What Is Psychology Class In High School?
High school psychology is an elective course that aims to give students an understanding of human behavior. Psychology classes for high school students typically cover several important aspects such as the history of psychology, research methods, classification and treatment of disorders, and more.
Why Study Psychology in High School? What Do You Learn in High School Psychology? High School Psychology Curriculum Scope & Sequence Why Choose Time4Learning’s High School Psychology Curriculum? Additional Electives
Contents
- 1 Is psychology a hard class?
- 2 What do you learn from a psychology class?
- 3 Is psychology a science class?
- 4 What are the subject in psychology?
- 5 Is psychology a science or a biology?
- 6 Can I study psychology without biology?
- 7 What is psychology for beginners?
- 8 Is psychology a useful GCSE?
- 9 Why is it so hard to study psychology?
Is psychology a hard class?
How much coursework is involved when studying psychology? – The amount of coursework can vary depending on what area of psychology you are studying and which university you are studying at. The general view of the coursework that psychology offers is that it is tremendously difficult.
The coursework deadlines are apparently not very flexible either; we recommend that once you’re set an assignment that you crack on with that as soon as you possibly can, which is a good bit of advice for any university degree really. The coursework also has a minimum grade rating for you to achieve what you need in the degree.
Some universities will not accept some coursework with a grade below C or some even below a B or A! We recommend that you knuckle down with the coursework if you plan on doing this at university.
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What do you learn from a psychology class?
Understanding People – First off, psychology is the study of how our human minds work and how they function. In these courses, you are taught a number of things, from terms used in the field, to theories of how the mind works and the people who helped develop these theories.
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Is psychology a science class?
Although many people who studied psychology may work in jobs that perhaps do not, on the surface, seem “scientific,” the practice and education of psychology is guided by research findings that are firmly grounded in the scientific method. There are some disciplines within psychology that are even more aligned with the natural sciences, such as neuropsychology, which is the study of the brain’s influence on behavior.
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What are the subject in psychology?
What is Psychology? – Psychology is the scientific study of the human mind and behaviour. Human development, sports, health, clinical, social behaviour, and cognitive processes are all aspects of this multidisciplinary field. Psychologists study everything from the brain’s basics to consciousness, memory, reasoning, language, as well as personality.
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Is psychology a difficult GCSE?
Is GCSE Psychology difficult? – The short answer is no, GCSE psychology is not a particularly hard subject to learn. The long answer however, is it can be if you do not learn all the key studies and concepts. The subject is heavily ‘knowledge’ based which means unlike other technical subjects like mathematics where you are required to work things out, for GCSE psychology, you need to be familiar with the key studies, their strengths and weaknesses and recall this.
- Therefore while GCSE psychology is not a difficult subject, you are required to absorb a lot of knowledge and understand the theories and concepts well enough that you can evaluate them.
- There are 8 topics you need to learn and the hardest part is usually remembering the key studies, the name of the researchers and the dates (although remembering the dates isn’t really that important).
To score a Grade 9 (the highest mark possible) you need to achieve about 80% on average across both exam papers according to the grade boundaries here.
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Is there math in psychology?
Do you have to be good at math to be a psychologist? – There are certain specializations in psychology where being good at math is useful, but it’s not a requirement. Psychologists who go into research or social psychology usually end up dealing with a lot of statistics and other math-driven analytical techniques. Although it’s definitely math, it’s not rocket science. You’ll be just fine!
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Is psychology an important class?
Improving Critical Thinking Skills – Psychology classes help you learn the scientific method, how to evaluate sources of information, and how to think critically about the information you encounter every day. These classes can help you hone these skills, which prove useful in a variety of careers and different areas of life.
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Why do I want to take a psychology class?
Reasons to study psychology – There are many reasons to study psychology, from career prospects to personal interest. Psychology is a fascinating area of study. It will help you understand human behaviour and mental processes and allow you to better understand how we think act and feel.
- If you are considering studying psychology you probably already know what an interesting subject it is to study.
- Our psychology courses look at some of the important questions such as why do people act the way they do? What shapes our personality? How do we learn and change throughout our life? If you are interested in a deeper understanding of the human condition you should consider studying psychology.
This is a good enough reason in itself but there are several other reasons why you should consider a course in psychology.
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Why is it important to study psychology?
Psychology sheds light on human behavior and helps us understand why we act the way we do. The field offers insights into our human experiences, helps us connect with others, and can mean the difference between a life well-lived and a life of challenges.
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Is psychology a humanities class?
What are humanities? – Humanities is an academic subject that deals with the study of the ‘Human Condition,’ using analytical, critical, or speculative techniques. History, languages, literature, law, philosophy, religion, performing arts, anthropology, communication, sociology, psychology, and many more areas fall under the umbrella of humanities subjects.
Several humanities stream subjects can lead to fascinating professional prospects. Choosing humanities subjects opens up a world of new employment. This stream is for students who have interest in mass media, journalism, history, geography, and other liberal arts subjects. The topics are diverse, giving pupils an understanding of human cultures, customs, evolution, and so on.
We’ve listed some of the humanities subjects below –
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Is psychology a science or a biology?
Chapter 1: The Science of Psychology
- Define science.
- Describe the three fundamental features of science.
- Explain why psychology is a science.
- Define pseudoscience and give some examples.
Some people are surprised to learn that psychology is a, They generally agree that astronomy, biology, and chemistry are sciences but wonder what psychology has in common with these other fields. Before answering this question, however, it is worth reflecting on what astronomy, biology, and chemistry have in common with each other,
It is clearly not their subject matter. Astronomers study celestial bodies, biologists study living organisms, and chemists study matter and its properties. It is also not the equipment and techniques that they use. Few biologists would know what to do with a radio telescope, for example, and few chemists would know how to track a moose population in the wild.
