project participant information for Part 2 of TMA

Write the Design, Participants and Materials subsections of the Method section of your DE100 project report. use only the data provided in the word document, breaking the essay down to 400 words in three parts as explained in attachment TA03. DE100 project participant information for Part 2 of TMA 03 Cut-off; When you write the Method section of your report for Part 2 of TMA 03 you will need to use the data supplied in this document in order to describe the participants. These data have been supplied by the module team. For the purpose of writing this report you may assume that relevant ethical procedures were followed. When you write about how participants were recruited, we suggest that you describe how your own participants were recruited. If you were unable to recruit participants, please contact your tutor for advice. Condition (C/E)     Participant’s gender (M/F)     Participant’s age Contents The assignment 4 Student notes for Part 1 5 Student notes for Part 2 7 Student notes for Part 3 9 Learning outcomes 10 Checklist 11 3 of 12 Monday 5 January 2015 The assignment Cut-off date: 12 noon on 30 June 2015 Important: These pages provide guidance on how to write your assignment. Please ensure you read all of this information, right through to the checklist at the end. Before you start work on this assignment, make sure you have read the Assessment Guidance specific to this module. Additional support and guidance, including advice on plagiarism, referencing and the marking system, can be found in Social Sciences Assessment Information. Please consult your tutor if you are unsure about anything related to assessment, as failure to comply with relevant guidance could result in the loss of marks or other penalties. There are three parts to this assignment (all of which must be submitted). One whole study week is allocated to completing it. Part 1 (essay) Evaluate the usefulness of Harlow’s work for understanding human attachment. 70 per cent of the mark Word limit: 1000 words Part 2 (DE100 project report) Write the Design, Participants and Materials subsections of the Method section of your DE100 project report. 30 per cent of the mark Word limit: 400 words Part 3 (reflective component) Reflect on your writing skills and consider how they are developing as you progress through the module. Not graded, but 5 marks deducted if not completed. Word limit: 100 words On the following pages you will find: l student notes for each part l learning outcomes addressed by this assignment l a checklist to ensure you have done everything required. The assignment 4 of 12 Monday 5 January 2015 Student notes for Part 1 You are asked to ‘evaluate the usefulness of Harlow’s work for understanding human attachment’. The main difference between the type of essay which you will be writing for this assignment and that which you wrote for TMA 02 lies in what is expected of you. The essay for TMA 02 required you to outline the similarities and differences between two studies. This time you are expected to begin to engage in the more advanced activity of evaluation. The ability to evaluate material is an important skill, both in academic study and in many occupations. This part of the assignment gives you an opportunity to develop this skill. Before you start work on your essay, you need to make sure you understand exactly what the question requires. This means identifying and understanding the process and content words. Process and content words In this question there is one process word: ‘evaluate’. It is this process word that directs you to more than just describing something. Evaluation involves constructing an argument about the importance and/or implications of the points being made. Further, evaluation requires you to consider arguments both for and against a certain question/claim; for example, in this case, whether Harlow’s work is useful for understanding human attachment. As with all academic writing, your points should be supported with evidence and referenced appropriately. The content words are ‘the usefulness of Harlow’s work for understanding human attachment’. This means that the essay has a very specific focus on the work of Harlow, which you came across in Chapter 5 of Investigating Psychology. Note: Although this research is now considered unethical, Harlow’s research on animals should be treated as part of your study of the development of research theory and method in psychology, the contribution it has made to understanding of human behaviour and the ethical debates that have emerged from all that at different times. It was partly in response to work such as Harlow’s that psychologists have been prompted to review and improve ethical standards. Relevant material You will find relevant material in Chapter 5 of Investigating Psychology. There is a great deal of potentially useful information in this chapter, so you will need to be selective about which points you want to focus on. Section 1 introduces the concept of attachment and discusses early theories of the parent–infant bond. Section 2 is particularly important as it describes Harlow’s key study; Section 2.2 discusses the research method employed. Section 3 is also directly relevant as it provides an evaluation of Harlow’s work. You may also find the audio Harry