WELCOME BACK TO THE START OF A NEW ACADEMIC YEAR. I hope you all had an enjoyable and restful summer break. Autumn term is without a doubt the toughest and most challenging of the year.

Deb Gajic

However, I do always start the year enthusiastically and really enjoy getting to know my new students. I’m actively looking forward to the challenges of teaching a new A2 specification. I’ve found PsychExchange invaluable for sourcing new and inspirational resources and ideas – www.psychexchange.co.uk

Those of you who were able to attend the Annual ATP Conference at Exeter will agree that the conference was one of the best ever – Phil Banyard did a marvellous job. The programme was very full, relevant and inspiring. Once my hangover wore off, I felt I had gained an awful lot from the conference. Once again I was gratified to see what a committed, professional, enthusiastic, caring and friendly bunch psychology teachers are. For those of you who have never attended an ATP Conference, you are missing a treat; it really is the best value CPD on offer for Psychology teachers. Next year’s conference will be at Brunel University – go to www.atpconference.org.uk for more details.

It’s all change here at the ATP, I’m sure you will have noticed that the new look newsletter is fabulous and will go from strength to strength under the editorship of Laura Rudd. Laura has some great ideas of what she would like to do in the future. Please support her by letting her know your thoughts and of course, submitting articles and items. The website has also undergone a comprehensive overhaul. The new webmasters are Mark Holah and Jamie Davies, who are also the brains behind the wonderful PsychExchange. If you haven’t already, please have a look and register at www.theatp.org – the invitation code is ‘atpmember’. We welcome constructive feedback and ideas for the website. Whilst you are there please check that your personal details are up to date, you will be able to amend them online, and any queries please contact the membership secretary, Wendy Wood at membership@theatp.org

If you know of any Members who are not receiving their ATP newsletter, it is probably because we haven’t got an up-to-date contact address for them, again please ask them to contact Wendy.  We really need Members’ e-mail addresses as this is a much easier and efficient way of contacting them, so either register on the website or e-mail Wendy direct.

After the success of the annual conference, many Members were asking for one-day events throughout the year. We are currently planning an NQT/New to teaching Psychology day, details of which will be posted on the website soon. We would also like to offer Regional events if there is sufficient demand. If you are interested in becoming part of a regional group please contact Jeff Standen –standen.jeff@gmail.com – or join the discussion on the website forums.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any ideas or comments about how the ATP can best serve its Members. I wish you all a productive term and don’t forget the work/life balance!

Deb Gajic
d.gajic@sky.com

IT HAS BEEN A YEAR FOR OLD ENDINGS AND NEW BEGINNINGS. We have seen the end of coursework for A-levels and the arrival of new specifications across the board. Is change always a good thing? Not always. Is it in this case? I think so.

It is also a new beginning for the magazine and for myself. I have taken over as Editor from the wonderful Evie Bentley and hope that this, my first edition, won’t disappoint. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has helped me in my new position as Editor; those of you know who you are. Thank you, your unbending belief has been an inspiration.

I would also like to take this occasion to wish you all well and the very best of good luck with your new beginnings as we once again brave the storm and battle our way forward into that great and often unpredictable world of education. For those of you just starting, bear with it. For those of you who are dab hands, keep up the hard work. I leave you with this poem by Sheenagh Pugh which a dear friend read to me recently, I hope you may appreciate it as much as I do.

Sometimes things don’t go, after all from bad to worse
Some years, muscadel faces down frost: green thrives:
the crops don’t fail
Sometimes a man aims high, and all goes well
A people sometimes will step back from war
Elect an honest man: decide they care enough,
that they can’t leave some stranger poor
Some men become what they were born for
Sometimes our best efforts do not go amiss;
sometimes we do as we meant to
The sun will sometimes melt a field of sorrow
That seemed hard frozen: may it happen for you…

Laura Rudd
laura.rudd@franklin.ac.uk

By Mark Souter

My 150th birthday party was a bit spoilt when my name was taken in vain.

After an understandably quiet period following WWII, scientific racism developed a higher profile from the end of the last centur onward. A vivid example of this comes from the writings of J. Philippe Rushton. He is a significant figure in this field; Herrnstien and Murray repeatedly cite Rushton in support of their own ethnocentric conclusions in ‘The Bell Curve’. What makes Rushton more topical is that he claims he is the heir of Darwin and criticism of him is criticism of evolutionary science. I have come across this author in students’ writings, with some making a good stab at evaluation whilst others have repeated it uncritically.

Whilst part of me does not want to give it further airing, the greater urge is to use it as a vehicle for tackling scientific racism head on. Just as Rushton is candid about his own project fitting his own outlook, I am content to say I read his work in the context of an  existing viewpoint. This includes the view that it is part of my job as a teacher to (a) give all views appropriate consideration (in my Critical Thinking scheme I have a discussion about the merits of the view that the moon landing was a hoax), and (b) to apply scientific and critical analysis to a wide range of material.

My first point is that Rushton is a psychologist who uses concepts from evolutionary biology as a central plank of his assertion that there are ‘races’ within humans. An interdisciplinary approach must have merit, since confirmation of a theory across different intellectual domains should confer greater validity. However, the applications of such concepts still have to be valid in themselves. I will take Rushton’s central concept of ‘r/K selection theory’ and show how he plays fast and loose with both evidence and application of this impressive sounding concept. I will also point out that it is far from being a widely accepted theory within evolutionary biology.

