PL4880F Addictive Behaviours Module Review

Hello!

I did PL4880F Addictive Behaviours in the sem that just passed (AY16/17 Sem 1), under Prof Catherine Tang.

I’ll be honest. This wasn’t my first choice of module to read. Especially since there are many more interesting psych modules to take and so few that I can take (because I’m doing honours thesis as well). The only reason why I took this was because I had no points in my P account lol and this was only 100+ points. I guess I didn’t have much expectations of it… Anyway, here goes a module review:

Module Content

The first six seminars (before recess week) consisted of learning theories about addictive behaviours – psychoanalytic, family models, cognitive, behavioural, sociocultural etc. This was quite interesting (although as you can guess, somewhat repetitive – eg. going through cognitive behavioural concepts that you have learnt since PL1101E all over again).

The second half of the module consisted of learning individual addictive behaviours – sex addiction, exercise addiction, internet addiction etc. These addictions are precisely those that have yet to be classified under DSM, thus the module will focus on the question of whether such behaviours should be formally diagnosed.

Grading

Project work weighed quite heavily for this module. There were 6 groups, each taking charge of an addiction. The group component included:

1.       Video preparation (10%) – find a 25 min video on the addiction, not create one yourselves) and discussion questions, to be presented on the seminar in which the topic is taught

2.       Group presentation of a specific topic within your addiction (25%), to be presented on the last seminar – guidelines were to be creative and engaging

3.       Critical literature review paper of that specific topic (20%) (25-30 pages) – YES 30 YOU DIDN’T READ THAT WRONGLY. At first I thought this was CRAZY but it turned out we hit the word count pretty easily – it wasn’t that bad when you have a group to write it together

For (2) and (3), you weren’t supposed to present a topic that was a mere summary of the critical literature review paper. The tricky part was choosing a topic within your addiction that was specific enough, but not too specific such that you can’t find papers on it. In the first place there may not be many papers on the topic because the addiction hasn’t even been formally diagnosed yet.

The other grading components were:

4.       Attendance (10%)

5.       Final exam (35%) – closed book, 3 essay questions with different parts. She’ll ask you to write about an addiction that is not your group topic. Honestly, you just need to study the first half of the module (theory part) and look through past year papers because she repeats questions.

Reflections

Prof Tang likes to tell stories. It was quite funny listening to all her stories and personal experiences of these addictive behaviours.

The thing I didn’t like about this module was that she didn’t give any feedback about the grading components. Okay, she did give feedback about the group presentation but these were so generic? Like “very interesting”. So we literally went into the exam hall not knowing anything about where our grades stood. Final exam was not too bad.

I guess overall this module was not too bad. Oh. I got an A in the end. Really wasn’t expecting it because as I said we all had no clue. I guess the best tip would be, don’t screw up at the final exam J

Cheers!

L