EVALUATION FOR MAKING A CASE

Interviewing witnesses
STUDIES: Bruce, Loftus, Fisher

Generally questions have been based on research, so here are some issues:
Evaluating research;

• ecological validity: Bruce and Loftus are poor in EV, Fisher is high
• population validity/generalisability: all fairly low, but at least Fisher uses real detectives
• all are experiments: good for control and internal validity, and allow for replicability so likely to be somewhat reliable. However, many factors influence information given in witness interviews so it's unlikely that given the same situation, that any two people would give a consistent account and thus reliability is questionable. 
• usefulness and application: knowing about the inaccuracy of e-fit identification, eyewitness accounts and effectiveness of CIT has excellent real-life implications, helps inform policy and could help to change the way that juries perceive eyewitness testimonies. However the results aren't really well known, so this is a drawback.

Interviewing Suspects

• Validity of suspect interviews: police officers only 64.5% accurate at telling truth from lies, interviews lead to social desirability and all associated issues, interrogations lead to false confessions, etc. Research in this area tends to have high EV though, which is good because generalisability of findings should be strong.
• Reliability: similar to interviewing witnesses, affected by individual differences of interviewee and interviewer.
• Ethics is an important issue
• Usefulness/applications of research: shows that police officers may need more training in identifying lies and truth, highlights the unethical nature and poor validity of confessions obtained through interrogation

Creating a Profile

• Validity, effectiveness and usefulness: Mokros and Alison suggested that top down typological profiling is inaccurate as it's too reductionist, Canter found bottom up approaches effective, and Copson found that police officers may not be aware of benefits of profiling but that many would use again for a second opinion
• Reliability: top down is more reliable as it uses pre-existing categories. 
• Qualitative and quantitative data: both approaches feature some qualitative (e.g. looking at details, not numerical data) and some quantitative (e.g. looking at numbers and patterns). Quantitative is good because it's easy to analyse, qualitative is good because it's more in-depth and more humanistic. 
• Determinism: top down assumes that similar criminals create similar crime scenes, which is fairly reductionist and deterministic. Bottom up is less deterministic in that it suggests criminal choose to act consistently, and more holistic as it looks at each characteristic in turn and builds up a picture rather than choosing for example disorganised or organised. 

Some great short videos on clinical disorders

If you're anything like me, by this point in your revision looking at past papers and studies have started to get so monotonous you aren't sure it's going in. So, try a different approach.

Here's a link to a website some of you might find really useful. It's full of videos and short summaries of characteristics of disorders, explanations and treatments. Just use the search bar at the top to navigate yourself around. 

Enjoy!

What the examiners are looking for

Obviously, you need to answer 4 questions from 2 sections. You need to answer them well, describe and evaluate research and studies, and show the examiners what you know.

Sometimes though, the mark schemes are less than clear about how to reach that top band (the As and A*s). Here are some generic tips I've found in the mark schemes that are important in getting as close to full marks as you can:

January 2013

• Relevant research should be applied to part a)
• Must address “how” if the question asks for this
• “Discussion” may involve a comparison and following/challenging a viewpoint
• Detail is beneficial in part a)
• Usefulness, application, ecological validity, reductionism, reliability and ethics are all good evaluation points for interviewing witnesses
• A good way to “assess strengths and weaknesses” is to discuss whether or not an apparent “weakness” may actually be desirable or necessary in order to fulfil a function

June 2012

• Responses should be clear, precise and explicit
• To what extent implies a degree of judgement is necessary
• Responses should directly answer the question rather than simply describing research when this is not asked for. Research can be used to illustrate responses but this should be linked to the question.
• Usefulness can be examined in terms of validity, reliability, ethnocentrism, etc.
• Stronger answers with regards to treatments will be contextualised
• Comparison invites similarities as well as differences
• Reliability can be affected by mood, interviewee, social desirability bias, lying and misjudgement 

All the studies and theories for G543 (the ones I'm using)

Some people have been asking how many studies I've learnt, so I've put them all down here. It's also a bit of a reference point to see whether you're familiar with them or if you need to revise some sections more than others.