For these and other reasons, philosophers and scientists who have thought deeply about this question have concluded that what the sciences have in common is a general approach to understanding the natural world. Psychology is a science because it takes this same general approach to understanding one aspect of the natural world: human behaviour.
- The general scientific approach has three fundamental features (Stanovich, 2010),
- The first is,
- Empiricism refers to learning based on observation, and scientists learn about the natural world systematically, by carefully planning, making, recording, and analyzing observations of it.
- As we will see, logical reasoning and even creativity play important roles in science too, but scientists are unique in their insistence on checking their ideas about the way the world is against their systematic observations.
Notice, for example, that Mehl and his colleagues did not trust other people’s stereotypes or even their own informal observations. Instead, they systematically recorded, counted, and compared the number of words spoken by a large sample of women and men.
- Furthermore, when their systematic observations turned out to conflict with people’s stereotypes, they trusted their systematic observations.
- The second feature of the scientific approach—which follows in a straightforward way from the first—is that it is concerned with,
- These are questions about the way the world actually is and, therefore, can be answered by systematically observing it.
The question of whether women talk more than men is empirical in this way. Either women really do talk more than men or they do not, and this can be determined by systematically observing how much women and men actually talk. Having said this, there are many interesting and important questions that are not empirically testable and that science is not in a position to answer.
Among these are questions about values—whether things are good or bad, just or unjust, or beautiful or ugly, and how the world ought to be. So although the question of whether a stereotype is accurate or inaccurate is an empirically testable one that science can answer, the question—or, rather, the value judgment—of whether it is wrong for people to hold inaccurate stereotypes is not.
Similarly, the question of whether criminal behaviour has a genetic basis is an empirical question, but the question of what actions ought to be considered illegal is not. It is especially important for researchers in psychology to be mindful of this distinction.
- The third feature of science is that it creates,
- After asking their empirical questions, making their systematic observations, and drawing their conclusions, scientists publish their work.
- This usually means writing an article for publication in a professional journal, in which they put their research question in the context of previous research, describe in detail the methods they used to answer their question, and clearly present their results and conclusions.
Increasingly, scientists are opting to publish their work in open access journals, in which the articles are freely available to all – scientists and nonscientists alike. This important choice allows publicly-funded research to create knowledge that is truly public.
- Publication is an essential feature of science for two reasons.
- One is that science is a social process—a large-scale collaboration among many researchers distributed across both time and space.
- Our current scientific knowledge of most topics is based on many different studies conducted by many different researchers who have shared their work publicly over many years.
The second is that publication allows science to be self-correcting. Individual scientists understand that, despite their best efforts, their methods can be flawed and their conclusions incorrect. Publication allows others in the scientific community to detect and correct these errors so that, over time, scientific knowledge increasingly reflects the way the world actually is.
- A good example of the self-correcting nature of science is the ” Many Labs Replication Project ” – a large and coordinated effort by prominent psychological scientists around the world to attempt to replicate findings from 13 classic and contemporary studies (Klein et al., 2013),
- One of the findings selected by these researchers for replication was the fascinating effect, first reported by Simone Schnall and her colleagues at the University of Plymouth, that washing one’s hands leads people to view moral transgressions—ranging from keeping money inside a found wallet to using a kitten for sexual arousal—as less wrong (Schnall, Benton, & Harvey, 2008),
If reliable, this effect might help explain why so many religious traditions associate physical cleanliness with moral purity. However, despite using the same materials and nearly identical procedures with a much larger sample, the “Many Labs” researchers were unable to replicate the original finding (Johnson, Cheung, & Donnellan, 2013), suggesting that the original finding may have stemmed from the relatively small sample size (which can lead to unreliable results) used in the original study.
To be clear, at this stage we are still unable to definitively conclude that the handwashing effect does not exist; however, the effort that has gone into testing its reliability certainly demonstrates the collaborative and cautious nature of scientific progress. refers to activities and beliefs that are claimed to be scientific by their proponents—and may appear to be scientific at first glance—but are not.
Consider the theory of biorhythms (not to be confused with sleep cycles or other biological cycles that do have a scientific basis). The idea is that people’s physical, intellectual, and emotional abilities run in cycles that begin when they are born and continue until they die.
Allegedly, the physical cycle has a period of 23 days, the intellectual cycle a period of 33 days, and the emotional cycle a period of 28 days. So, for example, if you had the option of when to schedule an exam, you would want to schedule it for a time when your intellectual cycle will be at a high point.
The theory of biorhythms has been around for more than 100 years, and you can find numerous popular books and websites about biorhythms, often containing impressive and scientific-sounding terms like sinusoidal wave and bioelectricity, The problem with biorhythms, however, is that there is simply no good reason to think they exist (Hines, 1998),
A set of beliefs or activities can be said to be pseudoscientific if (a) its adherents claim or imply that it is scientific but (b) it lacks one or more of the three features of science. For instance, it might lack systematic empiricism. Either there is no relevant scientific research or, as in the case of biorhythms, there is relevant scientific research but it is ignored.
It might also lack public knowledge. People who promote the beliefs or activities might claim to have conducted scientific research but never publish that research in a way that allows others to evaluate it. A set of beliefs and activities might also be pseudoscientific because it does not address empirical questions.
