Psychology opinion

[BlancheBunny103]

Hey guys

I'm still considering whether to take Psychology or not, but still I wanna give it a shot . So I chose Psychology SL.

If you take Psychology, please let me know your opinion about the course. How is it like? Do you have to write loads of essays? Is the course hard? etc

Thanxx

[JoeG]

I took Psychology SL last school year, and I loved it. I found the course very interesting, and I learned alot of information that I would have never even thought of before.

You're going to have the new syllabus next year, so you're experiences may differ a bit with the one's I had, but not by very much. Instead of studying the "Learning" approach to psychology, you will study "Social" approach to psychology instead.

The only essay's the IB requires are the Internal Assessment, and the ones on the External Assessments. Your teacher may require to write more essays, if she wants to, but it won't count towards your "IB grade".

The Internal Assessment is an experiment done in a group or individually, depending on your teacher's recommendations. The experiment portion, if you do it correctly, can be alot of fun, but writing up all the portions for the Internal Assessment can be horrible.

The External Assessment includes Paper 1 and Paper 2. (for SL)

Paper 1 includes 3 short answer responses, or small essays, one on each approach. There is also a full length essay on the approach of your choice.

Paper 2 includes one full length essay in ONE of the option(s) that you studied, choosing one of three prompts given to you for that option.

So those are the essays that you have to do lol.

The course really isn't that hard in my opinion, I almost always had an A in the class. One word of advice is do not procrastinate on your IA, or studying for your External Assessments.

If you want to know more about the class, visit this website.

Old Syllabus http://cranepsych2.edublogs.org/

New Syllabus http://cranepsych.edublogs.org/

[~vola]

How, exactly, can a psychology curriculum be considered legit if it skips the foundation of 20th century psychological theory?

Whatever. I took Psych SL in 2008 and quite enjoyed it; I'm actually a psychology major now at my university. We didn't have to do a lot of writing, but then I suppose my experience was anything but typical, because the teacher I had was the school's track coach who was informed he would be teaching IB Psych SL a week before the semester began. And I suppose I should be glad that year didn't just irreversibly confuse me, because that teacher made up a concept after misreading the name of Solomon Asch.

[JoeG]

I'm also disappointed that they took out the Learning approach. I guess IB doesn't think it is important enough anymore.

[BlancheBunny103]

Oh WOW guys thanxx a lot for the info.

OK I'll give it a shot for Psychology SL

[~vola]

I'm also disappointed that they took out the Learning approach. I guess IB doesn't think it is important enough anymore.

Seems like they could've picked a less fundamental perspective to omit. There are seven total and you only learn four in SL Psych...I guess replacing behavioral with social is better than replacing it with, say, psychodynamic. Because Freud was pretty much making stuff up the whole time.

[blindpet]

They took out the LP because, although it was important as a foundation, the modern focus is on how classical and operant conditioning happen in the brain with dopamine, the nucleus accumbens, long term potentiation etc.

Blanche, as long as your teacher makes psychology fun, which it is, you'll love it