Mrs Harrold (Head of Psychology)
Undertaking psychological research isn’t easy – and that’s exactly what our Year 11 soon-to-be A Level Psychology students have been finding out this term as they have undertaken their first Transition Programme project!
Showing remarkable determination, they have grappled with doing independent research in many forms. They have been guided through the process remotely both by drawing on a bank of carefully collated written and video resources, and through real-time classroom collaboration with their teacher on Google documents and in virtual classroom meetings.
Firstly, the students identified an area of personal interest and read previous research studies, to help inform the creation of their hypotheses. Once they had an individual focus for their research, they had to learn how to operationalise (make countable) the often-subjective characteristics psychologists are required to study. The next step was for each of them to develop a tightly controlled questionnaire that met with the British Psychological Code of Ethics.
This work has results in a series of questionnaires and this is where we would like the #BGSCommunity to come in: please follow this link HERE, and help our Year 11 students to get as wide and representative a sample filling in their questionnaires as possible. The more data they collect, the more sure they can be of their conclusions, which will they write up in a full scientific report – soon to be published in a BGS eBook.
The students have already gained a lot from the experience, noting how it has strengthened their independent research skills. Ffion Heale said: “I have found it to be a good challenge, as I have made questionnaires before, but not as concise and rigorous, so it was something new and interesting to see the psychological way.”
The extent to which the research was self-guided by student choice has also been appreciated, as has its challenging but fun and interesting. Neha Vimal reflected: “In short, it has been a new experience and an insight into seeing how professionals carry out research.”
It has certainly been very impressive to see just how many budding Psychology professionals we have in this cohort!
