Study Skills for Psychology Students Jennifer Latto ❙ Richard Latto Ø See Website for careers advice Series Editor: David Canter Successful Studying Study Skills for Psychology Students Study Skills for Psychology Students Jennifer Latto and Richard Latto Open University Press McGraw-Hill Education McGraw-Hill House Shoppenhangers Road Maidenhead Berkshire England SL6 2QL email: enquiries@openup.co.uk world wide web: www.openup.co.uk and Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121-2289, USA First published 2009 Copyright © Jennifer Latto and Richard Latto 2009 All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of such licences (for reprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd of Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London, EC1N 8TS. A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library ISBN 10: 0-335-22909-3 (pb) 0-335-22910-7 (hb) ISBN 13: 978-0-335-22909-3 (pb) 978-0-335-22910-9 (hb) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data CIP data applied for Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in the UK by Bell and Bain Ltd, Glasgow Fictitious names of companies, products, people, characters and/or data that may be used herein (in case studies or in examples) are not intended to represent any real individual, company, product or event. Cartoons drawn by Adam Paxman For Georgina Brennan, Julia Henderson and Steve McArdle Contents Skills for Successful Study series xi Series editor’s preface xiii Introduction: why you need this handbook and how to use it 1 1 First things first 5 1.1 About psychology 5 1.2 How your university or college works 14 2 Organizing inputs 21 2.1 What kind of student are you? 21 2.2 Structuring information 28 2.3 Formal teaching 41 2.4 Learning in groups 49 2.5 Learning through experience 54 2.6 Personal development profiling 57 3 Using IT 63 3.1 Using learning resource centres 63 3.2 Using in-house electronic resources 69 3.3 Surfing the web and evaluating what you find 80 3.4 Saving information effectively 82 3.5 Plagiarism detection software 84 4 Achieving good outputs 91 4.1 The purposes of assessment 91 4.2 Writing essays 93 4.3 Writing practical reports 113 4.4 Giving presentations (or how to avoid death by PowerPoint) 114 4.5 Preparing and presenting posters 119 4.6 Contributing to seminars 120 4.7 Taking examinations 121 4.8 Overall thoughts on assessment 131 5 Research projects and dissertations 133 5.1 Planning your timetable 133 5.2 Choosing a topic 135 5.3 Making the most of your supervisor 137 5.4 Designing the project 139 5.5 Getting ethical approval 143 5.6 Running the project 145 5.7 Reporting and analysing your results 146 5.8 Common errors of interpretation 156 5.9 Writing up 161 6 What next? 163 6.1 Introduction 163 6.2 Ideas about careers in general 166 6.3 Regulation 169 6.4 Careers in psychology 170 6.5 Postgraduate courses 172 6.6 Working and training abroad 174 6.7 Other careers 175 6.8 Longer term 176 Appendices 1 How to reference your work 177 2 Answers to exercises 184 3 Acronyms and abbreviations 186 4 Glossary 188 5 Common terms (and some of their alternatives) used in statistics 201 viii CONTENTS 6 Further reading 211 References 214 Index 217 CONTENTS ix [...]... Skills for Successful Study series Skills for Successful Study is an exciting new discipline-orientated study skills series that will benefit students by drawing on examples that will speak directly to them about the challenges and successes within their own study environments Each book will support the student throughout their course: from the trepidation of beginning to study, through... website is also available, at www.openup.co.uk /psychology success Other titles in the series Scullion and Guest, Study Skills for Nursing and Midwifery Students More new titles coming soon! Series editor’s preface Study Skills cover all those abilities that make it possible to cope with the demands of academic and professional pursuits For people just embarking on a course of study they include being able... 25) 1 First things first 1.1 About psychology 1.2 How your university or college works This chapter will help orientate you to the discipline of psychology, and to find your way around your university or college 1.1 About psychology What is psychology? One important and useful thing to think about for starters: psychology is a fastevolving science and what you will be studying is only our current understanding... gives its formal structure, aims, intended learning outcomes and associated assessment tasks Programme A name often given to the overall degree course you are taking It will consist of a set of compulsory and optional modules Each programme has a formal programme specification, which will be publicly available and gives its formal structure 17 18 STUDY SKILLS FOR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS Oxbridge Oxford and... woman, with an emotionally neutral object, such as a car, results in the latter coming to elicit the warm feelings associated with the former 8 STUDY SKILLS FOR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS Biological (Also known as physiological psychology. ) This approach concentrates on studying the activity of the nervous system, especially the brain, the action of hormones and other chemicals, and genetics, on the assumption... them again until you graduate Registration The process of signing up for the modules (see page 17) you will be taking in the current year is very important and may be organized centrally, particularly if your proposed study plan involves modules from more than one department As 16 STUDY SKILLS FOR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS with so much else at university, you will be given guidance, but the ultimate responsibility... system in psychology and you will be using it, or something very similar, in your coursework Try to become familiar with these formats and use the book as a presentation guide for your own work The book also includes: • • • • • • • many diagrams and figures exercises for practising certain specific skills tips for quick reference help advice from our own students examiners’ thoughts cartoons for light... at university, or for some people earlier when studying at school, are central to what everyone has to offer as a graduate and/or professional Some people would even suggest that the main contribution of a university degree is to provide a person with the skills for studying It is these skills that will help the person through the rest of their career Studying is a skill that can be mastered like many... both to enjoy studying for your degree and to achieve more successful outcomes Psychology is one of the most popular undergraduate degree choices and is taught in a wide variety of universities and colleges This handbook provides an introduction, guide and reference book for you to use at all stages in your study of psychology In Chapter 1, we begin by giving you a brief introduction to psychology and... continually have to look things up, the conversation will have moved on before you have established what is being discussed This tendency to talk in a kind of code is not malicious or probably even deliberate – it just saves time when specialists talk to each other and is not unique to psychology 14 STUDY SKILLS FOR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS Some of the more common and more confusing terms are defined in the . Study Skills for Psychology Students Jennifer Latto ❙ Richard Latto Ø See Website for careers advice Series Editor: David Canter Successful Studying Study Skills for Psychology Students Study. 214 Index 217 CONTENTS ix Skills for Successful Study series Skills for Successful Study is an exciting new discipline-orientated study skills series that will benefit students by drawing on examples. crop up during your psychology studies.) 2 STUDY SKILLS FOR PSYCHOLOGY STUDENTS On the associated website (www.openup.co.uk/psychologysuccess), you will find regularly updated information about careers