OCR has announced that there will be two changes to the assessment of unit G543 – Options in Applied Psychology and that these changes will come into effect for the January 2011 examination series.

There have been many criticisms of the demands of this A2 options paper and OCR has responded to these points.  These criticisms have been discussed thoroughly on psychexchange.co.uk, on the OCR e-list, at the ATP conference and many teachers have written to the board explaining their concerns.

Firstly, the exam duration will be increased from 1 hour 30 minutes to 2 hours.   Most teachers and students will welcome this change as this means that students now have 30 minutes to answer each of the four questions rather than 22.5 minutes.  This small increase should allow for the questions to be better discriminators of the students’ ability to answer the questions and at least give the students some thinking/preparation time in the exam room.

Secondly, and probably more importantly, OCR now maintain that for each option at least three out of the four topics (areas) will be covered in the exam. Meaning, that teachers will only have to teach three of the four topics in each of the two chosen options – as at least three of the four topics will appear in the exam. This of course means that the content has been reduced by 25% and will be welcomed by learners and teachers.

The Notice To Centres can be downloaded here http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/notices/ocr_32153_notices_gce.pdf

AS -   January 12th 2011  Wednesday am

Edexcel Unit 1 (1h 20m)
AQA (A)  PSYA1 (1h 30m)
WJEC PY1 (1 h 15m)
OCR G541 (1h 00m)
AQA (B)  PSYB1 (1h 30m)

AS -  January 19th 2011 Wednesday am

AQA (A) PSYA2 (1h 30m)
WJEC PY2 (1 h 45m)
OCR G542 (2h 00m)
AQA (B) PSYB2 (1h 30m)
Note that Edexcel do not offer unit 2 in January

A2 January 28th 2011 Friday am

Edexcel Unit 3 (1h 30m)
AQA (A) PSYA3 (1h 30m)
WJEC PY3 (1 h 30m)
OCR G543 (1h 30m)
AQA(B) PSYB3 (1h 30m)

February 2nd 2011 Wednesday pm

Edexcel Unit 4  (2h 00m)
AQA (A) PSYA4 (2h)
WJEC PY4 (2h 30m)
OCR G544  (1h 30m)
AQA (B)  PSYB4 (2h 00m)

All of the dates and times were kindly provided by www.modernisationonline.org.uk

GCSE exams coming soon and GCE summer exam are here.

For psychology, candidates currently working towards their AS exams in May, and A2 exams in July there will still be a number of opportunities for re-sits.

AS re-sits will be available in January 2009 and then the following May 2009. No more re-sits of the current AS psychology exams will be available after May 2009.

A2 re-sits will be available in January 2009, June 2009, January 2010 and June 2010.

Of course, only those units that are normally offered in January will be available in January.

For those psychology candidates studying the new specifications, the A2 units will not be available for examination until 2010, which means that candidates cannot complete the full A level in the first year of the new specifications.

Furthermore, the units from the current (legacy) specifications cannot be combined with units from the new specifications.

Philip Allan Updates have announced the dates and times for their workshops for the new A level specifications. They are offering workshops for teachers of the OCR, AQA (A), AQA (B), and Edexcel specifications.

Below are the latest workshops for teachers.
 

  Philip Allan Updates do provide many quality conferences for psychology teachers and students and employ some very experienced presenters. If you would like more information, have a browse of their updated website.

There are quite a few events for the 2008 specifications going on this year but so far, this one has to be easily the most interesting.

OCR is offering two free events for psychology teachers thinking of offering OCR specifications for 2008.

As well as giving an overview of the new qualification, this event will delve into some of the new core study material. Three leading psychologists, whose research is included in the core study options, will give presentations.

These include:
Professor Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies
Professor Alexander Haslam, Professor of Social Psychology
Professor Stephen Reicher, Professor of Social Psychology

The first event is to be held in Leeds on Wednesday 30th January 2008 and the second is to held in London on Thursday 31st January 2008

You can find out more here where you can register a place. Hurry because they may run out of places.

Hodder Education have promised that their textbook for the new OCR AS specifications will be due before April 2008

The textbook is written by Karen and Louise and for 20 quid you get the book and an interactive CD.