The philosopher Karl Popper was especially concerned with this idea (Popper, 2002), He argued more specifically that any scientific claim must be expressed in such a way that there are observations that would—if they were made—count as evidence against the claim. In other words, scientific claims must be,
The claim that women talk more than men is falsifiable because systematic observations could reveal either that they do talk more than men or that they do not. As an example of an unfalsifiable claim, consider that many people who believe in extrasensory perception (ESP) and other psychic powers claim that such powers can disappear when they are observed too closely.
- This makes it so that no possible observation would count as evidence against ESP.
- If a careful test of a self-proclaimed psychic showed that she predicted the future at better-than-chance levels, this would be consistent with the claim that she had psychic powers.
- But if she failed to predict the future at better-than-chance levels, this would also be consistent with the claim because her powers can supposedly disappear when they are observed too closely.
Why should we concern ourselves with pseudoscience? There are at least three reasons. One is that learning about pseudoscience helps bring the fundamental features of science—and their importance—into sharper focus. A second is that biorhythms, psychic powers, astrology, and many other pseudoscientific beliefs are widely held and are promoted on the Internet, on television, and in books and magazines.
Far from being harmless, the promotion of these beliefs often results in great personal toll as, for example, believers in psuedoscience opt for “treatments” such as homeopathy for serious medical conditions instead of empirically-supported treatments. Learning what makes them pseudoscientific can help us to identify and evaluate such beliefs and practices when we encounter them.
A third reason is that many pseudosciences purport to explain some aspect of human behaviour and mental processes, including biorhythms, astrology, graphology (handwriting analysis), and magnet therapy for pain control. It is important for students of psychology to distinguish their own field clearly from this “pseudopsychology.” An excellent source for information on pseudoscience is The Skeptic’s Dictionary,
- Cryptozoology: The study of “hidden” creatures like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and the chupacabra.
- Pseudoscientific psychotherapies: Past-life regression, re-birthing therapy, and bioscream therapy, among others.
- Homeopathy: The treatment of medical conditions using natural substances that have been diluted sometimes to the point of no longer being present.
- Pyramidology: Odd theories about the origin and function of the Egyptian pyramids (e.g., that they were built by extraterrestrials) and the idea that pyramids in general have healing and other special powers.
Another excellent online resource is Neurobonkers, which regularly posts articles that investigate claims that pertain specifically to psychological science.
- Science is a general way of understanding the natural world. Its three fundamental features are systematic empiricism, empirical questions, and public knowledge.
- Psychology is a science because it takes the scientific approach to understanding human behaviour.
- Pseudoscience refers to beliefs and activities that are claimed to be scientific but lack one or more of the three features of science. It is important to distinguish the scientific approach to understanding human behaviour from the many pseudoscientific approaches.
- Discussion: People sometimes suggest that psychology cannot be a science because either (a) human behaviour cannot be predicted with perfect accuracy or (b) much of its subject matter (e.g., thoughts and feelings) cannot be observed directly. Do you agree or disagree with each of these ideas? Why?
- Practice: List three empirical questions about human behaviour. List three non-empirical questions about human behaviour.
- Discussion: Consider the following psychological claim. “People’s choice of spouse is strongly influenced by their perception of their own parents. Some choose a spouse who is similar in some way to one of their parents. Others choose a spouse who is different from one of their parents.” Is this claim falsifiable? Why or why not?
- Watch the following video by PHD Comics for an overview of open access publishing and why it matters:
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Can I study psychology without biology?
Answer and Explanation: Yes, one needs a basic understanding of biology in order to study psychology. Specifically, a student of psychology needs to know the fundamental anatomical structure of the human brain. This is because the mind is the product of the biological functioning of the brain.
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What is psychology for beginners?
Psychology is the study of the human mind and behavior. While explorations of these two subjects date back thousands of years, the formal science of psychology is actually quite young. During the late 1800s, Wilhelm Wundt formed the first experimental laboratory devoted to the study psychology, officially marking the beginning of psychology as a discipline separate from philosophy and physiology.
What exactly is psychology? What do psychologists do and where do they work? What can a person do with a psychology degree ?
Let’s tackle some of these all-important questions in this quick introduction to the subject of psychology. Get a brief overview of the topic that will help guide further study of this fascinating subject.
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What should a psychology students do?
Typical psychology careers – With a psychology degree, you’re well placed to pursue careers in both arts and scientific fields, depending on your personal interests. There are many options within public and private healthcare, education, mental health support, social work, therapy and counseling.
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What are the 5 main goals of psychology?
The Major Goals of Psychology – The science of psychology is complete only with the study of behavior, mental processes, and organism’s behavior toward their environment. People’s behavior is studied through scientific methods. Psychology, as science has basically the following main aims or goals: understand, predict, describe, influence, and control behavior, and improve the quality of life.
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Should I pick psychology for GCSE?
Should I take GCSE Psychology? We are often baffled by the behaviour of others. Why politicians lie, why people betray friendships or cheat on their partners.
- Or why some experience acute anxiety or depression while others are seemingly immune from the ravages of mental health issues.
- All of these and more are the domain of psychology.
- Studying GCSE psychology is an excellent way to give yourself a foundational knowledge of how the human mind works, understand social behaviour and human development.
- GCSE psychology will also give you the basis upon which to build deeper knowledge in the form of A Level psychology and an undergraduate degree.
Psychology is one of the most interesting and dynamic fields in the world currently. In part due to the growing awareness of mental health issues. The subject also dovetails with sociology and other subjects. Combining the two can give you remarkable insight into society as well as the individual. It can also lead to a rewarding career.
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Is psychology a useful GCSE?
