Unit outline: 'Psychology 1B'

School of Medicine,

Faculty of Health

KHA112
Psychology B

Unit Outline

Semesters 2, 2015

What is the Unit About?

Unit Description

KHA112 Psychology B provides a further introduction to major areas in Psychology and to basic techniques for psychological investigations. Lecture topics include research methods, intelligence, social psychology and cross-cultural psychology. Students are required to undertake additional reading to extend their knowledge in the areas covered in the lecture programme. In practical classes students are introduced to the processes of conducting experiments and writing these up in a style appropriate for the behavioural sciences.

Students will be engaged in class-based activities and experiments that highlight some of the key aspects of the topics covered in lectures.

Intended Learning Outcomes

1. Demonstrate an understanding of some key theories and concepts in Psychology.
2. Identify a range of key topics in the field of Psychology.
3. Explain some of the key processes of research methods.
4. Apply the methods of experimentation used in Psychology.
5. Demonstrate data presentation skills.
6. Demonstrate skills in writing in a scientific discipline such as Psychology.

Graduate Quality Statement

Successful completion of this unit supports your development of course learning outcomes, which describe what a graduate of a course knows, understands and is able to do. Course learning outcomes are available from the Course Coordinator. Course learning outcomes are developed with reference to national discipline standards, Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF), any professional accreditation requirements and the University of Tasmania's Graduate Quality Statement.

The University of Tasmania experience unlocks the potential of individuals. Our graduates are equipped and inspired to shape and respond to the opportunities and challenges of the future as accomplished communicators, highly regarded professionals and culturally competent citizens in local, national, and global society. University of Tasmania graduates acquire subject and multidisciplinary knowledge and skills and develop creative and critical literacies and skills of inquiry. Our graduates recognise and critically evaluate issues of social responsibility, ethical conduct and sustainability. Through respect for diversity and by working in individual and collaborative ways, our graduates reflect the values of the University of Tasmania.

Core Psychology Graduate Attributes

The Australian Psychology Accreditation Council (APAC) accreditation standards require that the 3-year accredited sequence provide students with a solid foundation in the core psychology graduate attributes. By undertaking this unit you should make progress in attaining the following APAC graduate attributes:

Graduate Attribute 1: Core knowledge and understanding of core topics in the discipline

• Acquire an understanding of core topics in psychology

Graduate Attribute 2: Research methods in psychology

• Describe, apply and evaluate the different research methods used in psychology
• Demonstrate practical skills in research methods during laboratory-based exercises and assessment tasks including: frame research questions; undertake literature searches; critically analyse theoretical and empirical studies; formulate testable hypotheses; operationalise variables; choose an appropriate methodology; make valid and reliable measurements; analyse data and interpret results; and write research reports

Graduate Attribute 3: Critical thinking skills

• Apply knowledge of the scientific method in thinking about problems related to behaviour and mental processes
• Question claims that arise from myth, stereotype, pseudoscience or untested assumptions
• Recognise and defend against the major fallacies of human thinking

Graduate Attribute 4: Values, research and professional ethics

• Use information in an ethical manner (e.g., acknowledge and respect work and intellectual property rights of others through appropriate citations in oral and written communication)

Graduate Attribute 5: Communication skills

• Demonstrate effective oral and written communication skills in various formats (e.g., group discussion, class presentations, and written assessments)
• Graduate Attribute 6: Learning and the application of psychology
• Demonstrate a capacity for independent learning to sustain personal and professional development in the changing world of the science and practice of psychology

Alterations to the unit as a result of student feedback

No alterations to the unit have been made as result of student feedback.

Prior knowledge &/or skills

Unit prerequisites can be found at Courses and Units.

How will I be assessed?

Assessment schedule

Assessment details

Assessment task 1

Assessment task 2

Assessment task 3

Assessment task 4

Final Exam

Examinations

The final examination is conducted by the University Registrar in the formal examination period which, for Semester 2, 2015 is Saturday, 24th October, 2015 through to Tuesday, 10th November, 2015, inclusive. The exact date for the examination in this unit will be released later in the semester. Students should note that examination dates and times cannot be changed. Deferred examinations are only available in extenuating circumstances and must be applied for through the Examinations Office. Likewise, alternative venues for examinations can only be applied for under circumstances specified by the Examinations Office. Further details of examination regulations and procedures can be found at Examinations and Results.

How your final result is determined

Your final result is determined in accordance with the unit's assessment information (see assessment information in the appendix). Marks for the individual components are totalled together so as to contribute to the specified percentage. Marks are reviewed by the Unit Coordinator and Psychology's Assessment Committee and may be adjusted to ensure fairness, consistency and appropriateness before the final marks and grades are assigned in accordance with University policy and the specified unit assessment. Psychology's grades and marks are also reviewed by the Faculty Assessor's Committee.