Forensic Psychology

Turning to crime

Upbringing - disrupted families [Juby and Farrington], differential association theory (learning from others) [Akers], poverty and disadvantaged neighbourhoods [Wikstrom and Tafel]

Cognition – criminal thinking patterns, [Yochelson and Samenow] moral development, social cognition (attribution) [both use Palmer and Hollin]

Biology – brain dysfunction [Raine], genes and serotonin [Brunner], gender [Daly and Wilson]

Making a case

Interviewing witnesses – recognising faces [Bruce], influencing factors (weapon focus)[Loftus] , cognitive interview [Fisher]

Interviewing suspects – detecting lies [Mann], interrogation techniques [Inbau], false confessions [Gudjonsson]

Creating a profile – top down [Mokros and Alison], bottom up [Copson], case study of John Duffy [Canter]

After a Guilty Verdict

Imprisonment – Planned behaviours [Gillis and Nafekh], depression/suicide risk [Dooley], prison situation and roles [Haney and Zimbardo]

Alternatives to imprisonment – probation [Mair and May], restorative justice [Sherman and Strang], looking death worthy [Eberhardt]

Treatment programmes – cognitive skills [Friendship], anger management [Ireland] and ear acupuncture [Wheatley]

Health and Clinical Psychology

Stress

Causes of stress – work [Johansson], hassles [Kanner], lack of control [Geer and Maisel]

Measures of stress – self report [Kanner], physiological [Geer and Maisel], combined approach [Johansson]

Managing stress – stress inoculation therapy [Meichenbaum], biofeedback [Budzynski], social support [Waxler-Morrison]

Dysfunctional behaviour/Disorders

Diagnosing dysfunctional behaviour – definitions [Rosenhan and Seligman], DSM, gender bias [Ford and Widiger]

Explanations of dysfunctional behaviour/disorders – faulty thinking (cognitive) [Beck], learned/positive reinforcements (behavioural) [Lewinson], serotonin and genes (biological) [Wender]

Treatments of dysfunctional behaviour/disorders – rational emotive therapy (cognitive) [Beck], CBT/behavioural activation (behavioural) [Lewinson], drug therapy (biological) [Karp and Frank]

Note that the two Beck studies and two Lewinson studies are different studies. The explanations one refers to studies where Beck interviewed patients with depression to see what cognitive distortions they shared, and Lewinson looked at positive reinforcements in the lives of depressed participants. In the treatments studies, Beck compares drug therapy and cognitive therapies, whilst Lewinson sees whether a "coping with depression" course coupled with parents being taught how to reinforce good behaviour is studied. 

Tackling part b) questions

Part b) generally consists of an evaluation on the section of the syllabus relating to part a). So, if you had a part a) question on brain dysfunction, you'd get a part b) on biological explanations of crime. 

There is no set structure for how to answer these questions. I can give you some pointers, but essentially you're going to have to find a way that works for you. That being said, some starting points and structures can help. 

The most important thing
The most important piece of advice I can give you is answer the question you're being set. Not the one you can best answer, not one you'd like to have come up. Everything you write must be related to the question. I'd suggest highlighting key words in the question including the key verb (e.g. assess, compare, evaluate). This'll get you in the right frame of mind.


Questions; what they're asking for
"Assess," "evaluate" and "to what extent" questions are essentially asking you to look at both strengths and weaknesses of a section, and then to come to a judgement in your conclusion. "Compare" questions obviously require key words such as "both","on the other hand", "in contrast" and "similarly" to really emphasise that you're answering the question. 

The way that questions in this section are worded are sometimes a little tricky to get your head around. Words such as "appropriateness" and "effectiveness" are seemingly easy to understand until you start to write it down. So, learn some simple definitions. By defining a key term in the intro, you will start to think of evaluation issues to relate to it and give your mini-essay some structure. "Appropriateness" refers to suitability, and encompasses  suitability to a person or group, situation, or occasion. So you could evaluate temporal validity, generalizability, ethnocentrism, etc. "Effectiveness" refers to the extent to which it brings about an effect, or achieves the desired results. So, you could talk about if it has negative or positive implications, the strength of these applications, and more specific factors such as recidivism rates or benefits to society.


Remember that this is an evaluation section; they want you to make judgements and insights, and then to illustrate these with examples from studies/theories/techniques, but you won't get marks for just outlining or describing the studies. Using key terms such as "reliability", "validity", "usefulness" and "applications"

Structure
You need a brief intro, a main body consisting of two or three paragraphs (and about five to seven evaluative points), and a brief conclusion linking explicitly back to the question.

One way some people like to structure their paragraphs is PEcEC:

Point, Example, compare, Example, Conclude
Note that the conclude section will include at least two or three evaluation points. 

Final thoughts
But this isn't necessary and it doesn't work for some people. As long as you give a range of evaluation points related to the question, that you're concise, use relevant detail, illustrate with examples and conclude with explicit link back to the question, then that's all you need. Keep practising your timing too; you only have 15-20 mins for this section and if you run over, you run the risk of not having time to answer the other questions. 

If you'd like to see an example of a 15 mark question (full marks), click here.

