Thoughts on the Psychology 3/4 2011-2014 Study Design

[Glockmeister]

First of all, as a number of you have point, I think there is a lot of cutting and pasting of subjects areas within Psychology with this study design. That's probably the major aspect of the study design. I might go through the two units for 2010

Unit 3

• They've move the entire research methods from all units from the previous study design into this unit as it seems. You'll also have to learn more about the statistical things such as mean, mode and median as well as things like reliability (how able is a particular measurement able to replicate the same results) and validity (how well does something measure what it's supposed to measure) and how this affects generalisablity.
  
• AoS1 of the new study design is basically Unit 3 Aos3 andfrom the old study design with a smattering of Unit 3 AoS1 for taste. Few new things may be:

              - Some of the methods in measuring consciousness (they mention sleep labs and self reports which aren't in the old study design)
               - Changes in sleep/wake cycle as a product of age.
               - A major emphasis on the neurological basis for cognitive process, in particular (for sleep), the Reticular Activating System
                 (which I believe would partly  involve the Reticular formation in some way) and the thalamus, which is in the mid-brain.
               - Two new brain research methods: Direct Brain Stimulation and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS).
                  Direct Brain Stimulation, sounds like what it is,  it basically involve implanting an electrode at the location of interest and zapping it.
                  TMS involves using magnetic fields being generated from a figure eight structure and that can excite neurons to do things.

• AoS2 of the new study design is basically and Unit 4 Aos1 from the old study design with again a smattering of Unit 3 AoS1 (and possibly the brain sections of Unit 2for taste. There are a few new things:

              - Again, this emphasis on the biological aspects of psychology. This time, it's memory.
                 One is the work is E. Richard Kandel which I had to look up actually, because I didn't recognise who they were referring to.
                 Have a read on wikipedia here. Again, they could potentially go very deep on that,
                 but they probably won't because it could easily get very complicated (even for a behavioural nueroscience student, me,
                 I don't get a lot of what's being said on wikipedia, and this is my specific subject area).
               - Also, bits about the hippocampus being important for memory.
                 They might seem to be a typo on the study design too. Not quite sure what a temporary lobe is. They probably mean temporal lobe.
                 Fail VCAA.        
                - The other major area is the "reconstructive nature of memory" which is new.
                   Basically, understanding that memory isn't like a Hard Drive in that when  you remember things it's not necessarily exactly correct
                   (and in fact, more often then not, it's actually quite wrong according to recent research). Things like false memories might be explored here.[/list]

Unit 4.

• AoS 1 is more or less Learning from Unit 4 from the previous study design. There is again, a bigger emphasis on the biological side of things but aside from that, there is nothing much else. There are two new items, insight learning and latent learning, which are I suppose 'cognitive' approaches to learning, which is a good thing because the whole cognitive thing is hot research right now.
• AoS 2, mental health, is obviously new to the Unit 3/4 Psychology design, whereas this was an optional unit during Unit 2 Psychology in the last study design.
  There as some aspects from AoS1 from the old study design, namely the stress section, but otherwise it's all new. Going through the study design, it seems they are trying to develop an understand that mental illness needs to be look at from a biopsychosocial model. The thing I do want to point out (because there is a lot I could do) is the final point
  

  application of a biopsychosocial framework to understanding ONE of the following types of mental
  disorder and its management:

  I suspect it'd be probably be done like in VCE Physics, where in the end of the exam, you'll have three separate sections of which you would do only one. May I suggest if you get the major depression, you go through the DBS and TMS stuff you would've done in Unit 3; DBS and TMS research is demonstrating that it may be effective in treating Treatment-resistant (i.e. nothing else has worked) Depression.  

 

[iNerd]

hey man thanks for replying to my thread. Good idea to make a new one completely based on the design!
Nice crackdown for the Unit; appreciate it.
What do ya'll think of the fact that we only have 2 SACS now?
Personally I don't know bcoz although you can spend more time focusing on 2 than 3...if you stuff up one its a major part gone...whereas with 3 SACS you have two more to cover your idiocy

[Visionz]

Its gonna suck not having any past VCAA exams specific to the study design to do. My year has the luxury of VCAA exams and other practice exams all cumulated over the years of the current study design.

[Glockmeister]

hey man thanks for replying to my thread. Good idea to make a new one completely based on the design!
Nice crackdown for the Unit; appreciate it.
What do ya'll think of the fact that we only have 2 SACS now?
Personally I don't know bcoz although you can spend more time focusing on 2 than 3...if you stuff up one its a major part gone...whereas with 3 SACS you have two more to cover your idiocy

Well, from reading the study design, it seems that for each outcome (of which there's only two now), you have to do two assessments. How each school will set up it's SACS to comply with the requirements remains to be seen.

[Glockmeister]

Ok, Unit 4 done.

[Eriny]

This study design looks really interesting, but I guess it's always hard being the 'guinea pig' year. It's interesting for me to learn that a lot of my VCE Psych knowledge is irrelevant now. This makes me sad.

[Glockmeister]

This study design looks really interesting, but I guess it's always hard being the 'guinea pig' year. It's interesting for me to learn that a lot of my VCE Psych knowledge is irrelevant now. This makes me sad.

In particular, they've seemed to have beef up the biological nature of the mind, which would be interesting for people like me, but yes, would mean more stuff to learn.

[Boots]

but this study design isnt implemented this yr right? the old one is extended to 2010

[Glockmeister]

Yes, this is for 2011, I apologise if the title is slightly deceptive. I will change it.