Why Choose GCSE Psychology? – GCSE Psychology is an interesting and helpful subject to study. It covers many topics that will help you understand yourself and others better—but it’s not usually taught until high school or college. It is a good qualification for anyone interested in Humanities or Social Sciences.
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Is psychology hard or soft?
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Hard science and soft science are colloquial terms used to compare scientific fields on the basis of perceived methodological rigor, exactitude, and objectivity. In general, the formal sciences and natural sciences are considered hard science, whereas the social sciences and other sciences are described as soft science,
Precise definitions vary, but features often cited as characteristic of hard science include producing testable predictions, performing controlled experiments, relying on quantifiable data and mathematical models, a high degree of accuracy and objectivity, higher levels of consensus, faster progression of the field, greater explanatory success, cumulativeness, replicability, and generally applying a purer form of the scientific method,
A closely related idea (originating in the nineteenth century with Auguste Comte ) is that scientific disciplines can be arranged into a hierarchy of hard to soft on the basis of factors such as rigor, “development”, and whether they are basic or applied,
Philosophers and historians of science have questioned the relationship between these characteristics and perceived hardness or softness. The more “developed” hard sciences do not necessarily have a greater degree of consensus or selectivity in accepting new results. Commonly cited methodological differences are also not a reliable indicator.
For example, social sciences such as psychology and sociology use mathematical models extensively, but are usually considered soft sciences. However, there are some measurable differences between hard and soft sciences. For example, hard sciences make more extensive use of graphs, and soft sciences are more prone to a rapid turnover of buzzwords,
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Is psychology 150 hard?
Theodore F Robles – PSYCH 150 Easiness 2.6 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy. Clarity 4.2 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear. Workload 3.0 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light. Helpfulness 4.1 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful. Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office. Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office. Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office. Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office. Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office. Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office. Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office. Grade distributions are collected using data from the UCLA Registrar’s Office. Sorry, no enrollment data is available.1 of 3 COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. June 3, 2021 My review for this class is based on a completely revised version of the class for Spring 2021; the grading system is completely different for this quarter than previous quarters. Let me preface this by saying that I believe Professor Robles is a great person and genuinely wants students to learn and improve. I’m sure if he retained the same grading system in the past or if this class was in-person, it would be ten times better the experience than most people had. This quarter, Robles moved away from using exams as a gauge of performance and instead based the entire class on a set of requirements to meet a grade. I can’t even begin to explain how details and convoluted the class setup was. The syllabus alone was damn near 20 pages long and 25% of the students who originally enrolled in this 200 person class dropped after the first two weeks. That’s 50 students who dropped solely after seeing the syllabus. And that was literally just the syllabus. There’s also a textbook that (thankfully) was made completely optional, and no sections. The most basic way to pass this class and earn at least a C was to watch all the asynchronous lessons and answer at least 75% of the polls and answer at least 75% of them correctly. That’s a really easy way to pass in itself, but it meant that 1) lectures were mandatory and 2) there were a LOT of asynchronous lessons. As in, in addition to attending 2 lessons live per week, you had to watch 2 asynchronous lessons per week and sometimes these asynchronous, recorded ones lasted anywhere from 10 minutes to over half an hour to complete. The synchronous lessons themselves included a lot of filler activities and though the material was sometimes interesting, unless you’re passionate about health there’s little “psychology” in this class and moreso just statistics and mind-numbingly dull content. Halfway through each class I’d be asleep bro. Asynchronous lessons were also not easy to sit through and you also had to write answers to essay questions embedded in those lessons on CCLE to complete them. The biggest issue with the class, though, were the papers. In order to get an A, you must complete 3 reflection papers and 2 Disparities-Inequities papers. Now, the Reflection Papers were not hard at all, you can literally finish them within a day and get decent scores with minimal effort. But all the Papers were scheduled way too close in deadlines, as in they were pushed in the second half of the course so that there was damn near one paper due per week and by the end of the quarter we didn’t even have feedback on most of the papers we did. Although Robles tries to take time out of lectures for “paper consultations” it rarely happened and most people in this class said that they came away even more confused sometimes when talking to the professor and TA. Why? Well, the instructions and requirements for each paper, like the syllabus, also happened to be like 10+ pages long. There weren’t even any previous examples since this was the first quarter using such a system, so although grading criteria was provided students didn’t have any solid insight as to what constituted good grades on papers. I can’t even begin to explain how complicated the grading system was, not to mention the “token” system used to redeem late papers or send papers for revision. If I did, I would literally be writing a 5000 word essay on Bruinwalk because that’s how damn complicated it was. So I’m just going to say this: the papers were HORRIBLE to write. Very little guidance, very tiresome research, and I converted from a grading scale to P/NP in week 9 because I couldn’t stand writing another Disparities-Inequities Paper. It was absolutely, unforgivingly overwhelming. It was quite possibly some of the worst writing assignments I’ve ever had and rivals that of 100B. Most students this quarter ended up frustrated, confused, and changing to P/NP if not struggling in week 10 to complete the final disparities paper. Very few people could probably attest to having a positive experience in this class this quarter. Overall, I regret signing up for this class and ending up P/NPing it. The other Column B classes are SO much better, and no offense to Robles as a person but as a professor there are DEFINITELY better profs for this class and material. Robles, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry but the system you used this quarter was not it. At all. So please don’t repeat it for the sake of future students, going back to exams would benefit them soooo much more. