Outline the similarities and differences between the study by Bandura et al. (1963) and Hayne et al. (2003)

Order Description

This is an essay that refers to open university sources only as discussed with Ryan Davis this is something you can provide. If needed I can provide you access to my online open university resource. The limit is 1000 although you can go slightly over.

DE100-15B Investigating psychology 1
TMA 02
2 of 11 Monday 5 January 2015
Contents
The assignment 4
Student notes for Part 1 5
Student notes for Part 2 8
Student notes for Part 3 9
Learning outcomes 9
Checklist 10
3 of 11 Monday 5 January 2015
The assignment
Cut-off date: 12 noon on 12 May 2015
Important: These pages provide guidance on how to write your assignment. Please
ensure you read all of this information, right through to the checklist at the end.
Before you start work on this assignment, make sure that you have read the Assessment
Guidance specific to this module.
Additional support and guidance, including advice on plagiarism, referencing and the
marking system, can be found in Social Sciences Assessment Information.
Please consult your tutor if you are unsure about anything related to assessment, as
failure to comply with relevant guidance could result in the loss of marks or other
penalties.
There are three parts to this assignment (all of which must be submitted). One whole
study week is allocated to completing it.
Part 1 (essay)
Outline the similarities and differences between the study by Bandura et al. (1963) and
Hayne et al. (2003).
70 per cent of the mark
Word limit: 1000 words
Part 2 (methods exercise)
Read the description of a study, identify three shortcomings in the design, and suggest
ways of overcoming those design problems.
30 per cent of the mark
Word limit: 250 words
Part 3 (reflective component)
Reflect on using your tutor’s feedback on TMA 01.
Not graded, but 5 marks deducted if not completed.
Word limit: 100 words
On the following pages you will find:
l student notes for each part
l learning outcomes addressed by this assignment
l a checklist to ensure you have done everything required.
The assignment
4 of 11 Monday 5 January 2015
Student notes for Part 1
You are asked to ‘outline the similarities and differences between the study by Bandura et
al. (1963) and Hayne et al. (2003)’ in a 1000-word essay.
This is a different task from the 450-word blog post that you had to write for Part 1 of TMA
01. Essays are a different form of communication: they have to follow a formal structure,
with a clear introduction, a main body, and a clear conclusion directly addressing the
question set. An essay should also be properly referenced throughout, and provide
evidence for each of the points you make.
Specifically, you need to identify the similarities and differences between two different
research studies. While TMA 01 was mainly descriptive, this part of TMA 02 provides an
opportunity to develop the skill of forming an argument by explaining how the studies are
similar or different. Note also that the word limit is considerably longer than that for the
blog post for TMA 01.
Before you start work on your essay, the first thing you need to do is to make sure you
understand exactly what the question requires, which means identifying and understanding
the process and content words.
Process and content words
There is one process word: ‘outline’ (which means to convey the main points). In this case
you need to outline the main points of similarity and difference between the studies of
children’s imitation of observed behaviour by Bandura et al. (1963) and by Hayne et al.
(2003).
The content words are ‘similarities and differences between the study by Bandura et al.
(1963) and by Hayne et al. (2003)’. This means that the essay should specifically focus on
these two studies, which you encountered in Chapter 3 of Investigating Psychology and
Chapter 2 of Investigating Methods.
Relevant material
The content words specify that the focus is ‘similarities and differences between the study
by Bandura et al. (1963) and Hayne et al. (2003)’, so for this essay you only need to
include material that relates to these two studies. There is a great deal of material
available to you for this essay; therefore you will need to be selective in what you choose
to include and keep your focus firmly on the topic of the question: the similarities and
differences between the two studies.
l Chapter 3 of Investigating Psychology contains a lot of information about the
research by Bandura et al. (1963) into children’s imitation of aggressive acts, so you
will need to be selective in what you choose to include and keep focused on
‘similarities and differences’. Section 2 outlines the study and the results. Section 3
discusses how the results might be interpreted and the limitations on what can be
claimed. Section 3.2 considers the ethics of studying potentially harmful topics.
l The short video in week 10, Demonstration of Bobo doll experiment , may be a
helpful illustration of the study by Bandura et al., and the audio recording, also in
week 10, Albert Bandura, may contain useful information.
Student notes for Part 1
5 of 11 Monday 5 January 2015
l Chapter 3 of Investigating Methods provides a detailed account of the study by
Hayne et al. (2003), and also includes further discussion of the study by Bandura et
al (1963). Sections 1.2 and 1.3 discuss the method used by Bandura et al.; Section 2
explains the terminology of experiments using the study by Bandura et al. as an
illustration. Section 3 describes the study by Hayne et al. and provides extracts from
their 2003 research report. Section 3.1 describes the aims of the study and includes
extracts from the Introduction to the report. Section 3.2 describes the method Hayne
et al. used and presents extracts of the Method section from their report. Section 3.3
discusses their findings.
