for use throughout the whole year by all psych students:
the study design - aka your best helper1. Research methods- key science skills (pages 11-13 of the study design)
- practical investigation (page 31)
Note that although the practical investigation will be at a specific time, research methods can be tested in
all assessments (for me it was).
This should be your focus over the other psych things you might want to look at over the break.
2. biopsychosocial model- basically this just means that you we can't accurately describe the phenomena we investigate using just biology, just social factors etc. Psych requires a holistic approach where all of these things are taken into consideration.
Eg, if someone has an anxiety disorder, this
may be contributed to by a GABA (neurotransmitter/signalling chemical in the brain) deficiency [biology], classical conditioning (type of learning) [psychology] and their job [social]
this is less about learning content and more about adopting a mindset and way of categorising things which you'll use throughout the year
3. Neurons and neural communication- Structure of neurons, divisions of the nervous system, neural signalling etc. page 24. The last 2 dot points aren't covered in units 1&2
- neural plasticity (dot point on page 26)
- heaps of youtube videos about this, which is probably a good way to learn given the usefulness of diagrams in this topic
Your whole class will probably recap this, which is why I've put it low on the list
Bonus: 4. Attachment in infantsthis comes up a little bit in the mental health section, but you don't need to know the level of detail required in units 1&2 (different types of insecure attachment, specifics of what tells you whether it's secure or not etc.). Basically:
secure attachment: had a trusted adult who they felt safe around and took care of their needs
disorganised attachment: not secure attachment (maybe abusive family? maybe ignored? maybe they didn't have adults around who could take care of their needs? (comfort, food, warmth etc) )
having secure attachment is, as you might guess, good - and it has impact far beyond infancy. If a person didn't have a trusted adult they formed secure attachment with, they are more likely to develop a mental health disorder, even as an adult).
Edit: fixed some typos and updated link