What is the cognitive interview (CIT)?

The cognitive interview is a major part of interviewing witnesses. It's essentially an interview between a witness and detective where the detective uses cognitive techniques in the form of CIT to "extract" information from the witness in as much depth and accuracy as possible.

There are four stages of CIT:

1. Report everything. The witness is asked to recall everything they can remember about the event, regardless of how insignificant they perceive it to be. 
2. Context reinstatement. The witness is asked to give details on the context of the event, including where they were, what time of the day it was, what they'd been doing before that led them to this situation, etc.
3. Recall in a different order. The detective asks the witness to start from one point in the day and recall backwards or forwards from that point. It helps to reduce the "story-telling" tendencies we have when recalling information about a previous event. 
4. Recall from a different perspective. The detective asks the witness to say what they think others could have seen from a different point of view.

What is Reliability?

Reliability is probably one of the most difficult concepts to get a handle on that you have to understand at A-level psychology. So I'll ease you in gently.

Reliability refers to the extent to which something is consistent. It does not imply validity, as something may consistently give incorrect measures, though both can be affected by factors such as participant variables, observer bias, subjectivity and standardisation. 

You can be asked to assess reliability of a number of things, most commonly:

- reliability of a measure
- reliability of research
- reliability of a method

There are two main types of reliability: external reliability and internal reliability. Internal reliability refers to the extent to which a measure is consistent within itself whilst external reliability is consistency over time (i.e. it is externally reliable if the measure taken in similar circumstances would produce similar results).

Generally, the factors that affect reliability are:
- the level of control over confounding variables. The higher the control, the less chance there is of inconsistencies over time and thus the more externally reliable it is likely to be
- standardisation. If research into an area tends to use experiments with standardised procedures, or a manual is used, it's more likely that reliability will be high.
- population and ecological validity (research). If a study has poor generalisability due to an ethnocentric or biased sample, or poor mundane realism (as in the case of many lab experiments) findings when applied to real life cannot be expected to be consistent with that of the research.
-subjectivity. If a measure or study relies on subjectivity to give results, as with all qualitative data, self-reports or observations and much research done in cognitive/psychodynamic psychology, it's unlikely to produce consistent results and will probably lack in internal reliability because interpretation becomes a confounding variable and thus may change from measure to measure.

Tips on revising for G543

People revise in different ways, but here are some tried-and-tested methods that have worked for me and may work for you:

The best, most reliable way to revise and to check your progress is to do past papers. Obviously, this step is only applicable once you've learned your studies and theories, but it's the best way to test how much you really know. Start with your notes beside you, and looking every so often to check you're writing the correct material, regardless of how long it takes. Once you've done that a few times with different questions, try to reduce how many times you look at the answers and highlight bits you keep forgetting and focus on learning these. Gradually, you need to be able to write the answers in the time limit (15-20 mins per 15 mark question, and 10 mins for the 10 mark questions) and then check your answers against the mark scheme. 

For those of us who learn by writing it out:

- Flashcards (name of study and topic on one side, details - sample, method, results conclusion and main evaluation points - on the back). Test yourself, or get anyone you can to test you.

- Plan out how you'd answer questions. It's virtually impossible to do EVERY past paper question, and often the most difficult part isn't writing it; it's knowing what to write and being able to think of the points (especially for part b) questions) instantaneously. Bullet point what you would write for each kind of question, such as for validity you could write about internal validity, population validity and ecological validity. 

- Keep rewriting your notes. This may not work for everyone, but personally I find that if I keep writing out my studies and theories, trying to remember all the details and getting it condensed into the best format I can, then I won't forget it when it comes to the exam.


Visual learners:

- make posters about each topic, sub-topic and study; include pictures, bubble-writing, little symbols, anything you like to make sure you remember it. 

- play Pictionary with the studies! Grab a friend who's taking the same exam, and all you have to do is take it in turns drawing clues about a study and get the other to guess what study it is (bonus points for every detail about the study each of you can recall!). For example, to guess Fisher et al's CIT study you could draw a police officer, Florida (or an American flag), a burglar, a desk, etc. 

- give each study in a section a different colour/font combination, and whenever you revise it  make sure you stick with that combination as colour aids memory and recall. But make sure it's readable!

Other tips on revising:

- Try listening to music. Make a playlist of music you like, but won't get distracted by. This might be classical or instrumental, but I like listening to music with lyrics so long as it's not too loud. When I was doing my Core Studies paper, I made a playlist with one song per study and I'd try to remember everything I can about the study when its song was on. It'd work for this unit too and is a pretty fun way to revise a lot all at once. Just don't spend too long finding a song for the study. Relevant ones work best for me, such as Memories by Panic! at the Disco for Loftus et al's weapon focus study or Old Grey Face by Twin Atlantic for Bruce et al's facial recognition study.