Below you will find tips for writing your essay, but before you start working on it you should
make sure that you have completed the relevant online activities. Even if you have
completed these in the relevant weeks, you may wish to revisit them as part of your
preparation for this assignment.
l Online Activity 9.2: Essay writing (Part 1) – Identifying similarities and differences.
This is especially important given the specific focus of the question. This activity
provides guidance about how to identify the main points of similarity and difference
between two studies.
l Online Activity 10.2: Essay writing (Part 2) – Essay planning. This activity takes you
through the different stages of planning an essay.
l Online Activity 9.3: Working with tutor feedback. Reading the feedback you received
for TMA 01 should be an important part of your preparation for TMA 02. Make sure
you read that feedback carefully.
l Online Activity 11.2: Preparing for TMA 02 (Part 1) – Managing time and getting
organised. This activity takes you through the different tasks involved in planning and
completing the assignment.
Essays must be properly referenced throughout. To refresh your memory about how and
when to reference you should revisit:
l Online Activity 7.3: Referencing (Part 1) – Why reference? which explains why
referencing is important.
l Online Activity 8.3: Referencing (Part 2) – How to reference which explains how to
reference.
l Online Activity 8.2: Writing in your own words which offers guidance on this important
skill, which you must demonstrate in all your assignments in order to avoid
plagiarism.
Tips for writing your essay
Having worked through the online activities, and having identified the process and content
words in the essay, the first step in beginning to answer the question is to select the
material that you will use in your essay. This means identifying and making notes about
some similarities and differences in the studies by Bandura et al. and Hayne et al. that you
identified while reading the relevant material. It is a good idea to create an essay plan in
order to help to organise the points that you may wish to make into a logical structure and
think about ‘the story’ of the essay in terms of how it begins, proceeds through the points
and then ends. In essence, an essay plan helps you to work out what you want to say and
Student notes for Part 1
6 of 11 Monday 5 January 2015
what order to say it in, so that a reader can see clearly how you have addressed the
question.
For this essay you must discuss both similarities and differences. Note, there is no need to
have equal numbers of each. However, you should provide a balanced argument and
therefore you must address both. If you find the task of identifying similarities and
differences difficult, ask yourself:
l Who and what was studied?
l What methods did the researchers use and where did they carry out their research?
l What did the researchers find out and what were their conclusions?
l How have the researchers contributed to our understanding of the topic being
studied and real-world issues?
Also, you may wish to revisit Online Activity 9.2: Essay writing (Part 1) – Identifying
similarities and differences, where you are taken step by step through this task.
The next step is to decide which points to use in your essay. Do not try to include every
possible similarity and difference, or spend too much of your essay describing the studies
in detail. Instead, try to focus on a smaller number of important similarities and differences
that you can elaborate on and support with examples. Writing a coherent essay is not
simply a case of stating a number of different points of comparisons. The key is to:
l add a carefully constructed introduction and conclusion to your essay
l pay attention to signposting your discussion; for example, tell your reader if you are
writing about a similarity or a difference
l use linking words and phrases that take you from one point to the next.
Remember to use references both in the text of your essay to support what you say, and
in a reference list at the end of your essay. In doing so you will be acknowledging the
DE100 textbook chapters as your sources for the examples you cite. When referencing,
pay special attention to ‘secondary referencing’. This is when you cite a study or theory
which you have not read in the original, but have read about in another source (for
example, in one of the DE100 textbooks). If you are still unsure about this, have another
look at Online Activity 7.3: Referencing (Part 1) – Why reference? and Online Activity 8.3:
Referencing (Part 2) – How to reference. Remember that the chapters in Investigating
Methods contain examples of both primary and secondary referencing.
Remember to state the word count at the end of your answer.
When marking Part 1 your tutor will be looking for:
l evidence of understanding of the relevant material
l good paraphrasing skills and evidence of writing in your own words
l the ability to structure the essay in a logical way
l clear and concise writing
l the ability to provide evidence to support points made in the essay
l referencing of sources
l keeping within the word limit of 1000 words.
Student notes for Part 1
7 of 11 Monday 5 January 2015
Student notes for Part 2
You are asked to identify three shortcomings in the design of a study and to propose
solutions.
Begin by reading the following account of a fictitious study.
