Week Four - Back on track!!

*Candy's Recipe for the perfect TMA*

Ingredients:

Far too many course books

1 Head

1 Wall

Method

Beat head and wall together briskly until sense is formed. Consult course books, add newly developed sense and apply to paper. Hey presto.

Ok, maybe not. I have tried this method but sadly it did not work. Foiled again!

I have the worst flu in the history of the world-complete Man Flu (my husband is known to contract this illness on a regular basis). Every sinus track in my head is stuffed up and I feel, well for want of a better phrase. like shit. Yet still I soldier on, the deadline for this TMA looms ever closer, made even more startlingly obvious by the fact that it is now November-therefore the TMA is due THIS MONTH. And not only that, it's due in less that two weeks. Hmm, methinks I need to pull my finger out!!

In fact, I have *kind of* done the second part of the assignment, but my biggest headache with that is referencing-do we have to reference the BPS guidelines? And do we have to write...'according to the BPS guidelines...' everytime we discuss a new ethical implication involved in each scenario?? I need to email my tutor quick sharp lol. I have also done the intro to the essay, but that's as far as i've got, although I have written up a plan (ish). 1000 words don't seem long enough to me!! I don't want to talk about the TMA in too much detail but at the same time I really want to talk about it!!! What are the rules on this-am I allowed to talk about the finer TMA details on here or is that not allowed? Something else I need to find out!

Anyway the focus of this weeks study was chapter one of the research methods book, along with study week 4 of the workbook and the BPS code of Ethics and Conduct (my tip for this is to print it out-it's quite long but it was so much easier to flick through and highlight relevant bits etc. I'm not very good with reading large chunks of info from a computer screen. I like to be able to doodle while I learn!). There's also an additional section of the workbook included under student directed study.

Research Methods Book

This chapter was fairly long and intense (particularly for my phlegmatic brain) so I will try to put some kind of table in here to make it slightly more simple-if I can figure out how to add a table that is lol!!

Ok I can't figure out how to make a table but look, I figured out how to change the colour of my posts! Woohoo, how exciting!

No, i'll go back to black. That colour is far too risque when dealing with a subject so highly interesting as this one (note-that was indeed sarcasm). I'm going to just list some key terms instead of waffling on far ages-here goes:

Objective

Scientific

Generalisable

Experiments

Material data

Behavioural data

Quantitative

Variables

Hypotheses

Tajfel study

Statistics

Sample

Ability to replicate

Outsider viewpoint

Subjective

Hermeneutic

Inner experience

Observation

Interviews

Questionnaires

Symbolic data

Meanings

Themes

Language

Discourse

(Mainly) qualitative

Marcia

Richness of data

(Sometimes) quantitative

Introspection

Is that cheating?? LOL, well it's taken me ages to write that-it probably would have been easier to waffle on about it all!!

There are other terms tackled at the beginning of the chapter which are v. hard to get my head around. So, I shall copy and paste from Wiki-I know, naughty naughty but it's better than my explanations!! They are concerned with the construction of psychological research:

Epistemology or theory of knowledge is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature, methods, limitations, and validity of knowledge and belief.

Methodology is defined as
"the analysis of the principles of methods, rules, and postulates employed by a discipline" or
"the development of methods, to be applied within a discipline"
"a particular procedure or set of procedures".

Methods I can do on my own, methods are research methods, ways of collecting and analysing data.

Data-information that is collected from a research study.

All these terms act as a framework within which research is carried out-Epistomolgy deals with the knowledge side of things-how we can know what we need to know and how we can find out about it. From that stems methodology, the 'overall theoretical rationale', how we figure out what methods are best to use and which data will be collected from within a certain psychological perspective. Which then leads to the method which will be decided from the methodology, and ends in data, decided by the method. And that's how we make research!! Tada!!

The chapter than discusses the cycle of enquiry, important for essay writing etc etc. I even found a copy on 'tinternet!! The cycle of enquiry is covered in more depth in the optional component in the workbook which I err, didn't do yet. But I will!! Or at least I'll try!

Then different methods and data are briefly touched upon, which I have added to my lists (see above!).

The workbook covered essay writing which I read but didn't do any activities as I feel I got plenty of practise during DD100. Time will tell whether that little bit of arrogance shall return to bite me on the ass!!

The BPS Code of Conduct and Ethics is absolutely ESSENTIAL to the TMA so, as I said above, I personally would recommend printing it out if you can, that way you've got it to hand to refer to, plus you can keep it for future reference, as rest assured ethics are bound to come up again later on in the course, especially for TMA03 and 05. I won't bang on about it as I believe I covered it briefly in an earlier post.

Can you believe that this entry has taken me all day!!?? Seriously, ages. In between my illness and my children-one of which is now also becoming ill great-and the need to eat i've been bobbing on all day to do this. Now I need a lemsip, a hot water bottle and a serious dose of Ricky Gervais.

I shall leave you with a piccie of Tom Cruise-keep the faith.

(see, when the work looks like crap, you can trust Tom Cruise to point a smile on your face!).

Until next time!!

(a full of self pity) Candyflee x