Taken AY2014/2015 Semester 2
PL1101E: Introduction to Psychology
This module introduces the 7 major perspectives of psychology: evolutionary, social, cognitive, biological, developmental, clinical and personality. Meanwhile, topics covered include the biological bases of behaviours, developmental psychology, social psychology, cognitive psychology, and abnormal psychology (mental illnesses). This entire module is solely based on the textbook (Discovering Psychology: The Science of Mind) so it is easy to study for, but fairly heavy in terms of the effort required in swallowing said textbook. I personally did not like this module because of the rote learning required. However, it is also a “safe” module to fulfil a faculty requirement.
The lectures are largely boring in my opinion because they repeat almost everything from the textbook, with rare exceptions. The only saving grace of these lectures are the fact that they highlight the important bits of information from the mountain which is the textbook. Thankfully, the lectures are recorded so you do not have to actually sit through the entire thing if you have more pressing matters to attend to.
As for tutorials, they are in fact more like seminars. Syllabus content is taught during tutorials and simple activities are carried out for students to better understand theories and facts. Tutorial attendance and participation is not actually assessed for this module, but you cannot skip more than one tutorial out of five throughout the semester or you will receive a warning email from your lecturer. Thus, it is highly recommended you turn up for tutorials. Rest assured that tutorials are somewhat more engaging than the lectures.
Assessment:
Mid-Term Test: 50% (2hour, closed book, no negative marking)
Section 1: 90 Multiple Choice Questions (25%)
Section 2: 5 Short Questions (25%)
Final Exam 50% (2hour, closed book, no negative marking)
Section 1: 90 Multiple Choice Questions (25%)
Section 2: 5 Short Questions (25%)
Everything tested in this module is from the textbook, so just memorize all the theories and facts and all will be well. Beware though, because the MCQs may be tricky, so read all the questions carefully and think through your choices before answering.
For the Midterm, the short questions were conducted through IVLE this semester. The result was horrendous. Many students faced technical issues and needless to say there was a lot of stress and panic involved. Hopefully, this will be improved in future semesters. Other than that, the short questions are in fact open-book for the Midterm since it was online, so it was not too difficult. However, most questions are not straightforward so you still need to know what concepts they are testing to fully answer the question. This is especially since having an open-book exam does not mean you know where in the book the information is when you need it. The questions are 5 marks each and you have a total of 75 minutes to answer all the questions. This means that every mark on this test is equal to 1% of your grade. You do not want to do badly for this.
For the Final exam, the short answer questions were a mix of application and theory questions. There were two tricky questions out of the five, but most of the answers can be found in various parts of the textbook. However, this exam is strictly closed book, so you really need to study your textbook before the exam. About half a page of an answer is more than sufficient to answer one question. If all else fails – smoke.
Workload:
2-1-0-0-7 Workload
Components : A-B-C-D-E
A: no. of lecture hours per week
B: no. of tutorial hours per week
C: no. of lab hours per week
D: no. of hours for projects, assignments, fieldwork etc per week
E: no. of hours for preparatory work by a student per week
One thing not mentioned in the workload is that as part of the module you are required to participate in psychology experiments (aka research). This might sound exciting, but most experiments tend to be quite boring when you are a participant. They mostly involve filling in long tedious quizzes about yourself or your reaction to supposed scenarios. However, there are some interactive ones, which are more fun. For this module, you will need to accumulate 12 points. Every 30 minutes of your time is equal to one point. Most experiments only require about 15 to 20 minutes, but you still get the full point. Luckily, you have the whole semester to attain all the points, so plan your time well to avoid last minute rush. This is especially since all psychology students need to gain a certain number of points. Thus, it might be difficult to sign-up for experiments later in the semester.
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