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. Dec.27, 2019 Grading was based on:1) 3 exams + final (cumulative) exam – a couple of fill-in-the-blank and short answer questions at the beginning, with the majority of the exam being multiple choice questions The exams can be kind of tricky, since they emphasize application of knowledge rather than just simple memorization.On the bright side, the learning objectives, aka the study guide questions for each exam, are listed in the syllabus (except for the ones for the final exam because the professor uses the learning objectives that people seemed to have the most difficulty with on exams 1-3 for the final). Honestly, the study guide you make based off of the learning objectives is the ONLY information you need for the exams. Textbook readings are pretty pointless, in my opinion.2) Online activities – TopHat (at least 80%(?) need to be answered to receive full participation credit); very simple/quick/easy 5 CCLE assignments (of which one can be missed) 3) Extra Credit opportunities (You can get up to 3(?) extra credit points) – course evaluations; Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center events (though it seems that students had a hard time trying to find ones to go to); Psychology Department Subject Pool; and certain Finals Week events (ex. therapy dogs at Powell). Bonus things to note:Outlines to be used in note-taking can be found on CCLE before each lecture. :)Each lecture is Bruincasted. 😀 The professor creates his own screencasts at times, with the intention that the students view them and take notes on them (using the outlines) on their own time. :O Overall, though the exams can be a bit tricky and “having” to take notes on the various screencasts outside of the class is kind of annoying lol, the professor is nice and funny, and the material itself is interesting. Good luck! Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. March 30, 2022 If I could go back, I would not take this class. Overall, Professor Robles is a good lecturer, and his exams are straightforward as long as you study and pay attention during lecture. Having said that, he has an overly-complicated grading system that is frankly overwhelming to comprehend. He does not use a traditional points-based/ percentage-based grading system. I genuinely do not even know how explain in this review how his grading worked because it was so complex for no good reason. As mentioned in reviews of other students from previous quarters, one of the biggest flaws of this class are the Disparities/Biopsychosocial papers, which are divided into three parts and due at different points in the quarter. The first mistake with these assignments is that the first of three parts is due too late into the quarter. By the time the third part is due, there is no time left in the term. This is important to note, as you have the option to do re-writes in the event that you do not pass a part/parts of the paper. Since the last part was due so late, you had to complete your re-write AFTER the quarter had ended. Normally, I would be very grateful for the opportunity to fix an assignment that was not passing, but you have to understand how hard it is to pass these papers- A notable percentage of the class did not pass them. You can only get an A-range grade if you pass all three parts of these papers. Keep in mind that they are optional, and trying your best to complete them does not guarantee that you will pass each part. If you fail to pass just one criterion of one of the papers, you are no longer eligible for an A-,A, or A+. Basically, you can work very hard and successfully pass MOST of the parts, and still end up with the same grade as someone who chose not to attempt them at all. I understand that a student’s grade should be impacted if they do not pass an assignment. With that said, it is not fair that a student’s correct work is not at least partially factored into their final grade. Instead, in this situation, the work is essentially done for nothing, and the hours spent on these research papers could have been better used on other courses. This is why points-based systems make sense, as they reflect your scores on any assignments, rather than penalizing you for trying to get a good grade.It does not make sense that you can be eligible to get an A-rage grade as long as you get C’s on exams, but when you don’t pass even a single piece of rubric, you are no longer able to earn such a grade. In a way, this is incentivizing students to not study hard for exams, while simultaneously setting the bar way too high to get a good grade. Essentially, the course is set up so that it nearly impossible not to pass, but it is rather difficult to achieve an A-, A, or A+. Professor Robles is genuinely a good teacher, and cares about his students. In the end, my only complaint is that the way he sets up his grading system does not reward students effectively. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. March 28, 2022 Professor Robles is an incredibly intelligent individual who has a real passion for all things within the realm of health psychology, and I loved taking class with him. There were four exams, however, the lowest one gets dropped. There are five papers, but you can test out of 2 of them if you score high enough on 2 of the exams. Modules get posted every week, and you have the option of completing each week’s module videos/questions or completing the in-class Tophat questions. The modules are also almost identical to what he covers in class, and although you do have to go to class as well (can’t rely solely on the modules), the modules helped me understand the material covered in class. Professor Robles provides a grading flowchart (which is initially very confusing), but it’s structured in favor of the student. For example, you can get an A in the class if you score =/>75% on 3/4 of the exams, pass or test out of the 2 reflection papers, and get 1/1 on the three part biopsychosocial paper. Lectures are very fun and engaging, and although the exams were very difficult, you could still get an A by scoring 75% (which is more than doable). Overall, psych 150 is a challenging but very rewarding class. I took it as a soc major with no previous background knowledge on health psychology, paid attention, took good notes, and got an A+. If I can do it, you can too. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. Feb.10, 2022 I feel like Professor Robles is a great professor who really cares about his students. I loved taking his class because he’s very organized and clear on what he expects. Although the grading system might take a little bit of getting used to, it technically is in your favor and really makes it easier to get an A (for instance, one of the requirements to get an A is to get above a 75 percent on three out of four exams). Plus, if you score above a 90 percent on his exams (which are open-note and pretty straightforward), you can test out of writing the two reflection papers he requires. But this is just my opinion. I have heard from several others that they dislike this method of grading, even though in my opinion it makes it much easier to pass/get an A. In general, I feel like this class is very informative and straightforward. His exams are not hard at all and it’s relatively easy to get an A in his class if you just complete his asynchronous modules (which are very short to begin with) and show up to lecture. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. July 16, 2021 Professor Robles is a really nice guy who is passionate about helping his students. That said, the online version of this class during COVID was a disaster. The grading system and syllabus were incredibly complicated because he moved from exams to essays. The essay grades were all stacked until the last few weeks of the quarter, so it was week 9 and we only had gotten 2/5 grades on the essays back. I ended up changing to P/NP when I found out more than half of the class failed the second essay. His asynchronous lessons were good and he is a decent lecturer. Before you take his class, make sure he reverts back to exams or you will definitely regret enrolling. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. June 28, 2021 I really liked the style of this class! Your grade is mostly based upon papers that evaluate your writing skills and application of concepts learned in class. Tips:* Don’t slack off on writing the papers!! There is one almost every week so be on top of it * Go to office hours: You can walk through your ideas with the TA or the professor and the advice is super helpful. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. Aug.3, 2020 This class was intimidating at first because there were three midterms AND a final, but honestly so doable and as long as you just attend class and fill out his notes/handouts you will get an A. He literally tells you exactly what you need to know for each midterm and final, all you have to do is memorize the information and know how to apply it. Most of it is common sense, and he offers extra credit opportunities. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. Jan.28, 2020 Professor Robles is an amazing lecturer but sometimes can seem very monotone. He is very informative and clear on what he expects of his students, and as long as you follow his standards you will do just fine. People would complain about the exams being tough, but they also did not study enough for them. Would recommend taking the class with him! Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. Dec.17, 2019 Great professor. Lectures are engaging, and even though the tests weren’t easy, he gave us study guides with learning objectives (on the syllabus) that say exactly what to study for each exam. He’s pretty cool, and gives opportunity for extra credit- like 4% of your grade if you do it all. Worth taking for sure. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. June 3, 2021 My review for this class is based on a completely revised version of the class for Spring 2021; the grading system is completely different for this quarter than previous quarters. Let me preface this by saying that I believe Professor Robles is a great person and genuinely wants students to learn and improve. I’m sure if he retained the same grading system in the past or if this class was in-person, it would be ten times better the experience than most people had. This quarter, Robles moved away from using exams as a gauge of performance and instead based the entire class on a set of requirements to meet a grade. I can’t even begin to explain how details and convoluted the class setup was. The syllabus alone was damn near 20 pages long and 25% of the students who originally enrolled in this 200 person class dropped after the first two weeks. That’s 50 students who dropped solely after seeing the syllabus. And that was literally just the syllabus. There’s also a textbook that (thankfully) was made completely optional, and no sections. The most basic way to pass this class and earn at least a C was to watch all the asynchronous lessons and answer at least 75% of the polls and answer at least 75% of them correctly. That’s a really easy way to pass in itself, but it meant that 1) lectures were mandatory and 2) there were a LOT of asynchronous lessons. As in, in addition to attending 2 lessons live per week, you had to watch 2 asynchronous lessons per week and sometimes these asynchronous, recorded ones lasted anywhere from 10 minutes to over half an hour to complete. The synchronous lessons themselves included a lot of filler activities and though the material was sometimes interesting, unless you’re passionate about health there’s little “psychology” in this class and moreso just statistics and mind-numbingly dull content. Halfway through each class I’d be asleep bro. Asynchronous lessons were also not easy to sit through and you also had to write answers to essay questions embedded in those lessons on CCLE to complete them. The biggest issue with the class, though, were the papers. In order to get an A, you must complete 3 reflection papers and 2 Disparities-Inequities papers. Now, the Reflection Papers were not hard at all, you can literally finish them within a day and get decent scores with minimal effort. But all the Papers were scheduled way too close in deadlines, as in they were pushed in the second half of the course so that there was damn near one paper due per week and by the end of the quarter we didn’t even have feedback on most of the papers we did. Although Robles tries to take time out of lectures for “paper consultations” it rarely happened and most people in this class said that they came away even more confused sometimes when talking to the professor and TA. Why? Well, the instructions and requirements for each paper, like the syllabus, also happened to be like 10+ pages long. There weren’t even any previous examples since this was the first quarter using such a system, so although grading criteria was provided students didn’t have any solid insight as to what constituted good grades on papers. I can’t even begin to explain how complicated the grading system was, not to mention the “token” system used to redeem late papers or send papers for revision. If I did, I would literally be writing a 5000 word essay on Bruinwalk because that’s how damn complicated it was. So I’m just going to say this: the papers were HORRIBLE to write. Very little guidance, very tiresome research, and I converted from a grading scale to P/NP in week 9 because I couldn’t stand writing another Disparities-Inequities Paper. It was absolutely, unforgivingly overwhelming. It was quite possibly some of the worst writing assignments I’ve ever had and rivals that of 100B. Most students this quarter ended up frustrated, confused, and changing to P/NP if not struggling in week 10 to complete the final disparities paper. Very few people could probably attest to having a positive experience in this class this quarter. Overall, I regret signing up for this class and ending up P/NPing it. The other Column B classes are SO much better, and no offense to Robles as a person but as a professor there are DEFINITELY better profs for this class and material. Robles, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry but the system you used this quarter was not it. At all. So please don’t repeat it for the sake of future students, going back to exams would benefit them soooo much more. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. Dec.27, 2019 Grading was based on:1) 3 exams + final (cumulative) exam – a couple of fill-in-the-blank and short answer questions at the beginning, with the majority of the exam being multiple choice questions The exams can be kind of tricky, since they emphasize application of knowledge rather than just simple memorization.On the bright side, the learning objectives, aka the study guide questions for each exam, are listed in the syllabus (except for the ones for the final exam because the professor uses the learning objectives that people seemed to have the most difficulty with on exams 1-3 for the final). Honestly, the study guide you make based off of the learning objectives is the ONLY information you need for the exams. Textbook readings are pretty pointless, in my opinion.2) Online activities – TopHat (at least 80%(?) need to be answered to receive full participation credit); very simple/quick/easy 5 CCLE assignments (of which one can be missed) 3) Extra Credit opportunities (You can get up to 3(?) extra credit points) – course evaluations; Semel Healthy Campus Initiative Center events (though it seems that students had a hard time trying to find ones to go to); Psychology Department Subject Pool; and certain Finals Week events (ex. therapy dogs at Powell). Bonus things to note:Outlines to be used in note-taking can be found on CCLE before each lecture. :)Each lecture is Bruincasted. 😀 The professor creates his own screencasts at times, with the intention that the students view them and take notes on them (using the outlines) on their own time. :O Overall, though the exams can be a bit tricky and “having” to take notes on the various screencasts outside of the class is kind of annoying lol, the professor is nice and funny, and the material itself is interesting. Good luck! Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. March 30, 2022 If I could go back, I would not take this class. Overall, Professor Robles is a good lecturer, and his exams are straightforward as long as you study and pay attention during lecture. Having said that, he has an overly-complicated grading system that is frankly overwhelming to comprehend. He does not use a traditional points-based/ percentage-based grading system. I genuinely do not even know how explain in this review how his grading worked because it was so complex for no good reason. As mentioned in reviews of other students from previous quarters, one of the biggest flaws of this class are the Disparities/Biopsychosocial papers, which are divided into three parts and due at different points in the quarter. The first mistake with these assignments is that the first of three parts is due too late into the quarter. By the time the third part is due, there is no time left in the term. This is important to note, as you have the option to do re-writes in the event that you do not pass a part/parts of the paper. Since the last part was due so late, you had to complete your re-write AFTER the quarter had ended. Normally, I would be very grateful for the opportunity to fix an assignment that was not passing, but you have to understand how hard it is to pass these papers- A notable percentage of the class did not pass them. You can only get an A-range grade if you pass all three parts of these papers. Keep in mind that they are optional, and trying your best to complete them does not guarantee that you will pass each part. If you fail to pass just one criterion of one of the papers, you are no longer eligible for an A-,A, or A+. Basically, you can work very hard and successfully pass MOST of the parts, and still end up with the same grade as someone who chose not to attempt them at all. I understand that a student’s grade should be impacted if they do not pass an assignment. With that said, it is not fair that a student’s correct work is not at least partially factored into their final grade. Instead, in this situation, the work is essentially done for nothing, and the hours spent on these research papers could have been better used on other courses. This is why points-based systems make sense, as they reflect your scores on any assignments, rather than penalizing you for trying to get a good grade.It does not make sense that you can be eligible to get an A-rage grade as long as you get C’s on exams, but when you don’t pass even a single piece of rubric, you are no longer able to earn such a grade. In a way, this is incentivizing students to not study hard for exams, while simultaneously setting the bar way too high to get a good grade. Essentially, the course is set up so that it nearly impossible not to pass, but it is rather difficult to achieve an A-, A, or A+. Professor Robles is genuinely a good teacher, and cares about his students. In the end, my only complaint is that the way he sets up his grading system does not reward students effectively. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. March 28, 2022 Professor Robles is an incredibly intelligent individual who has a real passion for all things within the realm of health psychology, and I loved taking class with him. There were four exams, however, the lowest one gets dropped. There are five papers, but you can test out of 2 of them if you score high enough on 2 of the exams. Modules get posted every week, and you have the option of completing each week’s module videos/questions or completing the in-class Tophat questions. The modules are also almost identical to what he covers in class, and although you do have to go to class as well (can’t rely solely on the modules), the modules helped me understand the material covered in class. Professor Robles provides a grading flowchart (which is initially very confusing), but it’s structured in favor of the student. For example, you can get an A in the class if you score =/>75% on 3/4 of the exams, pass or test out of the 2 reflection papers, and get 1/1 on the three part biopsychosocial paper. Lectures are very fun and engaging, and although the exams were very difficult, you could still get an A by scoring 75% (which is more than doable). Overall, psych 150 is a challenging but very rewarding class. I took it as a soc major with no previous background knowledge on health psychology, paid attention, took good notes, and got an A+. If I can do it, you can too. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. Feb.10, 2022 I feel like Professor Robles is a great professor who really cares about his students. I loved taking his class because he’s very organized and clear on what he expects. Although the grading system might take a little bit of getting used to, it technically is in your favor and really makes it easier to get an A (for instance, one of the requirements to get an A is to get above a 75 percent on three out of four exams). Plus, if you score above a 90 percent on his exams (which are open-note and pretty straightforward), you can test out of writing the two reflection papers he requires. But this is just my opinion. I have heard from several others that they dislike this method of grading, even though in my opinion it makes it much easier to pass/get an A. In general, I feel like this class is very informative and straightforward. His exams are not hard at all and it’s relatively easy to get an A in his class if you just complete his asynchronous modules (which are very short to begin with) and show up to lecture. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. July 16, 2021 Professor Robles is a really nice guy who is passionate about helping his students. That said, the online version of this class during COVID was a disaster. The grading system and syllabus were incredibly complicated because he moved from exams to essays. The essay grades were all stacked until the last few weeks of the quarter, so it was week 9 and we only had gotten 2/5 grades on the essays back. I ended up changing to P/NP when I found out more than half of the class failed the second essay. His asynchronous lessons were good and he is a decent lecturer. Before you take his class, make sure he reverts back to exams or you will definitely regret enrolling. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary. June 28, 2021 I really liked the style of this class! Your grade is mostly based upon papers that evaluate your writing skills and application of concepts learned in class. Tips:* Don’t slack off on writing the papers!! There is one almost every week so be on top of it * Go to office hours: You can walk through your ideas with the TA or the professor and the advice is super helpful. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. Aug.3, 2020 This class was intimidating at first because there were three midterms AND a final, but honestly so doable and as long as you just attend class and fill out his notes/handouts you will get an A. He literally tells you exactly what you need to know for each midterm and final, all you have to do is memorize the information and know how to apply it. Most of it is common sense, and he offers extra credit opportunities. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. Jan.28, 2020 Professor Robles is an amazing lecturer but sometimes can seem very monotone. He is very informative and clear on what he expects of his students, and as long as you follow his standards you will do just fine. People would complain about the exams being tough, but they also did not study enough for them. Would recommend taking the class with him! Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback. Dec.17, 2019 Great professor. Lectures are engaging, and even though the tests weren’t easy, he gave us study guides with learning objectives (on the syllabus) that say exactly what to study for each exam. He’s pretty cool, and gives opportunity for extra credit- like 4% of your grade if you do it all. Worth taking for sure. Helpful? Please log in to provide feedback.1 of 3 Easiness 2.6 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy. Clarity 4.2 / 5 How clear the class is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear. Workload 3.0 / 5 How much workload the class is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light. Helpfulness 4.1 / 5 How helpful the class is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful. : Theodore F Robles – PSYCH 150
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Is it easy to get an A in psychology?