Another plank of Rushton’s approach is that there is an academic conspiracy to discourage research into ‘politically incorrect’ theories, including those of Darwin. To this end he has been head of the Pioneer Fund since 2002; this historically funded eugenics research and more later funded work on intelligence and inheritance such as the ‘Bell Curve theory’. Since 2000 it has given the bulk of its funding to the ‘Charles Darwin Research Institute’, which is Rushton’s own vehicle for promoting his ideas. In this respect another aim for me is to show that this is not an area in which there are ‘neutral’ views. I am not rejecting Rushton here because I find his views unpalatable. I acknowledge that I do, but this is not an evaluative category I am applying.

That said, since Rushton claims the support of Darwin, I’ll do so too. Darwin was celebrated at this year’s ATP conference and quite rightly so. Darwin considered the implications of his work in relation to contemporary issues of ‘race’, such as slavery and imperialism. He has recently been (selectively) presented as the harbinger of Nazism by US creationists. This is clearly false. Darwin’s view was that humans had the capacity of compassion over and above biological imperatives. To the extent that he thought there were variations in human populations,
and that advances in medicine let ‘the weak’ survive, Darwin clearly indicated his reservations about a eugenicist approach: ‘The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature.’ (Darwin et al 1882)

This undermines Rushton’s claims for the support of Darwin in applyingb natural selection (as it does Rushton’s predecessors in the eugenics movement). Rushton also applies the work of a more recent, and less revered, evolutionary biologist – Eric Pianka – who came up with r/K selection theory. Pianka’s theory attempts to explain natural selection as working thought a trade-off between quantity and quality of offspring in response to environmental pressure. Rushton applies this to support his claim that ‘blacks’ ‘evolved’ in an environment of plenty, whilst Europeans had to survive in more difficult conditions. Rushton, in a less academic context, explained the evolutionary pressure in response to more or less restricted resources as ‘a trade off, [between] more brains or more penis. You can’t have everything.’ This is a reference to his claim – presented in a more straight-faced way in his book – the ‘blacks’ have bigger genitals. His source references to this are rather modest: the writings of early explorers and an anonymous Victorian treatise, attributed to a French military doctor. Even accepting the dubious data supporting this key claim point a further link in the chain of his theory is that the size of genitalia is an ‘r’ selected characteristic. This is based on another unsupported assumption: large genitalia correspond to sexualpromiscuity and high reproductive rates. Neither has any supporting evidence. A similar point can be made in relation to many of Rushton’s application, of r/K selection theory: he applies it to suit his assumptions about the ranking ‘races’ in an inconsistent manner.

The whole idea of racial hierarchies has the appeal of a simple story that excuses European domination, and in doing so it echoes historic examples of scientific racism. Rushton performs a sleight of hand. He takes sources from a wide range, even giving references for some of them. He then applies such ideas to fit a pre-existing conclusion. For example, r/K selection theory sounds plausible, and readers might assume a citation to a peer review means it is accepted in that discipline. Even if that source is checked a psychologist might not be familiar with the debate in that area. Pianka’s theory has been shown to be very questionable in a number of experiments. Furthermore, Rushton is very ‘flexible’ in his application of this theory. When it comes to characteristics of ‘blacks’ he invariably interprets these as ‘r’ type, whilst ‘whites 2’ and ‘Orientals’ are always ‘K’. It is worth noting that in the paper that Pianka cited for his own evidence, the author concluded that temperate climates produce more stable environments than tropical ones, so ‘r’ (high reproduction) strategies are selected for, whilst ‘K’ (high nurturing) strategies are advantageous – a relationship that Rushton reverses to fit his own ideas!

At the same time Rushton is denying a conclusion which Darwin reached, and which has been supported by biologists ever since:  there are no ‘races’ amongst humans. This is the core assumption of his theory, but he starts from an assertion that there are ‘races’, and then moves on to applying his own version of r/K selection theory.  His evidence for ‘races’ starts from an ‘everyone knows’ basis, citing the performance of top athletes in particular sports. In doing so he conflates small phenotype differences (which can have consistent effects when performance is measured in hundredths of seconds) with genotypic differences. Space precludes me from covering the rich literature on this topic, but a good summary is contained in Fish (2002) p71. For the purposes of this article I have set aside all of this literature: Rushton dismisses it, without talking about it directly. For him it is part of a conspiracy of wishful thinkers who lack his ‘courage’ in investigating his ‘scientific’ analysis. What I hope I’ve shown is that this is just one more flawed assumption in a flawed approach.

Rushton’s work is wide ranging and any full evaluation needs to be too. I am not pretending that I have dealt with all of his evidence and analysis, though I hope I’ve dealt with two core assumptions. If there is one further point to be made it is psychologists should be well prepared if they are going to apply evolutionary concepts in the field of psychology.

Sources and further reading

Cernovsky, Z.Z. (1995). ‘On the similarities of American blacks and whites: A reply to J.P. Rushton’. Journal of Black Studies 25: 672-679. www.euvolution.com/euvolution/blackwhite.html

Darwin, Zimmer, and Waal (abridged, editor Carl Zimmer, 2007) ‘The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex Plume’.

Barkan, E (1993). ‘The retreat of scientific racism: changing concepts of race in Britain and the United States between the world wars’.

Richards, G (1997). ‘Race, racism, and psychology: towards a reflexive history Routledge, 1997’.

Fish J, (2001) ‘Race and Intelligence: Separating Science From Myth’. Lawrence Erlbaum’.

‘Myths and Realities: African Americans and the Measurement of Human Abilities’.

Sullivan, N (2003). ‘A Critical Introduction to Queer Theory.’ Edinburgh University Press, 2003.

Smedley and Smedley (2005). ‘Race as Biology Is Fiction, Racism as a Social Problem Is Real: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on the Social Construction of Race’.  www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp60116.pdf

The Journal of Negro Education Vol. 64, No.3, Summer, 1995.

Howe, M (1997). ‘IQ in question: the truth about intelligence’. SAGE.

