Final exam was absolutely bonkers. Very, very bizarre unit. Memorise EVERYTHING. Not just the concepts themselves... but things like "what anecdote/joke did the lecturer use when he was explaining X concept". Not even kidding, they will ask you stuff like that. I got an HD but only because I put all of the lectures on my phone and listened to them around the house on repeat and memorised every tiny little comment that he made. NO DETAIL IS TOO SMALL. What picture did he use on the slide? What celebrity was mentioned? What colour shirt was the lecturer wearing? (I'm kidding about that last one but it's seriously not far from the truth).

What a surprise, another 1 star review for this subject. WHERE DO I EVEN BEGIN!? First things first: this subject is an absolute mess! It's a subject that doesn't even know what it wants to be! The lectures for each week have no coherency at all! One week is on the effects of media. The other on aggression. The next on psychological literacy. The next on APHRA guidelines. WHAT THE HELL MQU UNI? To top it off, the lectures are not even engaging! It's literally Wayne trying to persuade you of things he thinks is important. He tries to convince you that his side is the right side, despite covering very controversial topics e.g does media cause violence. On one line, he says 'you need to make your own judgement' and the text he says 'the evidence continually says media causes violence, and individuals who disagree are not relevant in the field.' What a disgrace! The tutorials are completely wack and have NO relevance to the lecture material at all! But do you need to learn them? YES! Because they literally have questions in the final exam about 'what was the statistic of this infographic in this tutorial' and 'what did this person say in this tutorial' and the worst yet: in the discussion forum, you were told to start your reflections with? ARE YOU KIDDING ME! Tutorials are also random. You go from covering obesity one minute, to drugs the next, to how to breathe properly. Yep, this is a subject. Let's get to the tutors. The tutors are absolutely disgusting. And I say this because everyone got DESTROYED in their assessments. We first had a literature review. If you have ONE thing that the tutor didn't like, you could be dropped from, a HD to a P. This is not even a joke. Each tutor is SO pedantic on what they want. If you don't fulfil their kinky desires, then you will pay the price. And the reflection you have to do which is worth 40%? EVEN WORSE! The tutors left a couple of comments on 'elaborate on this more' and 'good' and then you would finish with a P or C! No rubric given back. Also the tutors are threatening. If you want a re-mark they HIGHLIGHT that 'it is not common to receive a lower mark if you apply for a re-mark' which is disgusting, completely dissuading students to challenge why they received a mark in the first place. How dare they. And to top it off, they are Phd students which is a good thing right? WRONG! How about waiting 10 days to get a response via email? Or even worse, sending 2 emails with NO follow up. This is the only unit that also has a discussion forum that is NOT MONITORED BY THE TUTORS OR CONVENOR! The laziness of this unit astounds me. Furthermore, Mr Wayne emphasises NOT TO CONTACT him and always go to your tutors first. Yet, tutors won't respond and if they do, it's always something vague and leaves you with MORE questions. Imagine getting a 40% assessment back with a couple of comments, NO RUBRIC and NO NUMERIC MARK! And this is the one thing about psych that needs to be changed. You are paying 4k a year, only to receive grade and not a numeric mark? How dare you. How dare you when students who are trying so hard to make it into honours can't even see their mark. So many of us are on the cusp of making it or not, so knowing if we got a 75 or an 84 makes a huge difference, especially with an assessment task worth 40%! And the final exam? It's literally just rote learning. It is rote learning stats, quotes from tutorials, the specific conclusion for an abstract in the reading. That's it. Absolute WAM destroyer I love how Wayne get's paid 200k a year just to use pre-recorded lectures and emphasise that we shouldn't contact him in anyway. I am sure the tutors are all laughing with the limited amount of work they put in whilst being paid to fund their Phd projects. How dare you MQU uni for tolerating this. How dare you make it policy to say that we don't get rubrics back, comprehensive feedback, actual numeric grades and being threatened to get a lower mark if you ask for one.