Harlow from week 15 useful. The content words specify that the focus is Harlow’s work and its usefulness for understanding human attachment. However, in showing how, and where, Harlow’s work is, or is not, useful for understanding human attachment, you will probably need to draw on other studies described in Chapter 5. Section 4 discusses Ainsworth’s research on Student notes for Part 1 5 of 12 Monday 5 January 2015 human infant attachment and Section 5 covers a range of studies exploring the long-term effects of deprivation on human attachment. If you draw on this material you should avoid lengthy descriptions which will not be directly relevant to the focus of this essay. Rather, you should use any additional material as a way of providing evidence in support of your evaluation of Harlow’s work. There is a lot of information which you could include, so you will need to be selective in what you choose. You cannot cover all of the possible points and you are not expected to. Therefore keep the precise wording of the essay question in mind and focus on selecting those points you consider to be most important and for which you can provide evidence to support your argument. Below you will find tips for writing your essay, but before you start working on this part of the assignment, you should make sure that you have completed these online activities: l Online Activity 13.2: Constructing an argument. This activity deals with how to present material in an assignment in a logical and coherent way, so that it addresses the question. This is especially important when writing an essay that focuses on evaluation. l Online Activity 18.2: Preparing for TMA 03 (Part 1) takes you through the process of gathering, selecting and evaluating evidence. Before you begin to plan this essay, it would be good to review the feedback you received from your tutor for your essay in TMA 02, to see if there is any advice about the essay structure/content etc. that you could apply to this essay. Tips for writing your essay Having worked through the online activities, and having identified the process and content words in the essay, it is useful to reread the relevant material and make notes with the particular essay question in mind. When making notes, it may be helpful to specifically label which points support the idea that Harlow’s work is useful for understanding human attachment, and which points suggest otherwise. As with Part 1 of TMA 02, it is advisable to use an essay plan to help to organise the points yuu want to make into a logical structure. Constructing an essay plan will help you to ensure that the essay is addressing the evaluative component of the question. Remember that while you are required to consider alternative sides of the argument, it is not necessary to have equal numbers of points supporting both sides. If you are unsure of what to include in the essay, it may be useful to consider the following questions: l Who and what did Harlow study? l How did he carry out his research? l How can Harlow’s findings be applied to human attachment? l What are the limitations of Harlow’s work for understanding human attachment? l How has his work been taken up by other researchers? Remember that the task of the essay is to ‘evaluate’; so while you may want to include some background information, it is important to consider carefully how much background information the reader requires. The bulk of your essay must be directly focused on evaluating the usefulness of Harlow’s work for understanding human attachment. Student notes for Part 1 6 of 12 Monday 5 January 2015 Ensure that: l you pay attention to signposting your essay – make it clear whether you are making a point suggesting Harlow’s work is useful to understanding human attachment, or whether you are making a point which shows limitations; a balanced essay will consider both before you come to a conclusion l once you have completed your essay, you go back to your introduction and make sure that it sets up your essay well and accurately outlines how you will be addressing the question and what you will be arguing l your conclusion, whatever that conclusion is, provides a clear and direct response to the essay question set and follows from the evidence you presented. With all assignments, taking the time to reread the essay prior to submission is of great value in helping to pick up on minor spelling and grammatical errors, while also helping you to check that your argument is coming through clearly. If you are still unsure whether you have responded directly to the question, it is worth challenging yourself to consider whether you would be able to guess the essay question simply from what you have written – you could perhaps ask a family member or friend to test this for you. Remember that references should be included both within the essay and at the end. Also, remember to distinguish between primary sources (those you have read yourself, such as the textbook chapters) and secondary sources (those you have read about in the chapters). This is another area where reviewing the feedback you received on previous assignments is recommended. If you are still unsure how to reference, you should revisit Online Activity 7.3: Referencing (Part 1) – Why reference? and Online Activity 8.3: Referencing (Part 2) – How to reference. Remember