There has been a backlash again in the progress made in regard to the use of language in the 1970s and 1980s. That progress was made when it was acknowledged that the images and words used in text books (and elsewhere) helped to shape people’s view of their world. Subsequent approaches, including courses of study, designed to take it into account, were criticised in the 1990s as ‘political correctness’, alluding to the use of this term by the political left. Ironically the political left had got there first: Jessica Mitford had mocked politically clichéd language in the 1950s* e.g. President Bush I ‘Remarks at the University of Michigan Commencement Ceremony in Ann Arbor, May 4, 1991’

* Jessica Mitford (1956) ‘Lifeitselfmanship or How to Become a Precisely-Because Man’.

We were pleased to be asked to deliver a couple of breakout events at the ATP Conference this year through which we were able to gather lots of constructive criticism about PsychExchange. On the whole teachers were very kind with their comments.

Around 80 psychology teachers attended our two discussions at the ATP Conference and provided us with some great feedback which we have been able to use to improve the site. Following on from the conference, during the latter part of August, we decided to conduct an online survey of the usefulness of PsychExchange via e-mail.

This article is therefore a summary of the feedback we have received and the resulting changes that we have been able to make to PsychExchange.  It was a relief for us that the feedback from the conference and the survey was very good regarding the usefulness of the site. For example, of the approximately 200 people who completed the online survey (by the time this article was written) over half found the site ‘very useful’. The qualitative responses were also very encouraging.

How useful have you found psychexchange?

The survey revealed that teachers are finding the downloading of resources, videos, ideas and the weekly e-mail the most useful features. From the qualitative responses we discovered that the forums, private messaging and bookmarking are rated as less useful because many teachers are not aware of how to use these features. Several teachers have requested a ‘dummies guide’ to using PsychExchange which we have developed and is now available on PsychExchange.   We were encouraged with the responses to the question on the survey which asked how likely users would be to share a resource in the future, with over 90% of respondents saying they would be likely to share in the future.

How likely are you to share a resource in the future?

An interesting finding from the survey was that even though the majority of teachers state that they are comfortable leaving comments on the site, most teachers do not. This is backed up by our user data on the site showing that 1,352 files have been uploaded compared to 1,000 comments made. The main reason given for not commenting on resources is simply forgetting to do so.  The most common criticism of the site, not surprisingly, is searching the site for the appropriate resources. In particular, finding a good resource and then not being able to relocate the same file again.  We have made a number of improvements to the site and most of these are to the profile section of the site which should help users  manage downloads more effectively. Every user now has a unique profile which can be found, once you are logged on, by clicking on the  ‘My Profile’ link in the top right-hand section of the site.

The profile page can be used rather like a Facebook-type page and importantly it keeps a record of resources, ideas etc that you have both uploaded and downloaded. For example, in your profile if you click on ‘My Bookmarks’ this will show you all of the recent files that you have
downloaded which you might want to either use again or comment on.  A great feature of the profile section is that it will save all of the resources that you bookmark, so you can use them again in the future. When you are browsing resources and you find a resource that you find useful, you can now bookmark it by clicking on the link next to the resource detail called ‘Bookmark’. You can now go into your profile, click on ‘My Bookmarks’, and you’ll find that the resource has been saved there.

There is a more detailed analysis of the survey on PsychExchange.   More importantly thanks to all of those teachers who have taken time to upload their resources, ideas and comments and have given us feedback to improve PsychExchange.

Mark Holah & Jamie Davies

Heroes are celebrated as special people. They’re different from you and me.  We see the fearless and selfless acts of famous heroes throughout history and say, ‘I couldn’t have done that. What an extraordinary person!’

It’s an interesting self-deception. The reality is that the act of heroism is extraordinary. The person performing it is more often than not perfectly ordinary. History is littered with ordinary people doing extraordinary things who become labelled as heroes. To gain this label, the ordinary person’s extraordinary act must satisfy three conditions. It must include an element of risk or sacrifice. It needs to be for the good of others without expectation of any personal gain. It has to be done willingly and deliberately.  This definition of an heroic act allows for heroes everywhere.  They’re living in your town, eating at the same restaurants as you, and sitting in your classroom. However, they’re still rare. How do we increase the incidence of heroic acts? The answer comes from Dr Phil Zimbardo – the promotion of the Heroic Imagination. By regularly thinking about heroism, discussing heroic acts, and considering situations that call for heroism, these ordinary people are more likely to perform heroic acts when called upon.

The classroom is an ideal place for nurturing the Heroic Imagination as children are more likely to accept the possibilities of everyday heroism. Adults already know everything. So here are four steps to growing heroes in your classroom.

Who is a hero?

The first business at hand is to separate the fake heroes from the real deal. The best way I’ve found to do this is simply present a series of famous people for the students to classify as hero or celebrity. You can do this visually with a T-Chart. Don’t set any definitions for either category, simply allow the students to discuss their decisions. If a consensus can’t be made, leave that person out.

The goal of this step is to get each student thinking about their own ‘hero’ definition. With their brains engaged, move onto the second step.

What makes a hero?

What differentiated the heroes from the celebrities? By reviewing the selection process your class should be able to come up with a set of attributes that seem to be required for hero status. You could have the class do it as a whole or split them up into small groups. The groups could then present their set of attributes to the rest of the class. There is ample opportunity to discuss the meanings of the words presented – many will be similar in meaning.

How can I be a hero?

Now comes the ‘ah ha!’ moment. By creating a list of attributes, students will have developed a road map to heroism. This is where you can introduce the concept of the heroic act. It is the practice of these attributes that prompt ordinary people to do the extraordinary. With their list handy, your students will be able to choose the attributes that appeal most to them and put them into practice. This deliberate behaviour is the kind of thing that develops Heroic Imagination. However, they’re going to need your help and that’s where step four comes in.