Shocking

Yikes

This is without a doubt the worst unit in the Macquarie University psychology degree. Normally I would avoid subjects such as this one, however since it is the capstone unit it was compulsory. There are several reasons why this subject obtains its title for being the worst unit. Firstly it is incompetently run and administered. Students are required to complete an overwhelming number of pointless, fluffy tasks such as keeping reflection diaries and completing incident reports. Many of the tasks are extremely vague, and it is unclear what is required - which is further compounded by the online delivery of the unit. The "holy text" of the unit guide which is overly long and does not help at all. The tutors are no help either. Firstly they have to deal with more students than what they can handle - which directly impacts the sorts of marks one receives for various assessment tasks. I only received a grade but no feedback for my placement report- therefore the mark was unjustifiable. It was quite ironic that I was marked on a report about my work performance by people who can't even do their own job properly. That said, I didn't have high expectations for quality tutoring for this subject. The tutors are a bunch of PhD. students who probably have limited work experience anyway. Over my time I have noticed a trend amongst psych subjects in Macquarie - When the class numbers are low, the written assessment tasks are marked by either the unit convenor or conscientious academics who take the time to read what you've written - as such I have always averaged HD's for assessments in these subjects. However with subjects which have high class numbers, they have a tendency to hire unqualified or incompetent tutors who are either too lazy or too overwhelmed to take the time mark on the points made rather than their first impressions - I have averaged CRs for written assessment tasks in these subjects. The material in this subject is downright boring and redundant. Most of it is covered in other subjects (e.g. ethics guidelines). Other material is basically the Convenor's pet subjects. These components are delivered in an extraordinarily biased and one sided manner - so much so that I often wondered if this subject was run by the sociology department. Normally I am fine with this method of teaching IF it invites discussion about counterpoints - but there is no opportunity for that. Instead students are required to MEMORISE various "facts" and stats for the final exam. This is not teaching - it is indoctrination. It is disgraceful that this subject is taught as a capstone unit for psychology which prides itself on being scientific.

Some tips for surviving this unit: - You WILL be examined on random facts, and these will make up about 10-20% of the final exam. I recommend compiling some flash cards for all of the random facts that are mentioned in tutorials and lectures and updating them weekly so you can stay on top of them. While there’s a lot to remember, the multiple-choice format makes it a lot easier to recall them. Also, you will do meditations in the tutorials. It may seem something not worth remembering, but there may actually be a question on meditation techniques in the exam! - Things on the slides may be examinable even if they’re not spoken about, and the same goes for information that is spoken about but isn’t on the slides. - There were one or two questions on the assessable readings in the final exam, but it wasn’t a huge focus. - The assignment guidelines are very vague in contrast to the level of specificity they’re looking for – I highly recommend checking in with your tutor every now and again to make sure you’re on the right track before submitting your assignments. - Read the entire handbook PDF and make notes! There is a lot of important information including assignment rubrics, due dates for placement, etc. If you don’t read it and follow it, you run the risk of not adequately completing your placement and potentially having to re-do the subject. Also, there may be a question or two about content from the handbook in the final exam.

A disappointing unit. Imagine being lost in a sea of information with little direction. Good grades are almost luck. Fingers crossed.

There was no consistency between tutors and the marking was very subjective. Assessments were a bit of a mess with very broad requirements which made it hard to feel like you were on the right track. A huge chunk of my cohort didn't even receive their major essay (40%) marks back before the exam. The exam itself is quite hard and the practice exam didn't really help prepare you for what was to come. Overall not the worst topic and the integrating psychology revision content is all very interesting. A word for the wise - learn to memorise statistics.

This unit takes a lot of effort. If you keep up to date with your lectures and do all of the assignments/assessments while watching the lectures, you will do OK. You definitely need to do extra readings/look at other websites in order to get your head around the different tests/analyses, but if you keep up to date, it is a good unit.

A unit that requires a lot of work. Need to look at things from a very integrative approach, and the final exam is very thorough and specific - well worth ensuring that you have all of the notes covered and attending all of the tutorials. Also worth getting started on all of the assessments as early as possible and speaking to your tutor regularly to understand exactly what they are looking for in your assessment.