Students are not normally allowed to repeat a quota-ed subject that they have failed. It is important that students take note of the last day for change of enrolment and the last day for discontinuing a subject. Correct enrolment is deemed by the university to be the responsibility of the student.
There are five scheduled lecture streams in each semester. Students should attend four lecture streams per week and a four hour laboratory class per week. Three lecture streams have been designated CORE lectures and are compulsory. The fourth stream must be selected from the remaining two (2) OPTIONS. Optional lecture streams have been allocated to lecture theatres according to expected class size, so students are encouraged to make their final option choices as soon as possible, and to stick with these choices. There are no formal tutorial classes and problems which arise can be discussed during laboratory time.Lecture streams will all include some students enrolled in the Psychology 2031.08 course who do not take laboratory classes. The examinations for each topic will be different for the two courses and both the lecture and laboratory material is examinable for PSY2011.
No special arrangements are made for tape-recording of lectures. If you wish to record lectures yourself, you should first obtain the permission of the lecturer concerned.
Laboratory classes are held on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. You will have been allocated a lab class time before the commencement of semester. Note that lab classes begin in week 1 of semester. Classes begin in Lab C on the first floor of the Biology Building unless otherwise notified by your demonstrator. A significant amount of lab class time will also be spent in the computer laboratories on the first floor 157B. Most computer work can be completed in any student computer laboratory at Monash. A filing cabinet containing lab work reference material not available in the libraries will be located in room 157B. The borrowing of such material will operate on a honour system. Please note references should not be taken for periods longer than one hour and that other people will also require access to that material. Missing references will not be replaced. Attendance at your designated laboratory class is compulsory. Students with timetable clashes should consult with Cheryl Roberts. Occasional absences (e.g. illness) should be reported to Chris Hughes. Departmental policy concerning penalties for late essays also applies to laboratory reports and other work to be submitted.
The permission of the lecturer should be sought before bringing visitors (e.g. young children) into lectures. Laboratories are OUT-OF BOUNDS to visitors, except in special circumstances with prior permission from the Head of Department. The laboratory class area is not an appropriate place for arranging to meet friends.
Laboratory reports are written up
in the form of a scientific journal paper. The style and format
adopted varies according to the discipline and students are expected
to know this. Before writing a laboratory report, you should discuss
the format with your tutor. Purchase of the prescribed text, O'Shea,
R. P. (1996). Writing for Psychology (Second Edition).
Sydney: Harcourt, Brace, Javonovich is strongly recommended. Further
assistance is available via the Psychology Department writing
guide, which cites extensively O'Shea (1996), found at the following
WWW address;
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/psych/resource/lrwguide.htm.
Plagiarism refers to the use of another author's work without due credit; it amounts to intellectual theft and is heavily penalised. Students often do not recognise that there are forms of plagiarism other than a wholesale copying of someone else's prose; in particular, a stringing together of sentences from a variety of sources (with only a little linking prose added), also counts as plagiarism. Poor research habits can lead to this situation. This is the scenario: A student consults source material, copying out bits and pieces in rough notes; later, when the essay is being assembled, the student has forgotten that this is not his or her own work. The way to avoid this is to make sure your research notes distinguish clearly between quotations and summaries.
Psychology students are expected to adopt the referencing style of the discipline and this differs from that of other disciplines, both in the sciences and in the humanities. The definitive style guide is provided by the publication manual of the American Psychological Association. O'Shea (1996) covers the referencing style requirements in detail, furthermore important points will be highlighted in lab class.
Work submitted to the General Office must include an Assignment Cover Sheet which may be photocopied from the example included at the back of this handbook. Dates for submission of class work are announced during lecture or laboratory times. It is the responsibility of a student absent from class to obtain information disseminated in the class they did not attend. There are no exemptions for those repeating the course for laboratory work and statistics assignments completed in previous years.
The final mark for second semester will be determined by performance in laboratory work and examinations. The distribution of marks is:
Laboratory work: 40% Examination of lecture material: 60%
Each piece of assessable work will be marked on the standard departmental marking scale or an equivalent. The scale marks have the following meaning:
0-3 FAIL 4 BORDERLINE PASS/FAIL 5-5.5 CLEAR PASS **Revised 6-6.5 CREDIT **April 23, 1997 7-7.5 DISTINCTION 8-10 HIGH DISTINCTION
Occasionally work believed to be handed in does not reach the marker, despite the reliability of the postal services and the care which the department takes in handling the work of the students. You are strongly advised to keep a copy of work handed in to guard against the rare event of your work going astray.