A researcher was interested in whether the time of day affected how people reacted to
unexpected noise. To explore this the researcher set up an MP3 player behind a tree in
a local park, so that it was hidden from view. Each time a person walked past the tree,
the MP3 player automatically played the sound of a man clearing his throat. Over a
period of 24 hours the researcher, or an assistant, sat on a nearby bench where they
could observe and record the behaviour of people passing by the tree.
The researcher found that the time of the day did affect people’s reaction to the noise:
the greatest reactions occurred in the early hours of the morning. Also, women showed
greater reactions than men.
From the list below, identify three shortcomings in the design of this study (these concepts
are explained in Online Activity 11.3: Preparing for TMA 02 (Part 2):
1 the participants used
2 acquiescence response bias
3 whether the method is appropriate
4 ethical issues
5 confounding variables
6 ability to generalise results from laboratory to everyday situations
7 closed questions
8 subjectivity of researcher/confirmatory bias
9 reactivity – influencing what happens
10 genuineness of response.
Write a paragraph saying what the three shortcomings are, why they are an issue for the
above study, and propose a solution for each one. Write no more than 250 words in total.
Relevant material
Online Activity 11.3: Preparing for TMA 02 (Part 2) provides a fully worked-up example of
the kind of task involved, so you should make sure that you have completed this activity
before attempting this part of the assignment.
The concepts addressed in this question come from right across Part 1 of the module.
Therefore, if you need help with any of the concepts in the list of shortcomings, remember
to consult the glossary in Investigating Methods or the online glossary on the module
website – you can also use the index in it to help you to find relevant information.
Tips for writing
Student notes for Part 2
8 of 11 Monday 5 January 2015
As the word limit is only 250 words, you will not only need to establish what the
shortcomings are and what the solutions may be, but also how to write this up in a
coherent paragraph. Allow time to write a couple of drafts and make sure you explain how
your solution will solve the problem you have identified.
Remember to state the word count at the end of your answer.
When marking Part 2 your tutor will be looking for:
l an ability to identify three shortcomings in the design of the research study
l a clear statement about how those shortcomings could be addressed
l clear and concise writing
l keeping within the word limit of 250 words.
Student notes for Part 3
Your task here is to consider how you work with, and make the most of, tutor feedback.
In Online Activity 3.5: Reflective and independent learning, you learned about the benefits
of reflective learning. As the activity explained, reflectivity refers to the ability to think
about your learning experience, identify problems and challenges and ways of
overcoming them, as well as to recognise what works for you. As with TMA 01, Part 3 of
this TMA focuses on the process of reflection.
Your tutor will have provided feedback on your first TMA. This is an important resource for
you. Write a few sentences (not more than 100 words) addressing the following:
l Give an example of something your tutor highlighted from TMA 01 as requiring
improvement.
l Describe how you used this feedback to develop the required skills for TMA 02.
To answer this question you will need to reflect back on how you prepared for this
assignment. Did you read your tutor’s feedback on TMA 01 carefully before you started it?
Did you return to the feedback while you were writing it? How did the feedback affect what
you did for this assignment?
It is important that you complete this reflective activity. It will not only help you to think
about your strengths and weaknesses, and how to implement advice from your tutor, but it
will also help your tutor to provide further feedback that addresses your specific needs.
Remember to state the word count at the end of your answer.
Note that you will lose 5 marks if you do not attempt this part of the assignment.
Learning outcomes
Each TMA is designed to help you to develop particular skills and knowledge. These are
referred to as learning outcomes. By completing this assignment, you will have an
opportunity to demonstrate the following learning outcomes.
Student notes for Part 3
9 of 11 Monday 5 January 2015
Knowledge and understanding
l Define key concepts and describe key theories, studies, methods and debates within
psychology.
l Show awareness of the ways in which psychological knowledge is embedded in the
historical, social and cultural context, and the way in which it develops through a
process of questions, arguments, evidence and evaluation.
Cognitive skills
l Select and interpret key information from a range of sources, and represent it
accurately and appropriately.
Key skills
l Write using a clear and logical sequence of sentences and paragraphs appropriate
for the level of study, subject, purpose and audience.
l Plan and organise an essay with an appropriate structure and referencing.
l Demonstrate basic skills in the use of ICT, including accessing and searching web
pages and using ICT tools appropriate to support distance learning (accessing email,
learning from online-based study materials and using the eTMA system).
Practical and/or professional skills
l Plan study sessions to manage a sequence of work that meets a deadline and
complies with relevant academic conventions.
l Reflect on and evaluate own learning, both individually and through discussion with
peers, and engage in development planning.