- Move about. This includes physical exercise at least every couple of days (preferably a walk or more everyday), as well as working in different environments. Being cooped up in your room at the desk for hours on end isn't healthy and you'll start to get really bored. Try working in the kitchen one day, the dining room another, your sofa, outside, in the library... literally anywhere for a change of scenery when you're struggling to concentrate.

- Talk to people. I don't find study groups helpful as I prefer independent revision, but when you're struggling, real people are a lot more reassuring and helpful than searching through the internet for hours on end just getting stressed out. Check here for why social support is definitely good for you!

- Try different modes of revising. Revising gets boring; after all, you're looking at the same information for hours on end. So try to make it somewhat interesting by combining visual methods, note-making, flashcards and past paper questions. 

- Make up your own practice questions. This'll get your brain working, help you to practice and even means you can target specific areas of weakness. For example, if you struggle with reliability, write yourself a reliability question on every topic. You never know, it might come up.

- Take breaks. I'm rubbish at this, because I tend to work at something until I'm utterly shattered but so much research has shown our concentration lapses sometime after half an hour of work. I'd suggest working periods of 50 minutes followed by a ten minute break, and then every couple of hours, take an hour break. During your breaks, make sure you get a drink, maybe a snack, and leave your work area. Even just wandering around your living room is better than surfing the internet at the laptop you'll be staring at all afternoon as it'll keep you energised. 


Good luck, let me know if you have any tips for me to add!

Tackling part a) questions

You've got to answer 4 part a) questions for the G543 paper, and it's important to get them right because it's a lot easier to get top marks in this part than part b). 

If you're struggling on how to go about it, here's how I answer part a):

• Is it asking about a theory or research? Some sections don't really have "theories" as such, like the stress subsection, but you'll need a bit of an intro. If they're asking about a theory, it won't hurt to make the last paragraph a bit of a study to help illustrate your point. It's generally what they're looking for.
• Identify what the question is asking you, and actually answer it. Pre-learned part a)s won't be the most effective way of gaining marks; you need to apply your knowledge of studies and theories to the actual question.  
• Keep referring back to the question.

Generally, this is my structure:

1. Set the scene. If it's a question on the behavioural approach to managing stress, briefly define stress and outline the assumption of the behaviourist approach. You might also want to list that there are many approaches to managing stress, but it's not necessary. 

e.g. Stress is the body's response to either physical, emotional or mental demands that are perceived to stretch an individual in some way (often because they may feel they are unable to deal with it). Some stress is good, like stress that makes you want to revise, but some stress is unnecessary and has a strong aversive effect on overall health. There are many proposed ways to manage stress. The behavioural approach to psychology believes that all behaviour, including stress is learned, and thus assumes that you can learn to manage stress.

2. The theory. Start with the basic explanation, as simple as you can. Then you can expand on it and show what you know, giving the example of a specific or main theory. 

e.g. The behavioural approach to managing stress often includes teaching stressed clients to be aware of their central nervous system and their stress, and then learning how to reduce the stress. This is often also combined with positive reinforcements. One key behavioural technique of managing stress emphasises the role of biofeedback. It involves being taught relaxation techniques, whilst being made aware of the effect on the body that they have, and then receiving feedback on their progress, through the use of biodots, or heart rate monitors which show the physical reduction of stress. This use of double positive reinforcement in the form of relaxation and biofeedback is supposed to help the client feel in control of their stress.

3. The study. Even if the question doesn't ask for it, I would rarely recommend skipping this step. It helps to illustrate your understanding and get you those full marks.

e.g. One study which illustrates how the behaviourist approach uses biofeedback to manage stress was conducted by Budzynski et al. It was a field experiment involving 18 volunteers with tension headaches who were split into three conditions. Group 1 received relaxation training for 2 weekly sessions for 8 weeks, during which they had their muscle tension measured by an EMG. They were informed of the biofeedback in the form of clicks as their positive reinforcement; more clicks meant higher tension, and thus they were encouraged to relax. Group 2 had the same relaxation training but didn't have accurate biofeedback, and Group 3 was a control group with neither. Both experimental groups showed improvement in tension headaches and other stress-related illnesses such as hysteria and depression, but Group 1 showed the most improvement. This suggests that biofeedback is one technique in which stress can be managed. 

If there's a question you'd like me to go over, leave a comment and I'll take a look.