How can I keep this up?

The vital piece in the Heroic Imagination puzzle is consistent revisiting. Heroic Imagination is developed through regular exposure to heroism and consideration of heroic behaviour and situations. There are myriad ways to accomplish this in your classroom and ultimately you’re going to be the best judge of how to do it.

There are two keys to keeping it current. The first is to use the language the class developed in part two. If you embrace their words and use them to describe their own behaviour as well as acts seen in the public eye, they’re more likely to continue practising them.

The second is to develop routines. You could allocate a window of time each week for the sharing of heroic acts noticed in the media.

The class could create a hero award that is given out at the end of every week. The award could be restricted to people in the class, or perhaps to people in the community or beyond.

The important thing is to create anticipation and expectation of regular forays into heroism and its people. It is with this that you will notice Heroic Imagination come to the fore in your classroom. I’d love to hear your stories.

Matt Langdon

http://theheroconstructioncompany.com.

Zim writes about heroism;

www.lucifereffect.org/heroism.htm

Zim talks about it;

www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html

A survey at;

http://heroworkshop.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/new-zimbardoresearch-a-survey/

Media texts can be some of the more influential tools we have at our disposal as teachers. In this article, I am going to suggest ways in which you may choose to harness media texts for your teaching purposes, without getting side-tracked by students losing interest or them missing the bigger picture.

So let’s try this together.
Think of a film. What about a romantic comedy? You would all know what I was talking about, correct? Something with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, Hugh Grant, Matthew McConaughey, Kate Hudson.  Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. Easy right? You know the drill.

So if I was to say to you that I wanted to talk to you about a point in my life when I lived through that exact scenario, you could understand what I was talking about because you would associate it with that experience of your own, the time you watched when Harry met Sally for example. It’s the same process for your students.  Through the use of the right media clip, we can directly reinforce and create a link for students to think back on and remember.  It is because of this that I find it odd that so many subject areas struggle with the use of media within their teaching practice. Now I’m not arguing that you have to relate each topic to a student’s very own favourite film, you could however make certain generalisations.

One of the biggest problems with the use of film or media in lessons is its perceived irresponsibility. Too often in the past, tutors have been guilty of just sticking on any old film for students to watch in order to keep them quiet. I myself had this treatment every Monday morning when rather than deliver tutorial, our school tutor would stick a film on, which I can only assume would allow him time to recover from the weekend. I still remember more about those films than I do about the actual lessons he delivered.

There are key things to remember when utilising media examples in session:

• Relevance
• Length
• Obscurity
• Effectiveness
• Genre

Some of these are fairly self-explanatory, relevance obviously refers to the actual usefulness of the piece. Showing your students Freud : The Secret Passion (1962 dir. John Huston) is unlikely to truly teach your students much useful about the practices of the man. Showing One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (1975 dir. Milo, Forman) however, as an indication of how mental health was dealt with in the past could well be of use. Effectiveness is next, and I hate to say it, but quite often shocking your students will be most effective. Again  using One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest as an example, the fact of the matter is One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest works both as a film and as a teaching tool due to its shocking end, especially now when students are used to the ‘Hollywood’ happy ending. Taking students out of their comfort zone can sometimes be a good thing. Obscurity is a fairly similar idea to effectiveness in this context. If you screen a piece of work to students that they have already seen or is a huge blockbuster, they are less likely to actually take in the educational value of it and just watch it for the sake of  entertainment, which is of course not the point of this. An example of this might be to utilise Scum or Romper Stomper as examples of anti-social behaviour as opposed to say the more commercially known Green Street or Football Factory. Having said that, don’t necessarily discount something just because it’s huge, just ask yourself first, “Will my students benefit from this?”.

Tying in with this is genre, comedy can be tremendously effective; allowing students the opportunity to learn and simultaneously enjoy themselves should not be discouraged. Unfortunately though, most comedy films will lead to students merely listening to the jokes and forgoing the point. This can be said for horror also as when in larger groups, students can have a tendency to giggle or laugh when nervously watching a horror film. This can also lead to them missing the point.

The last point here is possibly the most important, Length. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT feel that you always have to show an entire film.  The fact of the matter is, if you are trying to get a point across using film, you may be able to do it with a simple scene or two. It is not necessarily important that students follow the plot or get to see the ending. The fact is, if they are that bothered about seeing the ending, they will seek the film out themselves.

Just utilise what is most important. Sometimes it is important you stop yourself from showing the whole film (who amongst us has never been tempted to watch a film and forgo teaching for an hour or two?).

Also remember that film can be a tremendously powerful tool and can help to break up some of the drier portions of a session. I am yet to find a subject matter that I cannot illuminate in some way for students by using a piece of film footage.

Chris Hallam – Media teacher at Confetti Institute of Creative
Technologies, Nottingham

DEBRIEFING MEANS never having to say you’re sorry?

Debriefing – Following the research, especially where any deception or withholding of information had taken place, the committee wishes to emphasise the importance of appropriate debriefing. In some circumstances, the verbal description of the nature of the investigation would not be sufficient to eliminate all possibility of harmful after-effects. For example, an experiment in which negative mood was induced requires the induction of a happy mood state before the participant leaves the experimental setting.

BPS Guidelines, 23-7-2009.

Love means never having to say you’re sorry.
Ali McGraw to Ryan O’Neal in the movie Love Story 1970.

As a newbie in the teaching world of psychology (three years) but not a newbie in life (just coming up to 50) I have been interested in the nature some issues are dealt with by some much more experienced teachers and lecturers than I. Recently, at an excellent OCR conference, I heard a Professor discussing memory and mentioning her use of implanting false memories in her psychological research, its usefulness to her and its wider acceptance in the field. She said it was all ethical and fine in her research as everyone had been debriefed so that was OK, but is it OK? As background she mentioned `the mousetrap experiment` as an example of how introduced memory in children can surface later in life and be confused with actual memory. I had never heard of this experiment so did a bit of digging around in the arena of false memory.