Note: In order to obtain a full passing grade in this unit, students are expected to submit all assessable work, meet the minimum attendance requirements (see Specific Attendance / Performance Requirements section), obtain an overall mark of 50% or more, and obtain the minimum performance standard of (45%) on both the internal component of the unit and the examination component of the unit.

Submission of assignments

Cover sheets are not required for electronic assignment submission via MyLO. However, an appropriately formatted title page is required which includes your Student Identification Number. Students should submit all assignments via the MyLO Dropbox for this unit and tick the box displayed to confirm that the material presented is their own work. For this unit, students need to submit electronic copies of assignments.

Page length and formatting of assignments

The page length stipulated for assignments is based on the body of the assignment. For a research report this includes introduction, methods, results and discussion Page 9 KHA112 Psychology B sections, but excludes title page, abstract, tables, figures, captions and references. Tables, figures and accompanying captions are to be on separate pages and included in numerical order after the reference list. For an essay, length is the body of the essay and excludes title page, abstract and references. All margins must be 2.54cm and 12 point Times New Roman double-spaced font must be used. Pages must be single sided. Assignments exceeding the prescribed length will incur a penalty of 10% of the total obtainable mark.

Requests for extensions

With regard to this unit, students requiring an extension should contact the Unit/Campus Coordinator (Jim Sauer or Peter Tranent) prior to the due date with any supporting documentation (e.g., medical certificates), and proof of progress (e.g., draft of assignment, research notes, etc.). Students will be advised of the decision and if the extension is granted, submission arrangements will be made for the extended submission date.

Penalties

Penalties for late submission are applied and over-length assignments incur a 10% penalty. If an extension has not been granted and approved, an assignment submitted after the designated due date will incur a 5% penalty of the total obtainable mark per day (this includes weekends).

Review of results and appeals

Re-assessment of Assignments

The following procedure is applied within the Division of Psychology:

1. Students with a question about their grade should approach the Unit/Campus Coordinator to clarify why the grade was awarded. The Unit/Campus Coordinator may (at his/her discretion) direct the student to the original assessor to provide feedback.

2. If Step 1 does not resolve the student's concern the student should present to the Unit/Campus Coordinator a written statement as to why a re-mark is warranted. The grounds for granting a re-mark include:

(a) comments in the feedback appear to be factually incorrect;

(b) there is an apparent inconsistency between the feedback and the grade awarded;

(c) the student mounting an argument for value in the assignment that has been misunderstood or overlooked by the assessor. Page 10 KHA112 Psychology B

3. If the Unit/Campus Coordinator determines a review is warranted, students should provide the Unit Coordinator with the original assessment plus a clean, unmarked copy of the assignment with no identifying personal information or information regarding the original assessor.

4. The Unit/Campus Coordinator will the arrange for an independent assessment of the assignment by an alternative assessor, ensuring that the clean copy is identical to the original assignment and that any supporting material (e.g., the assignment outline, marking instructions, feedback sheets and criteria) is forwarded to the assessor. Feedback will be in the same format as the original assessment.

Students wishing to have their assignments re-marked must request a review within 14 days of the return date of the assignment. The University has formal procedures regarding the re-assessment of final examinations and information can be found under Rule 111 – Academic Assessment at: http://www.utas.edu.au/__data/assets/word_doc/0009/25992/Rule2.docx

Academic referencing

In your written work you will need to support your ideas by referring to scholarly literature, works of art and/or inventions. It is important that you understand how to correctly refer to the work of others, and how to maintain academic integrity.

Failure to appropriately acknowledge the ideas of others constitutes academic dishonesty (plagiarism), a matter considered by the University of Tasmania as a serious offence.

The appropriate referencing style for this unit follows the American Psychological Association (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association.

The University library provides information on presentation of assignments, including referencing styles and should be referred to when completing tasks in this unit.

Please read the following statement on plagiarism. Should you require clarification please see your unit coordinator or lecturer.

Plagiarism Plagiarism is a form of cheating. It is taking and using someone else's thoughts, writings or inventions and representing them as your own; for example, using an author's words without putting them in quotation marks and citing the source, using an author's ideas without proper acknowledgment and citation, copying another student's work.

If you have any doubts about how to refer to the work of others in your assignments, please consult your lecturer or tutor for relevant referencing guidelines. You may also find the Academic Honesty site on MyLO of assistance.

The intentional copying of someone else's work as one's own is a serious offence punishable by penalties that may range from a fine or deduction/cancellation of marks and, in the most serious of cases, to exclusion from a unit, a course or the University.

