Learning Outcomes: After completing the module, you should be able to:
1. Describe and discuss historical, ethical, and wider issues within psychology.
2. Explain core theoretical perspectives in psychology.
3. Evidence and reflect upon engagement with development opportunities for skills for success.
4. Demonstrate a developing academic skillset, including sourcing and communicating evidence.
Graduate attributes: Contextually innovative: applying skills of critical, creative and evidenced based analysis and/or personal reflection to current real-world situations and future challenges. Through completing this assessment, you should have enhanced key professional development skills including; independent learning, developing your own working and learning strategies, time management, information seeking, understanding and awareness of limitations of theoretical perspectives, and the importance of reflection.
Your assignment should include: a title page containing your student number, the module name, the submission deadline and the exact word count of your submitted document; the appendices if relevant; and a reference list (see referencing section for more information).You should address all the elements of the assignment task listed below. Please note that tutors will use the assessment criteria set out below in assessing your work. You must not include your name in your submission because Arden University operates anonymous marking, which means that markers should not be aware of the identity of the student. However, please do not forget to include your STU number.
There are FOUR parts to this assignment – you should answer all parts in order to meet all Learning Outcomes and pass the assessment. Part 1: Psychological Perspectives (750 words)
Learning Outcome 2 Discuss which perspectives in psychology you believe (based on evidence) are most useful for explaining human behaviour.
Choose two perspectives from the following to discuss: Psychodynamic, behavioural, cognitive, developmental, social, humanistic, biological, evolutionary, individual differences. Provide examples and evidence to support your arguments from core textbooks or published journal articles, and avoid citing/ relying upon websites.
To push further, you can discuss the strengths and limitations of the two approaches you have discussed.
Part 2: Sourcing and Communicating Psychological Evidence (500 words) Learning Outcome 4
STEP 1: Find a recent (within last 10 years) peer-reviewed journal article about a psychological topic of your choice. It is recommended that you find a piece of primary research (where the researchers collected and analysed the study data themselves) rather than a review article.
STEP 2: Write a summary of the article, including the following key sections (you may wish to use the sub-headings below to structure your summary):
Introduction o What was the study looking at, and why?
o The research question or hypotheses.
Methodology
o What did the researchers do and how did they do it? This includes the study design, the participant sample, the measures used, and the procedure followed.
Results
o In clear terms, what did the researchers find?
Discussion and conclusion
o What do the findings mean?
To push further, you can briefly discuss:
o Some of the strengths and/ or limitations of the research.
o How the research might be applied in real-world contexts.
