Category: Resources

‘Psychology and Crime (Second Edition)’ Out Now

Back in 2002, David Putwain and I wrote a short book called ‘Psychology and Crime’ for the Routledge Modular Psychology series. It sold quite well for a book of this sort (in excess of 10,000 copies, apparently). A year or so ago, Routledge approached me asking whether I wanted to update it. I was looking for a project to help me recover from heart surgery and a stroke so I took it on. I even managed to convince David to contribute a chapter, despite his being very busy as an expert on examination anxiety.

The result is Psychology and Crime (Second Edition), which is out now, published by Routledge. It’s a concise introduction to the field of criminological psychology covering the nature and measurement of crime and victimisation, theoretical explanations, police investigations, courtroom processes, punishment and rehabilitation and critical perspectives on crime and criminological research. If you’re looking for an introductory textbook it’s worth a look. Available from Routledge, and the usual stockists including Amazon.

Sammons, A. & Putwain, D. (2018). Psychology and Crime (Second Edition). London: Routledge.

Resources: lessons on reconstructive memory

Here are some resources for teaching reconstructive memory.  There are some lesson plans, three slideshows, one for the theory, one for a jigsaw activity and one on evaluation and writing.  There is also an associated paper quiz, an application scenario, the jigsaw materials and a Socrative quiz on reconstructive memory.

Resources: theories of long-term memory

Here are two lessons on theories of long term memory, covering the distinctions between episodic, semantic and procedural memories, associated research studies and critical issues. The first has a slideshow on the key concepts, accompanied by a classification task and a comparison table to complete. The second has a slideshow on critical issues and a reading on clinical case studies of episodic, semantic and procedural memories. An irrelevant case has been added to the reading so that the students get practice at deciding whether evidence is relevant to an issue or not. There is also a Socrative quiz on theories of LTM.

Resources: research methods and statistics questions

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Here are some practice questions for research methods and statistics because, frankly, you can never have too many of them. I’ve written them to foreground the need to (1) calculate tests; and (2) refer to the contextual material in answers because these are key requirements of the Edexcel specification for RMS. However, they should be useful to pretty much anyone.

 

 

Resources: biopsychology revision summaries

Kim J, Matthews NL, Park S. Wikimedia Commons.

Here are some brief revision summaries for Edexcel bio-psychology topics (but probably useful to others). They cover: drugs and the brain, evolution and aggression, genes and aggression, brain structure and aggression and hormones and aggression.

Resources: evaluating the working memory model

Here’s a jigsaw activity for developing students’ evaluations of the working memory model. It’s designed for four ‘expert’ groups and three or four ‘jigsaw’ groups and covers (1) experimental support; (2) support from studies of the brain; (3) practical applications; (4) limitations of the model. There’s a set of working memory jigsaw stimuli and a slideshow with a couple of recall/application exercises tagged on at the end.

Resources: research methods and statistics

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Here are a couple of bits for teaching elements of research methods and statistics. There’s an exercise on test choice and justification and two sets of stimulus-based methods questions: RMS question 1; RMS question 2.

Resources: working memory

Here are a couple of bits for teaching Baddeley & Hitch’s (1974) working memory model. There’s a slideshow, a set of application tasks to help students understand the distinction between the different components and the idea of processing conflicts in WM, and a summary of some relevant research studies with space for students to comment/interpret.

Resources: synoptic topics (science, reductionism, ethics, socially sensitive research).

Here are some things I’ve made for teaching synoptic issues recently. There’s an Edexcel bias, so YMMV. There’s an example essay on ethical issues, and another essay on socially sensitive research. There’s also a reading on the features of a scientific approach, a comparison table focused on the features of the scientific approach, a slideshow on reductionism (with activities) and an accompanying reading on philosophical reductionism.

Resources: research methods and statistics questions

Here are some scenario based questions on research methods and statistics.  There’s one on experiments and tests of difference and one on correlational designs and tests.  Example answers are included at the end.