to state the word count at the end of your answer. When marking Part 1 your tutor will be looking for: l evidence of understanding of the relevant material l evaluation of the material l good paraphrasing skills and evidence of writing in your own words l the ability to follow a logical structure for an essay l clear and concise writing l points and arguments that are backed by evidence l referencing of sources l keeping within the word limit of 1000 words. Student notes for Part 2 You are asked to write the Design, Participants and Materials subsections of the Method section of your DE100 project report. By this point you should have run the DE100 project experiment on two participants, collected the data and submitted it to the collaborative forum to be combined with data from other students. You do not need to have analysed the data in order to write your Method section. You will be conducting the analysis in the weeks ahead. Student notes for Part 2 7 of 12 Monday 5 January 2015 Note: As part of the DE100 project, you were required to collect data from two participants. This was to enable you to gain experience of running an experiment and to give you a clearer sense of the design of the experiment, the materials used, the procedure involved, and how it is to conduct research with participants. Note, however, that for this part of the assignment, you are required to write the Methods subsection based on participant data supplied by the DE100 team, not on data that you and other students in your group collected. The data for this assignment is set out in TMA 03: DE100 project participant information, located in the Assessment resources section of the module website. The Method section of a research report usually comprises four subsections: Design, Participants, Materials and finally Procedure. For this assignment you are only required to write the first three. Subsection Contents Source of information Word limit Design Details of the design and number and type of variables. DE100 project online activities (see below). 150 Participants Details of who the participants were, how many there were and how they were recruited. DE100 project online activities (see below). TMA 03: DE100 project participant information. 100 Materials Details of the stimuli and any materials used to record the responses of participants. DE100 project online activities (see below). 150 Total 400 Relevant material The most important source of information for this part of the assignment is Online Activity 18.3: Preparing for TMA 03 (Part 2), which provides examples of a Design subsection, a Participant subsection and a Materials subsection, along with a detailed account of what information you should include in each. The summary to the online activity contains a checklist to help you ensure you have covered each point. Some of the other DE100 project-related online activities which you completed in previous weeks also contain useful information, including: l Online Activity 14.4: DE100 project – Introduction l Online Activity 16.2: DE100 project – Procedure l Online Activity 17.2: DE100 project – Collecting data. Student notes for Part 2 8 of 12 Monday 5 January 2015 If you have not already done so, you should complete these online activities before you attempt this part of the assignment. In addition, you will need to access the document TMA 03: DE100 project participant information, which contains the details of the participants (the overall number, age and gender) which you will need in order to write the Participant subsection. When you write about how participants were recruited, it is advisable to describe how you recruited your participants. If you were unable to recruit participants please contact your tutor for advice. For the purposes of writing this report you may assume that relevant ethical procedures were followed. Tips for writing You will need to write concisely, as the word limits for each subsection are tight: Design, 150 words; Participants, 100 words; and Materials, 150 words. In the first draft of your answer, use the summary checklist in Online Activity 18.3: Preparing for TMA 03 (Part 2) to make sure you have covered all the relevant points for each subsection. Then check your word count. It is likely that you will need to redraft the subsections several times before they fit within the word limits while ensuring that your account remains clear. Note that you do not need to submit a copy of the stimulus materials. Remember to state the word count at the end of each subsection. When marking Part 2 your tutor will be looking for: l evidence of understanding of the relevant material; in particular, what information is required for each subsection l good paraphrasing skills and evidence of writing in your own words l logical structure that follows the conventions of a Method section of a report l clear and concise writing l keeping within the word limit for each section. Student notes for Part 3 Your task is to reflect on your writing skills and consider how they are developing as you progress through the module. You should have reviewed the feedback you received on TMA 02 before attempting this assignment. Write a few sentences (not more than 100 words) on the following: l What aspects of my writing did the tutor comment on in the feedback on TMA 02, and how have