Photo AI
During your studies of clinical psychology, you will have carried out a practical investigation - AQA - A-Level Psychology - Question 4 - 2021 - Paper 2
Question 4
During your studies of clinical psychology, you will have carried out a practical investigation. Evaluate your practical investigation for clinical psychology.
Worked Solution & Example Answer:During your studies of clinical psychology, you will have carried out a practical investigation - AQA - A-Level Psychology - Question 4 - 2021 - Paper 2
Step 1
AO1: Describe Your Practical Investigation
Answer
We aimed to find out if attitudes to mental health had changed over the past five years. To do this, we found a current magazine article online and an online article about mental health from a newspaper that was published five years ago. We created a tally chart of words that had positive meanings, such as 'inspiring', and words that had negative meanings, such as 'aggressive'. Ultimately, we found that both articles showed a positive attitude towards mental health, with no significant difference between the findings of the modern and older articles.
Step 2
AO3: Evaluate the Limitations and Strengths
Answer
One limitation of our content analysis is that both articles focused on well-known celebrities, which may not reflect general attitudes toward mental health. This could potentially skew our results. Additionally, since both articles are available online, it is possible for others to replicate our content analysis, which can help determine if similar results exist regarding attitudes toward mental health. In terms of reliability, when we cross-checked our results, we found no significant difference in the totals of positive versus negative words, indicating good inter-rater reliability. However, over the last few years, there has been an increase in the focus on mental health; thus, if we had used an article from more than fifteen years ago, we might have found different attitudes toward mental health, which could affect the credibility of our findings.