Chosen pathway: Forensic Psychology
Coursework Assessment Guidance
1. Learning outcomes of the assessment
1. Demonstrate awareness of the broad range of social, economic, and political activity to which psychology is making important contributions.
2. Demonstrate awareness of many psychologists who have made major contributions in the applied field.
3. Show a basic understanding of the applications of psychology to specific areas of work and life and understand some of the many problems involved.
4. Have identified areas of psychology in which they are personally interested and to begin to relate this to future career opportunities.
2. Rationale for assessment
This assessment offers students an opportunity to explore in detail one of the main practitioner disciplines within Psychology. It enables students to examine one potential practitioner pathway that they may be considering as a future career.
3. Guidelines for the assessment
This is a 1100-word essay and with exception of students on particular pathways, you can write about any one of the eight practitioner disciplines. Forensic pathway students must write about Forensic Psychology, Child Psychology pathway students must write about Educational Psychology and Sport & Exercise pathway students must write about Sport & Exercise Psychology.
The essay focuses on three main themes and is based on the regulations and roles for practitioners within the UK:
1. What do practitioners do?
2. Where do they practice?
3. How do you train to work within that area?
Your title should indicate which pathway you have chosen for the focus of your essay. You should include a brief introduction outlining the structure and content of your essay. You can
use sub-titles to organize your work, but this is not required. Your work should be referenced both in-text and in a section entitled ‘References’ at the end of your essay. You should follow APA guidelines for referencing [Sociology and Psychology students can use Harvard referencing]. There are referencing guidelines available on the Moodie page.
You should give a clear description of the training required to become a practitioner within your chosen pathway, some description, with examples, of what practitioners do within your chosen pathway, and the kinds of settings in which they practice.
You should be concise and try to express your ideas clearly. I would encourage you to use Studiosity to get feedback on an initial draft, and also to ensure that you produce a draft sufficiently before the deadline so that you can use the Originality link to evaluate your work for possible instances of plagiarism.
When using Turnitin, you should be aware of your overall percentage match, but more importantly, you should check your work for highlighted paragraphs or sentences within your work as these are the potential sources of plagiarism. This would include paragraphs and/or sentences for which you have only changed a couple of words! If you have any questions about possible plagiarism, please discuss your work with your seminar leader or your personal tutor. If your reference section is highlighted, this is generally not a problem and will inflate your overall match percentage.
Rough Organisational Guidelines
Introduction what career pathway is your essay about and how are you planning to present the information (approx. 100-150 words).
Main body What do practitioners in your chosen area do? Where do they typically work? A couple of examples illustrating what practitioners do and where they work would be helpful here. What is/are the training pathway(s) to becoming a chartered practitioner within this pathway. (approx. 800-900 words).
Conclusion Sum everything up here. What are the key things that you want your reader to take away from reading your essay (approx. 100-150 words)?
References You should provide a list of sources that you used within your essay. These should be sources that you have discussed or quoted from rather than a list of sources that you read. We do not use Bibliographies.
4. Recommended reading
Your sources will depend upon the pathway that you have chosen but you should read the BPS website and other websites relating to any regulatory bodies pertinent to that area of practice. Various texts in Applied Psychology are available in the library and provide basic information, as are specialist texts in each of the practitioner disciplines. You will be using predominantly secondary sources like textbooks, although if you wish to include a case study, that might be taken from a primary source like a journal article. There is no set number of references required but you should show evidence of additional reading beyond the lecture notes and BPS website.