My issue, in the area of memory and debrief, is that I say to students that debrief is used to respect the participants ‘wish to’ understand what has happened, but I often forget to add that this does not mean the participants should accept our explanation especially if they, for the good of science, have been deceived. If I can deceive them in small things, how do they know that I am not deceiving them in larger things, does offering a debrief circumvent our saying sorry when we have deliberately changed a person’s view of events, who are we to say what is harmless and what is not?

Understanding of the BPS ethical guidelines is drummed into our A level students from day one and we try to get them to see the importance of being open and honest and professional with each other and with themselves about the nature of their work, research interests, and how what they know can affect who they know. Brandishing newly acquired social skills through a study of psychology still makes those with only a cursory knowledge of the subject a little nervous, and I always advise care when students start to discuss what they have learnt with family and peers. No we can’t read minds, but we can have a jolly good go at it when no-one is looking!

Knowing something gives us an advantage, from how to change a tyre to how to read reactions, with knowledge comes understanding and hopefully responsibility. I have now expanded the teaching of ethics in the new spec (OCR 2009/10) to include all nine ethical aspects rather that the five I used to use in the first two years of my career. (Informed consent – Deception – Debriefing – Right to withdraw – Protection of participants, now adding Confidentiality – Observational research- Giving advice – Colleagues.) I had always inferred the extra four (adding Confidentiality – Observational research – Giving advice – Colleagues) but from this year enshrined them from week one in AS methodology classes with the eager Year 12s.

But back to my original idea – the BPS argument quoted above reinforces the idea that a participant should leave an experiment in the same emotional state that they enter it, but specifically emphasise the negative. In August I had the good fortune to visit Boston Massachusetts, taking a day trip to Harvard University. The square outside the walls of the grand college was crowded with tourists, hawkers and students offering free tours whilst standing next to a large placard which informed the curious that ‘students live on tips so please be generous’. I hurried through the crowd but heard two students shout ‘be part of a psychology experiment’. It had a ‘roll up…, roll up!’ kind of carnival feel about it so I volunteered. I had to imagine a happy incident in my life then turn the page over and answer questions. I did so using a rating scale, which they insisted was a Likert scale but was not (not so clever there then) and then I gave back the form. They thanked me and carried on touting for business. I asked for a de-brief and they were very apologetic about not having offered it, scolding themselves that in future they would. I felt very smug that I had caught them out in a little methodological gaff, apparently 27,000 people apply to Harvard every year and only 7% get accepted, my kids are cleverer than I thought because they know to debrief at 17. So the experiment used my subjective memory of a happy incident then tried to find out if my positive frame of mind would alter the ratings I gave. I wasn’t harmed obviously, but if the experiment was designed to change my mood then according to BPS the debrief should be applicable regardless of the positive nature of the outcome. I know guidelines are as diverse as the countries which try to enforce them and that memory is subjective so I made a mental note to think about both on my return to the UK.

The nature of memory, like my happy memory in Harvard Yard, is debated endlessly in psychology textbooks and papers. Elizabeth Loftus is a big name in OCR study and in her book ‘The Myth of Repressed Memory’ she continues her quest to help the world understand how vulnerable and open to change our precious memories are and her belief that repressed memory is an illusion, thus saying goodbye forever to daddy Freud, and throwing doubt on acres of court testimony in sexual abuse cases, a subject in which Loftus often appears as an expert witness. The consequences of her belief make her as unpopular with some groups as she is popular with others, leaving not much room for fence sitting. If you believe in repressed memory and the ability for therapy to uncover secrets then she is a demon, if you feel that memory archaeology is a playground for those who wish to influence and implant memories then she is an angel with an unpalatable message. I believe she sees the therapeutic process in recovering memories as a form of informative debrief where memories are induced in an effort to give the patient some kind of understanding as to the process they have been involved in but previously were deceived by, but in this process the memories can be manipulated and moulded. Loftus may see this as well meaning but dangerous and of no benefit to the patient regardless of how important the therapist says the recovering of repressed abuse is to the patient’s recovery and health.

Nigel Hunt in his article ‘Debriefing children and Young People’ (lost the reference but its page 59 when I find it) writes about the use of PD (psychological debriefing) when it comes to helping children and young people deal with traumatic events in their life to prevent the onset of PTSD. Offering help and talking things through is examined from a clinical perspective and concludes that much of the evidence of success is anecdotal but surrounding evidence about children and trauma generally more abundant. This surrounding evidence is often more peer assessed giving greater credibility to the psychological interventionist approach when it comes to helping children deal with trauma.

He discusses the fine line between revealing too much to a child during an intervention which could harm their own internal acceptance and healing process and withholding to protect which could lead to later trust issues when the child realizes they were further deceived, even for all the right reasons. Revealing truth has its own ethical dilemmas, but then if all that is left is memory of the events with no corroborating forensic evidence then whose truth is the most truthful?

I expect that debriefing is seen as a powerful tool in somehow healing up the mistrust between any participant and experimenter, saying that something was in fact a little white lie or a ruse is a way of saying sorry and being up front, hopefully this is supposed to heal the rift of mistrust however minor the deception was.

