Concerns from Third Year Psychology Students

To whom it may concern. 

The purpose of this petition is to communicate the vast concerns students have with psychology modules this semester. Concerns for both the modules will be discussed separately. 

As pertaining to Psychopathology:

Students are very distraught with how the markings of the assignments/assessments are going. Issues with marks have been brought forward since the first assignment that was done for the module.

Student concern 1 and 2 discussed

1. :The MCQ had many errors and this was communicated by the students and nothing was said about how those marks would be calculated.

2. Students were not pleased with the on campus test and the marks that we released. Students were concerned with (1) the marking criteria (2) the difference in marks between students who were marked by certain tutors. The gap was evident and disturbing. (3) Although marks for the essay assignment are not finalised, some students have been able to see their marks. Upon getting the marks, they were still not pleased with the marking. Students noticed  a huge difference in marks for an essay question they did where they received 60% or even less , as compared to their classmate who got 90% for the exact same essay question. Students have went beyond means to read each other papers to see where they went wrong, but it's still not clear where they could have went wrong. Hopefully, rubrics will be released as communicated in email about the release of the finalised marks being released. (ALTHOUGH STUDENTS CANNOT TALK ON THIS BECAUSE MARKS ARE NOT "FINALISED" , marks have not changed in past instances. 

Concerns pertaining to psychotherapy:

1. Students have a concern with the marking. Yet again, certain students who are marked by certain tutors perform exceptional while others perform average. 
2. Are the marks moderated or they only get moderated when students consult about their marks .

Possible requests from students:

1. Can there be an exam revision class , so as to prepare students on how to answer questions.

2. Can the class please take an interactive approach where students are being guided on the marking criteria . Students can also share their possible responses to some of the questions and the lecturers and tutors can comment on students answers and how they would mark their response.

3. Students have concerns with certain tutors, especially for psychotherapy who marked both their tests( test 1 and test 2) . Under the assumption that this cannot be changed so as to divide the workload amongst the tutors, can students just write their student number and not their surnames(as a determinant as to who is going to mark their papers) and the answer sheets be randomly distributed amongst the tutors who mark. 

Points of reflection:

This is having quite drastic negative life changing effect on students , especially with the exams approaching. Students are competing with thousands of students all across the country for a 70 seat honours qualification .

At the same time youth unemployment rate is skyrocketing. And unfortunately ,for some of the students, studying in University is a once in a life time opportunity, a privilege we doubt to see again due to this and that .

We ask that this petition be received with good heart so that both students and the department can be satisfied with psychology as a module .

Psychology Student    Contact the author of the petition