Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Psychology’ Category

Channel 4’s series Child Genius gives an interesting behind the scenes look at how parents prepare their children for the Child Genius competition.

Taken as read is that all the children involved have above average ability or at least if you didn’t see the behind the scenes work you would assume that was the case. However, it’s far from clear cut given the sheer quantity of work that some of their parents put into their children. With the level of work that some of the parents have been putting in, even an average child could be expected to perform quite well.

For example, take the spelling tests. Yes, it will certainly help to have a great memory, but in reality a lot of the spelling of the words comes down to rote learning of the “big words” in the dictionary. Moreover, you can concentrate on those words with irregular spellings as those following the rules are easy to spell. Granted, it would be quite a boring task to learn those words in isolation but it doesn’t require a genius to do it nor is it necessarily a test of genius to do it.

The maths tests surely require genius, don’t they? Well, if they were maths, they might do but they aren’t maths – they are purely arithmetical tests. Therefore, genius isn’t required. What is required, in some cases, is an ability to calculate quickly in one’s head which is a combination of practice and knowledge of the various tricks to simplify calculations.

Surely it’s clear that, say, the pianist is a genius? Well, no, that’s not clear either. What is clear is that he’s put an awful lot of time into practising his music but it’s not clear that an average child couldn’t do the same if they devoted a similar amount of time to the task.

However, the craziest parents are the two psychologists who seem to be devoting their lives to two to one extremely intensive tutoring. On the assumption that the psychological methods they are using actually work, then applying them at that intensity to pretty much any child would easily get them into the competition. Their tutoring appears to be so intense that it raises the question as to whether their daughter would be able to cope in a normal teaching environment.

They won’t be restarting until 2016 but at least there is now light at the end of the tunnel.

At present they’re planning three:

1. MSc Contemporary Psychological Studies;
2. MSc in Forensic Psychological Studies; and
3. MSc in Criminological Studies.

Which isn’t a bad start and and complements some of their psychology undergraduate degrees though the social psychology and counselling undergraduate degrees don’t currently have a corresponding masters.

No details on pricing as yet but presumably they will be around the £4800 mark of the science masters.

A major downside is that they are not currently planning on having the degrees accedited. Although for BPS recognition as GBC, you only need to have done one accredited degree, for a range of psychology professions you would need to have an accredited masters as well so it would be best to check the requirements of the profession that you ultimately intend to use the degree for before signing up.

The other downside, for the OU, is that in their absence a range of other institutions have produced distance learning courses to address the gap in provision. So, for example, you can do the accredited MSc in Health Psychology from the University of Ulster for around £4000 (ie probably cheaper than the OU).

I’m debating with myself what to do education-wise as from October next year at the moment. Yes, I know, it seems a long time off, but some of the things I’m looking at take a lot of preparation time.

What I’m doing this year is fine: first I’m finishing off my life sciences degree, then I’m going to top-up my other degree to the point where I’d be able to claim it. That means the Infectious Disease and Public Health course now, Childhood studies and child psychology next October and Chemical change and environmental applications May next year. After that, the second degree can be parked as it will have enough points to let me claim it but I don’t need to and can add to it later.

If I could find a way of funding it (and the family), I’d probably go for the Molecular Biology and Biotechnology masters full-time at Queen’s but, so far, the funding of the family has knocked that on the head. Other options in that line are possible part-time, or rather distance learning, such as the Structural Molecular Biology at Birkbeck but I’d really like to do the Queen’s one if I can. Related to that there’s the Medicinal Chemistry masters at the OU which is just over the fence from molecular biology though I’d like to have a look at the course texts before committing to that.

Option 2 is to carry on and complete the psychology degree which would take three or four years at a sensible pace.

What I’ve been doing for both the biology and psychology options in the meantime is to go along to all the free presentations that I can find. So far, that’s largely been in the psychology line as they seem to have heaps of essentially day schools as well as standalone lectures. The day schools are largely psychology careers events, each looking at a field in psychology. The clinical psychology one a few months back put me right off that as it would take at least 10 years full-time to get anywhere but the health psychology one this week seemed to offer the possibility of getting somewhere interesting in a much shorter time and with an interesting journey along the way too.

For the biology, there aren’t nearly so many around, basically because there aren’t so many biologists. That said, they run day trips on a biology theme every month or two locally and Queen’s do what are essentially molecular biology seminars now and again too. Molecular biology is a bit of a peculiar subject lying close to but different from medicinal chemistry so you can find talks being done by biology people, medical people and the cancer group who seem to lay in the middle.

Finishing the Life Sciences degree means that I’ve a number of quite different options at this point. To add flexibility to my future plans, first off I’m going to top-up my “miscellaneous interesting courses” degree to the point where I can claim it and thereby avoid losing the points should I not get to fully complete it by 2019. I have several options for doing this which basically involve doing one course in October 2014 and another in 2015. At the moment, I’m planning on October E102 Introduction to childhood studies and child psychology, the new 60 pointer that would restart my psychology degree that’s been on hold since I got going with the life sciences. For the 2015 slot, there’s really only S345 Chemical change and environmental applications as it fills the 20 point hole that stops me from claiming the degree.

As a side-line, I’m also planning on gradually increasing the number of courses within the miscellaneous degree with November S283 Planetary science and the search for life,  the second 30 pointer for my Certificate in Astronomy and Planetary Science, being the top of my short list, though I have several 10 and 15 pointers in my sights too, notably S155 Scientific Investigations (on its final run this year) and D171 Counselling. Further down the road is A326 Empires: 1492-1975, the 60 point follow-on from the World Archaeology course that I did a few years back and A200 Medieval to modern history with the Creative Arts degree from the OU’s sister university, the Open College of the Arts remaining in my thoughts.

That done, the following year I’d really like to get going on the masters where I’m looking at:

• Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at Queen’s, one year full-time or two part-time;
• Structural Molecular Biology at Birkbeck, two or three years distance learning;
• Molecular Biology at Staffordshire, two years distance learning but with two summer schools; or
• Medicinal Chemistry with the OU, three or four years distance learning

The “only” problem with the masters is that I’ve not, yet, worked out how to fit it in with real-life.

The problem with the physics course is that it’s not really one that is suitable for doing all by itself. The pre-requisites for it are both the introductory science course (S104) and the maths essentials courses (MST124 and MST125). That said, I’ve got a copy of the predecessor to the current introductory science course and I’ve previously done maths at university (rather a long time ago).

However, what really knocked it out for me is that, at some stage, I’d like to do the maths and physics degree and I think that it would be better to do that as a unit from start to finish which I can’t do at the moment, so it’s on hold for a while.

Which leaves the child psychology course as my main contender for October. This has the advantage that it’s another step forward for my psychology degree and it’s got an EMA so shouldn’t clash too much with S345 that starts in May and has a TMA in early June.

In addition to that I’m thinking of the science investigation course (S155) which is an essential if I wanted to do another science degree and which disappears into a 30 pointer after this year.