The book will obviously be good. For example, the blurb states that the book is “highly accessible and readable, with useful guidance on comparing studies, applying themes, and learning key concepts and terminology. Each study is introduced in detail, with Background, Aims and Methods to fully contextualise it, and includes Focus on Themes and Focus on Research Methods boxes to aid students. There is also a separate chapter dedicated to Research Methods, and numerous hints and tips for top exam performance”

I am looking forward to the “unique Dynamic Learning Student CD, including: • self-test exercises • knowledge quizzes • multiple-choice questions • wordsearches • crosswords • evaluations and summaries of the core studies. These comprehensive digital resources bring learning to life, allowing students to test their knowledge and understanding of all key areas.

Here is the link to the book

I forgot to mention that I received my pre-ordered copy of this book a few weeks ago from Palgrave.com  As far as I know this is the first textbook to be published for the new 2008 specifications.

This is the third edition of the text designed to cover the new studies added to the OCR specifications. If you are planning to teach the OCR specifications, I do recommend the book. The authors have added 14 clear and accurate studies now making a total of 84 research studies.

As in earlier editions, the studies are accessible, lively and engaging. The authors have a real knack of summarising the studies in a wider context and demonstrating the limitations of the empirical research without knocking the stuffing out of the studies as some textbooks do.

I pre-ordered my first copy and then ordered a few more for work and the latter came within three days when ordered through Palgrave.

The only criticism I have of this text is that it does not cover the Sue Savage-Rumbaugh study, although in the authors’ defence this was a late addition to the specifications.

Phil and Cara are also working on a new edition of their OCR Psychology AS Core Studies text (Psychology Press) which will cover the whole of the AS OCR specifications.

Edexcel have announced that they are to offer psychology GCSE.

Currently AQA and OCR offer GCSE psychology, which is still a relatively small market. Last summer 3275 candidates sat AQA GCSE psychology and 3843 sat GCSE OCR psychology.

However, looking at the Edexcel web site it does seem that they have some way to go in putting together their new GCSE psychology specifications.  They want your help.

T.E.S. have discovered that Edexcel’s profits have risen seven-fold in three years and that one of Edexcel’s directors earned a whopping £450,000 in pay and pensions contributions last year – easily the highest known figure earned by anyone in British education.

In 2005 Edexcel became the first large examination board to be held in private hands when Pearson PLC took complete control. Edexcel was formerly a charity.

Pearson PLC is a media conglomerate and is the largest book publisher in the UK and the second largest in the US. Edexcel’s status as a profit making company has led to criticisms and calls into question conflict of interest within the education system, as a private publisher runs an examining board, which relies on set texts for many of its courses.

According to the report in TES, since its takeover by the Pearson publishing group in 2003, Edexcel has moved from a yearly profit after tax of £3.6 million to the latest total of £25.1m on a £203m turnover.

In January 2007, Pearson announced that it had agreed to acquire Harcourt Assessment and Harcourt Education International for $950m in cash. Harcourt Assessment is a company that publishes and distributes psychological assessment tools and therapy resources. Harcourt Education International is a leading educational company who in the UK publish as Heinemann.

In response to the profits announced by Edexcel John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers, said, “This raises a big question as to who this money is for. Is it for a private company or is it for the good and quality of the examination system?”

Here is the story in TES

The AQA (A) specification is still the clear leader in terms of number of students sitting the different specifications.

Last June (2007) 60.6% of students sitting A level psychology followed the AQA (A) specifications and 60.4% of students sitting AS psychology followed the AQA (A) route.

Below are figures taken from the various awarding bodies’ websites.

Percentage of students sitting A level psychology June 2007

AQA (A)   60.6%
OCR         19.9%
AQA (B)   10.2%
Edexcel      9.2%

Percentage of students sitting AS level psychology June 2007

AQA (A)    60.4%
OCR          19.2%
AQA (B)    10.1%
Edexcel       8.6%
WJEC          1.8%

Below are the percentages of students sitting A level psychology June 2006

AQA (A)    60.3%
OCR          18.5%
AQA (B)    11.0%
Edexcel     10.2%

The percentages are all rounded up to 1 decimal point.