Tania Wilson (L3294864)
D110: Exploring Psychological Worlds
TMA01
Part A: Write the text of a reply to the email given in the scenario below. Your
response needs to draw on psychological evidence, but bear in mind that the person
who will read your reply is not studying psychology. You will therefore need
to describe the psychological concepts for them and explain how those ideas relate
to the question they’ve asked you.
Imagine that you have received the email below from a friend, who has heard that
you are studying psychology.
Hi, can I pick your brains about something? Isaac had to do this really weird test in
school this week and I can’t figure out what it has to do with anything!
Some of it made sense, like there were sums and word tests, and he’s learning
maths and English so that’s fair enough. A lot of it was really weird though – looking
at pictures of blocks and playing some sort of spot-the-difference game. I don’t
understand what this has to do with being clever and why they didn’t just test him on
what they’ve been learning in school instead. Why do they want to know how good
he is at playing with shapes?! I hope you can make sense of this, because I can’t!
Thanks, speak to you soon!
Hiya, hope you and Issac are well.
That’s so interesting about Issac’s test, so it sounds to me like they were doing a
type of intelligence test, you’ve heard of IQ tests, haven’t you? Well intelligence
testing is very similar, so they can measure each student’s individual abilities, using
both knowledge based – also called crystalised, questions and logic based – known
as fluid intelligence, questions.
A guy called Alfred Binet collaborated with Theodore Simon, both psychologists, in
1904, to help to identify children with special educational needs and to work out their
mental age, by asking these sorts of questions, some of which don’t necessarily
need any sort of knowledge or education, but more about logic.
This later lead on to the WAIS (Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale) and WISC
(Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children), which included categorising questions
into sub-tests, which is kind of what you’re describing with Isacc’s test, it involved
verbal, perceptual (images), memory and speed analysis in the questions.
I suppose it just gives an idea into where the children are at, regarding their mental
age and certain abilities, including their intelligence level, without it being solely
Tania Wilson (L3294864)
knowledge based, which can sometimes be biased against some children who don’t
have an intellectual mind or aren’t able to get education. There was a really
interesting study actually, in Australia, involving Aboriginal children, who hadn’t had
much formal education, if any. When it came to testing them with a similar kind of
test as Issac has been given, they did really well and sometimes better than children
who were in education. So, it just goes to show that no matter how studious
someone is, intelligence is also about the capability to use logic.
Regarding Issac, you said you didn’t understand what these sorts of questions had
to do with him being clever. I think the test was just given to him to establish his
intelligence on a broader viewpoint. Like you said, his knowledge was tested with the
English and maths questions. Well, his perceptual intelligence and memory
awareness were also tested with the picture questions and spot the difference.
I’ve done a few of these tests myself in fact, it really gives you an insight into yourself
and your abilities, very fascinating. To tell you the truth, I did better on certain
questions that I didn’t think I’d do so well on. You should have a go some time.
Anyway, I’m sure Issac smashed the test and his teachers will now be able to gather
enough information to work out his strengths and weaknesses, so they can focus on
aspects he might need to improve on, whilst also driving forward using his strengths.
I hope this has helped; we will have to catch up over a coffee soon.
Take care, Tania
(Word Count: 462)
Part B: In Week 4 you learned about two general research questions that are used in
psychology and counselling: ‘are these things connected?’ and ‘what makes this
happen?’ Pick one of these questions. Outline what it means in research and explain
what it enables researchers to find out.
By asking “Are these things connected?” psychologists can determine if there is a
relationship between two different things. For example, by researching a group of
students and analysing the amount of hours they study, then looking at their grades
and working out if there is a correlation between the two. Research has shown that
there is a connection between a person’s thoughts and how their thoughts affect their
emotions, and how their emotions impact their behaviour, then how behaviour
influences their thoughts.
Applying this research question not only provides the result of if two things are
connected, it can also help to predict patterns, for human cognition and their actions.
Psychologists can view if there is a correlation between two variables and determine
whether connections exist at all; are positive; or are negative. An alternative method
of investigating this, is by removing something, for example, if a person is very
Tania Wilson (L3294864)
productive after having a cup of coffee, one might assume this is a coincidence.
Taking the coffee away from the person and reviewing their behaviour compared to
when they had their coffee will present whether the coffee has anything to do with
their productivity level.
“Are these things connected?” is an important question to ask to be able to
understand the interactions between human cognition and behaviour, amongst other
aspects.
(Word Count: 220)