The University and any persons authorised by the University may submit your assessable works to a plagiarism checking service, to obtain a report on possible instances of plagiarism. Assessable works may also be included in a reference database. It is a condition of this arrangement that the original author's permission is required before a work within the database can be viewed.

For further information on this statement and general referencing guidelines, see the Plagiarism and Academic Integrity page on the University web site or the Academic Honesty site on MyLO.

Academic misconduct

Academic misconduct includes cheating, plagiarism, allowing another student to copy work for an assignment or an examination, and any other conduct by which a student:

1. seeks to gain, for themselves or for any other person, any academic advantage or advancement to which they or that other person are not entitled; or
2. improperly disadvantages any other student.

Students engaging in any form of academic misconduct may be dealt with under the Ordinance of Student Discipline, and this can include imposition of penalties that range from a deduction/cancellation of marks to exclusion from a unit or the University. Details of penalties that can be imposed are available in Ordinance 9: Student Discipline – Part 3 Academic Misconduct.

What learning opportunities are there?

Activities

Learning expectations

The University is committed to high standards of professional conduct in all activities, and holds its commitment and responsibilities to its students as being of paramount importance. Likewise, it holds expectations about the responsibilities students have as they pursue their studies within the special environment the University offers. The University's Code of Conduct for Teaching and Learning states: Students are expected to participate actively and positively in the teaching/learning environment. They must attend classes when and as required, strive to maintain steady progress within the subject or unit framework, comply with workload expectations, and submit required work on time.

Details of teaching arrangements

This unit includes 13 lectures (one, 2 hour lecture per week). There are also ten, 1 hour in-class practicals and 11 self-directed practical activities.

For further detail, see the Unit Schedule on page 16.

Note: Most weeks have both an in-class and self-directed practical component. It is expected that self-directed activities will take approx. 1 hour, and these activities will need to be completed by, and signed off in, the next week's practical class.

Click here for Timetable

(When the page comes up you will need to select the following options:

[Select a Semester]– Semester 2; [Select type of events] – All Classes; [Select a Campus] – Hobart, Launceston or Cradle Coast; [Select a Year] – 2015, [Unit Code] – KHA112, View Details. This will then allow you to see the lecture time and possible practical class options for your campus).

Specific attendance/performance requirements

Students are required to attend all lectures. Attendance at practical classes is recorded. In order to complete the unit, students must attend a minimum of 70% of all scheduled practical classes during the semester (including participation in non-attending, self-directed and practical activities).

However, you are strongly encouraged to attend all practical classes. The content of these classes is designed to help you understand key issues in psychology, and prepare you to perform well on your assessment. And, finally, you're paying for this education… you may as well use of all it. :)

Peer assisted study sessions

The Peer Assisted Study Sessions program (PASS) is available to all students studying in this unit this semester. PASS offers regular, out-of-class study sessions where you can come together with other students in a relaxed environment to revise the course content and develop your academic reasoning and study skills. PASS sessions are offered on campus each week and run for 50 minutes. PASS sessions are led by PASS Leaders, high-achieving students who successfully completed the unit last year. The sessions are conducted in an informal setting where you work with others to complete activities, discuss readings, develop study tools and prepare for examinations. There is no need to register, just come along to the session time that suits you the best. Data from universities, both nationally and internationally, indicates that students who attend PASS regularly on average earn higher subject grades than students who do not attend PASS.
Session times can be viewed either on your student timetable or on the PASS website.

Resources

You will need the following text [available from the Co-op Bookshop]:

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Lilienfeld, S. O., Lynn, S. J., Namy, L. L., Woolf, N. J., Jamieson, G., Marks, T., Slaughter, V., & Main, A. (2015). Psychology: From enquiry to understanding (2nd edition). French's Forest, NSW: Pearson.

School of Psychology. (2015). KHA112 Psychology B practical workbook. Hobart, Tasmania, Australia: Uniprint (available from UniPrint).

Recommended readings

Additionally, lecturers may recommend articles and chapters relevant to specific content. These recommended readings may be provided for you on MyLO, or you may have to employ your search skills and scrounge through the library!

MyLO

MyLO is the online learning environment at the University of Tasmania This unit is web supported and access to the MyLO online unit is required. Log in to MyLO at: http://utas.edu.au/learning-teaching-online/ and then select KHA112 Psychology B from the list of units.

Getting help with MyLO

It is important that you are able to access and use MyLO as part of your study in this unit. To find out more about the features and functions of MyLO, and to practice using them, visit the Getting Started in MyLO unit. For access to information about MyLO and a range of step-by-step guides in pdf, word and video format, visit the MyLO Student Support page on the University website. If something is not working as it should, contact the Service Desk (Service.Desk@utas.edu.au, phone 6226 1818), or Request IT Help Online.