Elizabeth Loftus too used false memories in her own research ‘Loftus and colleagues’ (Loftus 1993, Loftus and Ketcham 1994, Loftus and Pickrell 1995) demonstrated that people can be led to integrate into their personal histories an entirely fabricated event.  Over the course of several interviews that involved using a subject’s family member as a confederate, subjects were led to believe that they had been lost in a shopping mall when they were young children.’ (Lynn p138)

Is this acceptable psychological experimental method to test the reliability of memory as practised by such luminaries as Elizabeth Loftus when she in turn rails against the claims of repressed memory therapists who in their memory recovery work claim validity to abuse memories, long buried, from clients whose perpetrators profess innocence? Both seem to have similar aims, to prove that memory is vitally important in the human experience but for different ends, one that it is fallible, the other that it is a storehouse of the too terrible to live with. Both sides claim they are right, perhaps someone could debrief me and tell me which side to believe more.

Research into adults who had had false memories implanted as children was carried out by Huffman, Crossman and Cessi in 1996, corroborated some years later, stated that out of 22 children who had been part of an experiment about an angry child called Sam Stone (Leichtman & Ceci 1995) that anything from 13-33% of the participants remembered the fabrications as truth. So when implanting memories in children, or adults for that matter, even if we give an in-depth debrief, we still leave a shadow on the memory in the participant. The Mousetrap study which I mentioned earlier (Ceci, Huffman, Smith and Loftus 1994) introduced a story of a child getting his/her fingers caught in a mousetrap, which never happened. I could not find much data about this so some of you may have more. Some children remembered it as real when questioned and the same children were later interviewed in a follow-up study several weeks later (20/20 interview with John Stossel 1994). A child still ascertained the mousetrap and, by inference, the pain was real. These studies are often quoted when the credibility of child witnesses is challenged, can children be relied upon, and for that matter can an adult of be relied upon? Lauren Slater in her excellent book ‘Inside Skinners Box’ challenges Loftus’s idea of all memory being completely fallible saying that it seems to turn us all into subjective witnesses to events which have no common heritage, each of us sees everything as a personal experience and none of it could be true. She thinks that is depressing, which I suppose it is. Slater also writes with feeling about the participants in the original Milgram experiment kids all know and love and traced some of them. Even though they were all debriefed, the events had a traumatic effect on many of their lives changing forever their view of themselves and their capacity to be compliant in the face of authority; debrief was given but no-one said sorry. Loftus comes through continuing to state the claim that courts which decide life or death for murderers still rely on eye-witness testimony and faulty memory to make their decisions, so her quest continues.

Finally an article in the ‘The Guardian’ of 2003 called ‘We can implant entirely false memories’ begins with a story where Elizabeth Loftus convinces Alan Alda (actor Hawkeye of MASH fame) that he dislikes hard boiled eggs because he made himself vomit on them as a child. The article talks of suggestibility and how plausibility improves the chances of accepting a story is true, such as kids and bullying, being lost in a shopping centre, both socially regular occurrences in western society. If it happened to someone you know then it could have happened to you too. The Welcome Institute proved that emotionally charged words such as ‘murder’ and ‘scream’ were more easily remembered than more neutral words in their testing of a memory assisting beta blocker drug called Propranolol. So I return to my original issue, debriefing.  Telling a child they were hurt by a mouse trap seems innocuous, it is not a life-threatening event but if you are three years old it’s quite a biggie. If this is acceptable then great care is needed. The professor I met at the OCR conference changed the process to include a false memory of a pleasant event, which was also successful, so perhaps time has mellowed the American research programme, but still, for me, it feels a little uncomfortable to do this with children. These memory altered children grow up and then you could let your conspiracy theory Hollywood movie mind go wild and wonder if our deliberate interference might have a butterfly effect creating super hero type monsters…and then…and then…but perhaps I am being too dramatic.

Mark Judge Head of Psychology Dept, the Leventhorpe School, Sawbridgeworth

m.judge@leventhorpe.herts.sch.uk

References

Truth in Memory 2004 Lynn.s McConckey.
K Blackwell London 2004

The Myth of Repressed Memory
Dr Elizabeth Loftus & Katherine Ketcham 1994
St Martins Press New York USA

Expert witness directory
Publisher – Erlbaum associates

The Guardian Online
Guardian.co.uk
We can implant entirely false memories 4th Dec 2003 downloaded 23/7/9

Skinners Box
by Lauren Slater

Watch any of the current crop of TV ‘forensics’ shows such as CSI and Waking the Dead and you would be forgiven for thinking that the solving of crime is just a matter of making startling conclusions based on convenient scraps of evidence and interviews with made-to-order suspects.

HOWEVER, THE REAL-LIFE WORLD OF FORENSICS is a great deal more complex than its sexy TV counterparts would have us believe. It is a world which calls upon the expertise of a myriad of disciplines – psychology, pathology, serology, psychiatry, toxicology and ballistics – and one in which interest is growing rapidly within the educational world.

Delving into this world, an appearance at the 2009 Association for Teachers of Psychology (ATP) Annual Conference at Exeter University, saw OCR working with two leading forensic practitioners- Brian Hook and Clive Donner – as they launched their new GCSE Psychology specification.

Considered to be the highlight of the conference, Brian and Clive’s Psychology based workshops provided a fascinating insight into the techniques employed in forensic investigation – what constitutes a crime scene, how a crime scene is examined, how prints are identified and preserved, the interpretation of witness statements and the importance of fibre comparison.

Although forensic science is a versatile and powerful tool in the investigation of a crime, science alone is not enough. To be successful, forensic techniques must be utilised along with the knowledge and experience of detectives, uniformed police, and civilian experts. Following the event, OCR News met with Brian and Clive – known professionally as CSI4U and regular consultants to the emergency response agencies in Europe and many other parts of the world – to discuss the world of forensics.