A-Level Psychology is a really popular subject and is great for combining with the humanities or sciences. Sometimes psychology can be underestimated and seen as an ‘easy’ subject, but it actually takes a lot of hard work and effort. If you want to get an A*, you need to commit to lots of revision but there are a few tips to help you along the way.
- In this article, I’ll be discussing the importance of quality over quantity when it comes to learning and writing about the key studies.
- Statistics and research provide a lot of marks in the exam so you need to understand and know these.
- Watching videos can be really helpful.
- Flashcards are a great tool for revision, these should be clear and easy to read and you should go over them regularly.
Mind maps are really valuable for summarising an entire topic, they should be colourful and easy to memorise. Testing yourself is the best way to prepare for your exams as you’ll be more confident with the content and understand how to pick up marks.
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Why is it so hard to study psychology?
The Challenges of Studying Psychology Understanding and attempting to alleviate the costs of psychological disorders such as depression is not easy, because psychological experiences are extremely complex. The questions psychologists pose are as difficult as those posed by doctors, biologists, chemists, physicists, and other scientists, if not more so (Wilson, 1998).
- A major goal of psychology is to predict behavior by understanding its causes.
- Making predictions is difficult in part because people vary and respond differently in different situations.
- Individual differences are the variations among people on physical or psychological dimensions,
- For instance, although many people experience at least some symptoms of depression at some times in their lives, the experience varies dramatically among people.
Some people experience major negative events, such as severe physical injuries or the loss of significant others, without experiencing much depression, whereas other people experience severe depression for no apparent reason. Other important individual differences that we will discuss in the chapters to come include differences in extraversion, intelligence, self-esteem, anxiety, aggression, and conformity.
- Because of the many individual difference variables that influence behavior, we cannot always predict who will become aggressive or who will perform best in graduate school or on the job.
- The predictions made by psychologists (and most other scientists) are only probabilistic.
- We can say, for instance, that people who score higher on an intelligence test will, on average, do better than people who score lower on the same test, but we cannot make very accurate predictions about exactly how any one person will perform.
Another reason that it is difficult to predict behavior is that almost all behavior is multiply determined, or produced by many factors. And these factors occur at different levels of explanation. We have seen, for instance, that depression is caused by lower-level genetic factors, by medium-level personal factors, and by higher-level social and cultural factors.
- You should always be skeptical about people who attempt to explain important human behaviors, such as violence, child abuse, poverty, anxiety, or depression, in terms of a single cause.
- Furthermore, these multiple causes are not independent of one another; they are associated such that when one cause is present other causes tend to be present as well.
This overlap makes it difficult to pinpoint which cause or causes are operating. For instance, some people may be depressed because of biological imbalances in neurotransmitters in their brain. The resulting depression may lead them to act more negatively toward other people around them, which then leads those other people to respond more negatively to them, which then increases their depression.
- As a result, the biological determinants of depression become intertwined with the social responses of other people, making it difficult to disentangle the effects of each cause.
- Another difficulty in studying psychology is that much human behavior is caused by factors that are outside our conscious awareness, making it impossible for us, as individuals, to really understand them.
The role of unconscious processes was emphasized in the theorizing of the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939), who argued that many psychological disorders were caused by memories that we have repressed and thus remain outside our consciousness.
- Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior.
- Though it is easy to think that everyday situations have commonsense answers, scientific studies have found that people are not always as good at predicting outcomes as they think they are.
- The hindsight bias leads us to think that we could have predicted events that we actually could not have predicted.
- People are frequently unaware of the causes of their own behaviors.
- Psychologists use the scientific method to collect, analyze, and interpret evidence.
- Employing the scientific method allows the scientist to collect empirical data objectively, which adds to the accumulation of scientific knowledge.
- Psychological phenomena are complex, and making predictions about them is difficult because of individual differences and because they are multiply determined at different levels of explanation.
- Can you think of a time when you used your intuition to analyze an outcome, only to be surprised later to find that your explanation was completely incorrect? Did this surprise help you understand how intuition may sometimes lead us astray?
- Describe the scientific method in a way that someone who knows nothing about science could understand it.
- Consider a behavior that you find to be important and think about its potential causes at different levels of explanation. How do you think psychologists would study this behavior?
: The Challenges of Studying Psychology
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