Teaching and learning strategies

To complete this unit successfully, you will need to work hard and engage fully with the lecture content and readings. The key to success is to read as much about relevant research as you can. Avoid the easy, pop-psychology nonsense and, instead, focus on rigorous psychological science.

Attendance at lectures is critically important to keep yourself informed of important themes and directions for your self-directed study (both in terms of self-directed practicals, and with a view to assessment preparation).

A couple of top study tips for this unit (based on very basic principles of memory and learning):

1. Humans learn better when they actively process information.

2. Repetition and elaboration of information enhance understanding and likelihood of recall.

To do well in this unit, I offer the following advice:

Attend the lectures

Very obvious advice, but attending the lectures will give you a context for your reading and assessment preparation, plus during lectures the most salient and important issues will be emphasized and examined. Furthermore, no one book chapter or article will contain all the information presented in a lecture.

Participate in practical classes

Practical classes throughout the unit will require you to get involved in the subject matter in different ways via activities, case studies and interactive tasks. Obviously, the more you contribute in such sessions, the more you will get out of them.

Review your lecture notes regularly

Review Weekly: Make sure that you understand what was discussed, and that you are clear on the main points. Elaborate on points from your reading. Do not simply re-write notes – it is very time-consuming and it is a passive exercise –make yourself actively process the information!

Intermittently: At intermittent periods, review your notes for the past 2-3 weeks again. Hopefully, if you learned it well (that is, if you understood the material) when you reviewed it earlier, this should be a fairly painless exercise, and it should become quicker and easier with each review.

Apply your new knowledge: Test yourself. Testing beats repeated studying (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006, Psychological Science) when it comes to retention. Talking about the material will also help you to ensure that you understand it, and it will help you to remember it. For example, some people benefit from studying in a group, or from talking about topics of interest with other members of the class.

Advice for Reading

Stay on track: it is easier to keep up than catch up.

Make an effort to actively process the readings

a) The first read-through: The first time you read through a chapter or article, your main goal should be to understand the material. Take as long as you need to read the chapter/article the first time; ensure that you understand what it's about. When you understand it you can go back to actively process what you now understand.

b) Review and actively select the important points: At the end of the week, a few days after reading the article and after you've heard the lecture related to these readings, go back through the readings and now actively process the material. Pick only one key sentence per paragraph to highlight -- this isn't easy, but it forces you to make sure you understand the key points, and it'll help you to understand and thus remember the material. Note that some ideas will be in the readings that were not covered in class or in the text; make sure that you understand these ideas.

c) Intermittently review the readings: Intermittently go back through the readings. Keep yourself active in the learning process; challenge your knowledge, and resist the urge to simply "rewrite" the entire article! Each time you go back through your readings, you should be faster and more efficient because you are aiming to understand what is being discussed.

Work Health and Safety (WHS)

The University is committed to providing a safe and secure teaching and learning environment. In addition to specific requirements of this unit you should refer to the University's Work Health and Safety website and policy.

Communication

News and announcements will be posted to MyLO News, and students will be expected to be aware of the content of such posts within 48 hours of them being posted.

All questions about assessment that have not been answered in the descriptions here in the Unit Outline, or in the instructions on MyLO, can be asked using the Discussion Topic named for the specific assessment task. Questions will be responded to within the same Discussion, generally within 72 hours. Alternatively, you can email your question to me (Jim.Sauer@utas.edu.au). If the question (or answer) is likely to be of general interest to the class, I will post an anonymised version on MyLO.

Formal unit information will be provided by the Unit Coordinator via official University channels, e.g., lectures, MyLO and e-mail communication. Students are advised to exercise caution when accessing information via other channels not endorsed by the School, such as on social media websites (e.g., Facebook), as such information is conveyed by others and is not necessarily accurate.

Further information and assistance

If you are experiencing difficulties with your studies or assignments, have personal or life-planning issues, disability or illness which may affect your course of study, you are advised to raise these with the unit coordinator in the first instance.

There is a range of University-wide support services available to you including Student Learning Support, Student Advisers, Disability Services, and more which can be found on the Student Support and Development page of the University website.

Should you require assistance in accessing the Library, visit their website for more information.

Unit schedule

Appendices available in PDF version.

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Attribution information
Title:	Unit Outline: Psychology 1B   - Open Version
Source:	https://www.utas.edu.au/health/resources/open-resources/resources/courses/psychology/unit-outline-psychology-1b
Author:	Dr Jim Sauer