CSI on TV – help or hindrance
So working with a name such as CSI4U, do Brian and Clive consider the existence of TV shows such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and the like to be a help or hindrance as they strive to introduce forensics to a new audience? Brian: “We often ask our fellow professionals and the teachers and students that we train if they watch CSI and the answer is that almost everyone does. People have always been intrigued by crime-solving fiction, their detection, criminals and their motives. CSI-type programmes have gone to a higher level, it’s not a ‘who dunnit’ but a ‘how we can prove they dunnit’.” The vast majority of people realise it’s an entertainment show; it’s the subject matter that is fascinating and enigmatic. The show makes people think. It’s raised the profile of Crime Scene Examination and Management greatly and for that we are grateful and in general people realise that the content, examination results and circumstances are shortened to fit into the time parameters. Hopefully one day we may be able to actually get results in the same time scale.”

Background and experience
Whilst pondering the future of forensics, Brian turns back the clock to the years of learning his trade. “I was a police officer in the Metropolitan Police for 30 years,” says Brian as he references an impressive CV. “Over half of that I spent on specialist units: homicide teams, murder as it was called in the old days; the Racial and Violent Crime Taskforce and the Anti-Terrorist Branch. In all those specialist roles I was involved in forensic examination of crime scenes, forensic management of crime scenes, lecturing and training to other agencies outside the police service and also within the police services, nationally and abroad. Most uniformed officers have a multitude of jobs to do. So it’s about knowledge, it’s about training and so early on I embarked, on behalf of senior officers, to spread the message – if people haven’t got that knowledge, go out and give it to them. As Clive can attest, nobody can possess all the knowledge, you can’t have it all, all you can do is pass on as much as you possibly can.”

Consultancy to education
So having established an impressive track record with the Metropolitan Police and as a forensics consultant, how did the move into the educational world come about? Brian: “I was approached by Thames Valley University to look at their Forensic Degree course, and at this time, Clive and I were also involved in training other agencies around the world. It was pointed out to us that what we were doing training-wise would actually be a very good platform for team-building and so we took part in an open day and as a result we got a phone call from a high school in Sussex asking us to go along and speak to them. It kind of ballooned from there really.”

Approach
With the move into the world of education underway, how much distinction was made in the approach to the teaching of forensics to fellow professionals as opposed to teachers and students? Brian: “Having lectured extensively in the UK and overseas to both groups I think the difference is not as big as some may imagine. One of our maxims is ‘Training as Real as It Gets’. We endeavour to make it just that. Both groups tend to have some general idea of forensic issues but the professionals, law enforcement. The main difference is the professionals are put under far more pressure and levels of scrutiny than teachers or students ever would be. If teachers or students then progress and themselves and enter the professional arena, that’s when they will come up against that level. We keep lectures to the minimal time as possible. The best way to learn is to bring together all the strands of knowledge in a practical hands-on way and involve students or delegates. Benjamin Franklin said: ‘Tell me and I will forget. Teach me and I will learn. Involve me and I will remember.’ So we involve them.”

Working with OCR
The ATP Conference saw Brian and Clive’s first association with OCR as they helped launch its new GCSE Psychology specification using a series of practical and theoretical activities entitled The Wonder of Forensic Psychology. “We were tasked with bringing out the psychological profiling and the psychological aspects of forensics so the first thing we did was to look at the definition of psychology,” remembers Clive. “We quickly realised that whilst they might have a good broad knowledge of psychology, they actually probably, other than CSI on TV, didn’t know a lot about forensics. So, the first thing we did was raise their level of forensics knowledge: what is it, how is it done, and why is it done? What are our capabilities and also what are our limitations?” After establishing a theoretical base, practical activities for delegates included the chance to make a photo-fit using actual Police software and the opportunity to guess ‘Who Dunnit’ following a robbery. Explains Brian: “We created a crime scene scenario – the theft of a valuable cup from Walkham Hall country house – which was broken down into different disciplines – physical exhibits, witness statements, E-fits and finger-print evidence. We injected clues so delegates would have to work out the significance to certain things. The answers were there for the teachers and students, but the whole purpose was for them to look at all the different aspects and to use their critical thinking to solve the crime.” “I think the crucial thing is that we recognise that all this has to be a positive experience. It’s no good it being otherwise. We want these activities to be informative and fun,” added Clive.

Moving forward
Flushed with their success at the ATP Conference, Brian and Clive are in [no] doubt as to the wisdom of teaching forensics and the benefits it brings to students and teachers as well as to themselves.  “To be a successful forensic psychologist you must have a firm understanding and knowledge of what drives an investigation and how the examination of a crime scene is done. Passing on the knowledge, experience and comprehension of scene examination and management forensics still excites us,“ affirms Brian. Equally enthused, Clive says: “To be able to pass that on to others with the same passion or to see that passion being woken is a magnificent feeling. I always had a thirst for knowledge and the one thing about what we do is you never stop learning.”

As to the way ahead, the course appears clear. “Clive and I have become more and more involved in the educational world and it’s obvious there is a need for our skills, knowledge and ability. We can impact on a variety of subjects where forensic knowledge is required either directly or because it forms a part of a broader knowledge base. I think that we and OCR complement each other and I believe hat working together in the future would be mutually beneficial.”

Catching the Ripper
Given the modern forensic science techniques available today, would such expertise have caught the perpetrator of the most famous of unsolved crimes – those of the Whitechapel Murderer himself, Jack the Ripper? “Most likely” is Brian’s answer. If the current methods and procedures had been in place we would like to think that they, or those responsible, would have been caught and convicted. The application of the disciplines of crime scene preservation and control and the continuity and integrity of the recovered forensic evidence would mean the evidence would provide much more information and intelligence about the suspect(s).” Although five murders are generally attributed to ‘Jack’, there were a total of 11 murders investigated between 1888 and 1891. “I know that the witness statements are no longer in existence, but the coroner’s inquest was widely reported and a lot of the testimony from private and police was reported verbatim so partial records do exist. So it would have been interesting to not only look at them forensically, but to also apply the current psychological profiling methods to the scenes, witnesses and potential suspects to enhance and focus the investigation.”

