gender of the participants - can this be generalized to the entire population?
  • the culture it was conducted in - has the study taken an ethnocentric approach and only focused on one culture and therefore can't be generalized?
  • the methodology of the investigation - for instance, if a study used the survey method, is this valid since the participants may not be truthful?
  • when the study was conducted - are the results still valid today?
  • ethical considerations - consider consent, right to withdraw, confidentiality, deception, etc. if the study did have ethical considerations, were these justified?
  • experimenter bias
  • are there alternative explanations for the findings of the study?
  • do these findings compare with findings from other similar studies, particularly people who have also repeated this study?
  • ecological validity - could the findings of this study be applied to a real-life setting?
  • size of the sample size - link this to generalizability
• Make sure you don't just describe the findings, interpret them and link them back to the question.

Criterion C - Organization (4 marks)

• Start each paragraph with a topic sentence that describes your point and links to the research that you will describe - don't go straight into describing a study.
• Use connectives such as 'however', 'conversely', 'similarly' to show development in your argument.
• Pay attention to the command term and make sure you follow it. For example, if the command term is 'evaluate', make sure you consider both strengths and weaknesses or if the command term is 'examine', you would talk about the underlying assumptions of each issue that you mention.
• Make sure each of your points are clear and backed up well with evidence.

 

For each paragraph:

(The examples are using the question:- "Discuss how biological and sociocultural factors influence one anxiety, affective or eating disorder")

 

Topic Sentence - A sentence that sums up the point you are trying to make in the paragraph

e.g. Major Depressive Disorder may be greatly influenced by stressful life events that the individual has experienced.

 

Study - Describe a study that backs up your point you made clear in your topic sentence

e.g. To demonstrate, Brown and Harris (1978) investigated the social origins of depression using a sample of 458 women of all ages, all of which were admitted to a hospital for psychiatric treatment of depression. They found that 82% had recently experienced a stressful life event, suggesting that this social factor plays a significant role in the etiology of depression.

 

Evaluate the study - Consider all the factors I mentioned earlier

e.g. A key bias in this study was that it was solely done on females, who have a statistically higher prevalence of depression that males and therefore the results may not be generalisable to all genders. While it suggests that the stressful life event does play a role, many people who do experience stressful life events do not get depression thus implying that it must be a combination of the event and some other factor, such as a biological predisposition. On the other hand, perhaps it is due to individual differences since some people may cope better with stress than others and therefore may have a lower likelihood of getting depression because of their personality type.

 

Write a mini-conclusion for the paragraph - Sum up the main point you were trying to make and link it back to the question

e.g. Stressful life events may influence depression by triggering any underlying, existing biological factors or may be one of the main causes for the onset of the illness.

 

Hope this helps!