I tried to address this in TMA 03? l What else could I do to improve my writing in the future? You will need to review the feedback you were given on TMA 02 and identify one or two aspects of your writing which your tutor suggested could be improved. For example: l Was your referencing adequate and accurate? l Did you provide evidence for the claims you were making? Student notes for Part 3 9 of 12 Monday 5 January 2015 l Did you write clearly? l Was your essay well structured, and your introduction and conclusion clear and appropriate? l Did you cover appropriate material, or were key points omitted or too much unnecessary information included? When you have identified one or two aspects to focus on, explain how you have tried to improve. For example: l Did you go back to any of the online activities to clarify any misunderstanding? l Did you contact your tutor for further advice? l Did you allow yourself more time to complete particular tasks? l Did you spend more time planning or editing what you have written for TMA 03? It is important that you complete this reflective activity. Developing your writing skills will benefit you over the remaining assignments, and reflecting on your progress or any challenges you face will also help your tutor to provide feedback that addresses your specific needs. Remember to state the word count at the end of your answer. Note that you will lose 5 marks if you do not attempt this part of the assignment. Learning outcomes Each TMA is designed to help you to develop particular skills and knowledge. These are referred to as learning outcomes. By completing this assignment, you will have an opportunity to demonstrate the following learning outcomes. Knowledge and understanding l Define key concepts and describe key theories, studies, methods and debates within psychology. l Show awareness of the ways in which psychological knowledge is embedded in the historical, social and cultural context, and the way in which it develops through a process of questions, arguments, evidence and evaluation. l Recognise and describe the main research methods and procedures undertaken by psychologists, and identify the merits of qualitative and quantitative approaches. l Recognise the role of evidence in building psychological knowledge and how this relates to, and can be made relevant to, everyday experience and real-life social phenomena. Cognitive skills l Select and interpret key information from a range of sources, and represent it accurately and appropriately. Learning outcomes 10 of 12 Monday 5 January 2015 l Analyse and evaluate types of evidence and methods, and identify some of their strengths and weaknesses. l Interpret and integrate a range of evidence to develop an argument, including some primary sources. Key skills l Write using a clear and logical sequence of sentences and paragraphs appropriate for the level of study, subject, purpose and audience. l Plan and organise an essay and a research report with an appropriate structure and referencing. l Demonstrate basic skills in the use of ICT, including accessing and searching web pages and using ICT tools appropriate to support distance learning (accessing email, learning from online-based study materials and using the eTMA system). Practical and/or professional skills l Plan study sessions to manage a sequence of work that meets a deadline and complies with relevant academic conventions. l Reflect on and evaluate own learning, both individually and through discussion with peers, and engage in development planning. Checklist Have I: Yes No – where can I look for guidance? looked at the feedback on my previous work? Your tutor will have commented on your previous TMAs to provide you with some guidance about how to do better next time. read all of the guidance notes for this assignment? Read through these assignment notes to check you have followed all the advice and instructions. written in my own words? See Online Activity 8.2: Writing in your own words. Also, Online Activity 3.2: Summarising information in your own words contains useful information about how to avoid plagiarism. Checklist 11 of 12 Monday 5 January 2015 referenced my sources? See advice on referencing in Online Activity 7.3: Referencing (Part 1) – Why reference? and Online Activity 8.3: Referencing (Part 2) – How to reference, and check the summary sheet in the Study resources section on the DE100 module website, under ‘Instructions and guidelines’. checked my word count? Remember a penalty will apply the second time you exceed the word length by more than 10%. An answer that is shorter than the word length by more than 10% is likely to be too short to have fully answered the question. For further information on writing to length go to Social Sciences Assessment Information. Please submit all three parts of your TMA in one document, not in separate documents. written the word count at the end of each part of my TMA? Check the word count and write that figure clearly at the end of each part of the assignment. set out my assignment properly and in one document? Read the conventions for presenting work in Section 3 of the Assessment Guidance. completed each part of the TMA? Read through these assignment notes carefully to check you have followed all the advice and instructions. Checklist 12 of 12 Monday 5 January 2015