Over FIFTY psychological explanations of learning - all in one place…..
I wonder if some kind of advanced form of theoretical systematic review could iron out all of the inevitable overlaps and maybe shake it all down to a manageable three or four key factors? - I wonder what they’d be? Would the ’key’ theorists everybody has heard of play the biggest role? Or would some obscure approach that seldom emerges in lectures outside of a PHD course prove to have the most robust supporting evidence? - I often feel a lot of the classics we teach, in every field of psychology, can carry a weight or ‘historical resonance’ far beyond the quality of the actual research results….
My money would be on Vygotsky - not for any reason other than it feels right to me (You might get a mark for this very feeling in an exam if you call it ‘intuitive appeal’). For example, I like his idea of ’scaffolding’ :
Instructional scaffolding is the provision of sufficient supports to promote learning when concepts and skills are being first introduced to students. These supports may include:
These supports are gradually removed as students develop autonomous learning strategies, thus promoting their own cognitive, affective and psychomotor learning skills and knowledge. Teachers help the students master a task or a concept by providing support. The support can take many forms such as outlines, recommended documents, storyboards, or key questions.
- building a tower of knowledge together with a nudge and a prod - shoring up this bit, talking up that bit onto a firmer footing. It’s a pleasingly rugged, masculine model of teaching- Like the guys who scaffolded our place: Roll up in a van whistling a cheery tune, throw up a rough structure for students to build their knowledge skywards, knock off mid-afternoon, never come back to take it down again….
One way to improve your memory is to draw mind maps of topic areas - we have included an example of a mind map in the AS book and suggested you have a go. Send them in to us and you might see them published on here. If you can’t scan them, just post to Mind Maps, East Gilgo, Migdale, Bonar Bridge, Sutherland IV24 3AR.
Some more material has been added to the Book Resources tab - there are now answers to the Research Methods questions in the AS book as well as some more source material from other chapters.
Suppose you had an awful experience, something traumatic which shook you up and upset you deeply. What would the effects of that be? How would you cope? Would you be able to deal with your memories, or would you have flashbacks, panic attacks, feel unable to get on with your life?
Researchers in Germany and the USA have been studying why some people develop PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) but others, in the same traumatic circumstances, don’t get the disorder and manage to cope with just bad memories.
The answer appears to be nature, not nurture, and is linked to one of the permissive amines, dopamine. Read the rest of this entry »
I’d like to thank the students and staff at Twynham School for spotting our latest error. On page 41 we have swapped Type A and Type B in the table at the top - secure attachment is Type B and insecure-avoidant is Type A (it’s shown as the other way around in the table). This may seem strange but Ainsworth and co. deliberately did this so that secure attachment would not be labelled the ‘best’.
In terms of ‘memory practicals’ I never get much beyond reading out lists of random numbers in class. Next time I’ll have a look at the BBC online memory test. It’s great for illustrating the multiple components and active processing elements of working memory and even has a brief stab at testing the long-term store. Respondents also get individual feedback, placed in the context of wider theory. On top of that, the data is being gathered as part of a larger research project so respondents get a chance to compare their results to everyone elses and to be part of a ‘proper’ psychological research programme.
We are now on our 3rd reprint!! Which has given us the opportunity to correct a few more silly mistakes (some readers kindly write in and draw our attention to these - please feel free!)
Perhaps the most important error is on Page 45 , the bars on the graph have been mislabelled - the purple is resistant attachment and light blue/turquoise is secure attachment. Read the rest of this entry »
Anecdotal evidence suggests that many women feel that pregnancy produces memory problems and it has been suggested that this effect may affect 50%-80% of pregnant women. Earlier research showed a reduction of about 4% in brain size during pregnancy, but this returned to normal after giving birth. Further research showed a reduction in the volume Read the rest of this entry »
One thing that concerns me somewhat about the new AS specification is that the opportunity has been lost to include some evolutionary psychology.
The A2 still retains this increasingly popular psychological area, indeed could be said to be encouraging teachers not familiar with it to include it in their teaching as it cuts across so many A2 areas now and so is somewhat unavoidable.
So the opportunity has been lost on two counts; firstly because it would have been interesting in its Read the rest of this entry »
It’s not that I am obsessed with Milgram (see my previous posts); his work just seems to attract a lot of attention – and now a US research team has conducted a replication of the original experiment!. Jerry Burger and his colleagues felt that since this classic study is so often used to explain human obedience to unjust authority (e.g. the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib) there was good reason to see whether the same results would be produced today. In the original experiment (and subsequent replications) once a participant had continued beyond 150 volts they almost invariably continued to the end as if, at this point, an unconscious decision was made to follow the experimenter’s lead rather than being concerned about any harm done to the ‘learner’. Therefore Burger identified 150 volts as a critical point of no return and they designed their experiment so it was stopped after the 150 volt point. In all other respects the procedures were identical to the original and participants were carefully screened to exclude anyone who was psychologically vulnerable or was aware of the original experiments.
The results were just about the same – 70% of the 40 participants who took part were willing to go beyond 150 volts. Participants who indicated a greater desire for control were less likely to obey but empathy levels had little effect on obedience. In another condition the study showed that participants who witnessed another participant (a confederate) who refused to continue did not show any greater disobedience, unlike the original trials.
If you want to read more, look here and here and here (in this last link you can also read about a real life prank call to a children’s home ordering a supervisor to deliver electric shocks, shades of the McDonald’s story).