DURING MY PGCE YEAR AT MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN the importance of active learning in the classroom has been heavily stressed both whilst on placement and during my time in lectures at University. Even at the stage of an NQT (as I am now), the sinking sensation that comes with having to teach a particularly arduous topic, for which active learning strategies are scarce, has struck me
on many occasions. Hopefully the following activities can provide effective methods in the teaching of various topics which can be adapted to cross all specifications.

ACTIVITY ONE – Philosophy for Children
This activity is great for encouraging the development of personal learning and thinking skills as well as improving skills in debating. It also encourages all students, including those who may be generally less vocal, to express personal views in a respectful and civilised environment.

Step One: Find an article of a controversial nature. Examples of which could be: ‘Does childcare have negative implications for a child’s development?’

The students then read the article, after which the teacher instructs students that they must all individually generate a point of discussion raised through the article’s content. For example, from the above topic, a question that may be generated may be: ‘Why are children put into childcare in the first place?’

Step Two: Once the article has been read, the students are given time to consider points for discussion and must then express them to the class teacher. The contributions of all students are written on the whiteboard. Students must then all vote for the point of discussion that most interests them, or that they think would generate the richest debate. After the vote has been completed, they must then each give their personal view on the elected point. At this stage it is vital to discuss the importance of ground rules.

Important to note: The article has been selected on its merits of being controversial, as it is more likely to evoke reaction from students who may well not be used to expressing their personal opinions in front of their peers. The other edge of the sword is that it may generate controversial views that certain students may object to. Students should be made aware that when a student is vocally contributing to the debate, no other member of the class can interject whilst they are speaking. It may be useful to use a board pen that is passed round the class and only the student with the board pen can speak at any one time.

It may well be that the debate shifts focus as each member contributes, but this should be seen as enriching the discussion as opposed to losing focus. This activity also promotes a stretch and challenge theme of learning.

ACTIVITY TWO – Revision Activity
This activity is particularly effective due to its fast-paced nature. The teacher I picked this up from said she used it to good effect towards the end of term, leading up to exams. Depending upon the number of students in the class, it can be done as an individual activity or in groups of any size.

Step One: Give each student (or group) a piece of sugar paper with a heading related to a previously learnt topic and a marker pen. Each group is then given 1-2 minutes to brainstorm all that they know on that particular topic.

Once this time is up, the pieces of sugar paper are rotated around the class.

Step Two: Students or groups should then be given a short period of time to read the contribution of the previous group(s) before they themselves must contribute to the sheet of paper. This continues until all students or groups have contributed to all pieces of sugar paper, with their respective topic headings. Once all headings have been covered by all groups, the resulting pieces of sugar paper should then contain a great deal of information relating to their topic. These revision notes can then be reduced to an A4 booklet for the students to use as a revision aid.

An alternative to passing the pieces of sugar paper from group to group is to keep each piece of sugar paper on one table and each student or group can then move from table to table contributing to the respective heading. This serves as a means of getting students moving and can be particularly effective if concentration levels are low.

George Bannister, Manchester Metropolitan University and Ashton-Under-Lyne Sixth Form College

Help with OFSTED

Jamie very kindly let us include this for the newsletter. OFSTED is still seen and felt as a cause of great stress, and Jamie’s experience shows that we could manage inspections of lessons well by knowing what OFSTED wants to see. But her last sentence is critical; keep paperwork up-to-date as that, apparently, is what education is about.*

Just a note re OFSTED – we got done last year and were rated highly- the school also got in an OFSTED professional to coach us on what OFSTED were looking for – they said to be careful not to be too teacher-led because OFSTED really wants to see the students interacting, self-learning and asking and answering questions – it’s all about engagement (and AFL) – so the more the students are doing and the less the teacher is doing the better! With that in mind, here are a couple of tried and tested suggestions:

Suggestion 1

Start off by showing the brain song (Pinky and the brain) found on U-tube, search brain song.

Sperry study: use the psychologystuff.com building a brain out of toilet paper (very good for the kinaesthetic learners). If you can’t find it e-mail me direct and I’ll send you a break-down, then clips found on U-tube – (there’s a particularly good Alan Alda clip), this helps the visual learners.

Dement – do this study by making posters in small groups – no more than 10 words allowed – it has to be primarily pictorial (works really well as they can cut and stick on the bed and the electrocculogram and the EEG, put in a bell etc) – this is also good for kinaesthetic learners and demonstrates transformation of information. Then each group presents their poster back to the class with Q and A from students about their poster.

Suggestion 2

If you want something OFSTED-friendly for the A2 why not try market place – it’s a great activity and the students love it!

Divide the students into three groups – each group has one of the areas/sections you want covered – one group would have the study, another would have the background theory, another would have the implications. Provide notes and text books – then each group has about 20 mins to put together a crib sheet (they may only use 10 words but as many pictures as they like), then one person stays behind as the ‘seller’, the other two go off to a different group each as a ‘buyer’. The seller tells their two buyers all about their area for about 15 mins. The buyers then go back to their groups and tell them the information they have got – so each group ends up with all three areas of information, teacher going round scaffolding and extending where appropriate. Then do class Q and A for review (with students posing the questions and answering), before final summary note-taking. Obviously you have to adapt depending on how many students are in your group.

Hope this helps and remember – they’ll spend more time looking at your paperwork than your lessons!

Jamie Hack
jamiehack@hotmail.com

*The quotes in this article are those of Evie Bentley and do not necessarily represent those of the ATP