Pitfalls

Let's start with some common pitfalls: places where people often mess up and lose marks unneccesarily...

1. Missing out the references section, or putting in a mixture of references and bibliography (book list e.g. Higher Psychology textbooks).
2. Major flaws in the results section, e.g. missing or unclear graphs, not labelling tables and graphs, not explaining what statistics have been used, failing to put raw data and calculations into an appendix.
3. Incorrect or incomplete hypotheses - your teacher can check these for you.
4. Not sticking to the SQA 'brief' - this document describes what you should do in your study. If you don't follow it, you could lose several marks.
5. Failing to include a conclusion, and suggestions for future research studies.

None of these flaws is big on its own, but collectively they could bring a mark down from and 'A' to a 'C'.

Welcome to the RI blog!

To start with, I realised that a blog would be a very good way to share information and ideas about the higher Research Investgation. This might eventually replace a handout on the RI.

I have marked RIs for the SQA for many years, so I will be reflecting on this experience and trying to provide some useful advice.

One slight concern with using a blog is that I might give some advice here which will later go out of date due to changes in the marking instructions. To avoid this problem, make sure you refer to the most recent version of SQA guidelines and marking instructions when you are preparing the final draft of your RI.

No class on 29th May

The revision class on friday 29th May has been cancelled, as I will not be in school in the morning of that day.

All other classes will go ahead as originally announced, 10.30 Mon, Thu and Fri. We will usually be in A24, but if for any reason there is a conflict or room displacement, just assume that we will find the closest available classroom to A24.

There are quite a few of you I haven't seen so far this exam leave...I realise that you have been busy with other exams, but once those are out of the way it would be a good idea to make use of these revision classes for psychology.

Past Papers

I have given you all past papers so hopefully you still have copies of these...

However, it occured to me that some of you may not know where to find the marking instructions. The simplest way is to go to the SQA website, and use the search box to find the Psychology page. The links that appear down the right hand side take you to various documents, including arrangements and past papers. There is also a link for 'Marking Instructions'.

Note that the only past paper available as a pdf is 2008, but previous years' questions are printed as part of the marking instructions. They go back as far as 2005.

The Specimen Question Paper has been changed, and for some reason the link takes you to the old version. The updated marking instruictions for Section A were sent out in a letter last year; click the following link and scroll down a few pages:

http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/files_ccc/NQPsychologyUpdateLetterMarch2008.pdf