Saturday, February 11, 2012

Research Methods, Psychology in Everyday Life and Areas & Employment of Psychology

Session 1 - Research Methods

Discussion concerning the holiday homework of annotating a selected psychological experiment / study in regards to the 7 steps of psychological research.

Revision of relevant research method concepts:
  • Hypothesis
  • Independent Variable
  • Dependent Variable
All students completed the Smarties Activity - Population & Sample exercise.

Relevant questions needed to be written up in full sentences in students workbook.


Session 2 - Psychology in Everyday Life

Students view a number of relevant clips that relate to how psychology can be used in everyday life - broken down into important facets of society such as; advertising / consumerism, health & medicine and law & justice.

Read through relevant pages of the text and complete the Psych Overview Flowchart Fig 1.1 from the Student Activity Manual.


Session 3 - Areas of Specialisation & Employment


Ask students to copy down the following notes in their workbook:

Psychology as a Profession:
Psychologists are highly trained professionals who specialise in creating, teaching and applying psychological knowledge. In seeking to provide answers to questions about human behaviour, they gather scientific data to describe, understand, predict and control behaviour.

Areas of Specialisation within Psychology
The Australian Psychological Society has identified 10 specialist areas of psychology.
·      Biological Psychologist
·      Clinical Psychology
·      Clinical Neuropsychology
·      Health Psychology
·      Sport Psychology
·      Cognitive Psychology
·      Personality Psychology
·      Counseling Psychology
·      Educational Psychology
·      Forensic Psychology

-       Read 44, 45 & 46 and complete ‘Fields of Psychology’ Activity 1.2 – Run answers with the students…

-       Handout the research investigation and explain what needs to be completed – allow students time to complete the task.

Homework Task:

A Research Investigation                 

Choose an employment area involving psychology that most interests you and write a 200 – 250 word summary addressing the following questions:

•What type of work or duties are performed?
•What courses / subjects need to be undertaken?
•What qualifications are needed to be employed in this position?
•Anything else of interest such as the demand for people in this area, salary or the working environment…


Relevant references:


Due to be handed in on Wednesday 15th February



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