write about 500 words, reflecting on how your thoughts about mental health conditions and/or research and/or practice in the field of mental health conditions has developed as a result of the module or material connected with the module content.

Reflective Diary assignment

 

Overview of the assignment:

We are asking you to produce a piece of reflective writing because it is evidence of reflective thinking and this something which is important in in an academic context. Reflective thinking is the notion of awareness of one’s own knowledge, assumptions and past experiences. Reflective thinking usually involves looking back at something, analysing this (perhaps from different perspectives, trying to explain ‘why’, evaluating your experiences) and thinking carefully about what the event or idea means for you going forward.

When, in other modules, you have previously written self-evaluation statements at the end of essay assignments, these have involved reflective thinking; you thought about how you addressed previous feedback, what elements of the essay had gone well, which were challenging and how you might approach things differently in the future. Such reflection is likely to enhance your learning from the assignment and affect your future performance.

In this assignment you are asked to reflect on your ‘learning’ from ideas connected with the module PSYC6001.

What you have to do:

You have to do two things.

  1. You are asked to write about 500 words, reflecting on how your thoughts about mental health conditions and/or research and/or practice in the field of mental health conditions has developed as a result of the module or material connected with the module content.
  2. Along with this 500 word reflective statement you should also submit your weekly ‘diary’ notes indicating the issues/topics that have struck you each week. These can be brief, bullet-points.

There is not a right or a wrong answer to this assessment – it’s personal to you – but there are some guidelines below about how to approach this, so that you get the most from this assignment and also what we are looking for in order to award you the marks for this assignment.

How to approach this assignment:

You will need to keep this assignment in mind as you progress through the module. Each week after teaching/reading, make notes of some of the thoughts/ideas which have particularly struck you as being interesting or significant. Why are they interesting to you? Do they challenge previously held thoughts? Do they resonate with ideas/experiences you already had? How do they fit with other ideas you have come upon? Maybe other theories? How do they fit with other topics covered as part of the module? Or other content you have learnt about on other modules? What are the implications of these thoughts? If you do this each week then by the time you come to the end of the module you will have a diary of your reactions which you can draw upon and select from for your reflective statement. You will need to submit both your reflective diary AND your final 500 word reflective statement.

It’s up to you what you write about (as long as the content refers to topics/ ideas/material/research relevant to the topic of mental health conditions!). This piece is about YOUR reflections and so only you will know what topics/issues are of significance to you. For the reflective statement you can focus on one topic or consider multiple topics. For whatever you write about please try to a) succinctly and clearly describe the idea/topic you are going to write about; b) reflect on this (what is important/interesting/useful about this, for you?) and ; c) consider what you have learned from this or the future implications of this.

 

Assessment of your work:

Your reflective assignment will be marked on a pass/fail basis and students who pass this assignment will receive 10% of the module marks. This work is not graded.

A pass on the assignment (10%) will be awarded where the work:

  • includes a reflective diary with at least one entry relevant to each week’s content and
  • includes a reflective statement which is sufficiently long to demonstrate engagement with the assignment (the recommended word length is 500 words) and
  • refers to and reflects on topics/ ideas/material/research relevant to the topic of mental health conditions (either introduced as part of the module, in lectures/readings or sourced by yourself).

A fail on the assignment (0%) will be awarded where the work:

  • does not include a reflective diary with at least one entry relevant to each week’s content or
  • includes a reflective statement which is too brief to demonstrate adequate engagement with the assignment or
  • does not include content/reflection relevant to the topic of mental health conditions or
  • is not submitted at all

Submission method:

Electronic submission via Turnitin link on Moodle (no hard copy required)

 

 

Submission instructions:

  • The file you upload to Turnitin containing your assignment should be a word-processed file named as follows: module number_student number_RA (e.g. PSYC6001_16003565_RA)
  • This one file should include both your reflective statement AND your reflective diary.
  • You can title this ‘Reflective Assignment PSYC6001’.
  • Do not include your name anywhere on the file.
  • Use a minimum font size of 12pt and 1.5 line spacing.
  • Students with blue cards can add this automatically though the Moodle and Turnitin interfaces at the point of submitting their work.  This option is only available to students who are registered with the Dyslexia/SpLd Service.
  • Include the number of words used in the assignment at the end of the assignment and see guidance below on what to include in the word count.

The recommended word count for the reflective statement assignment is 500 words (plus the diary). The recommended word count includes:

  • in-text citations / references (if used)
  • quotations (if used)
  • all headings and sub-titles (if used)
  • figure (diagram) and table labels (if used)

It does not include:

  • the assignment title
  • the words used as part of the reflective diary
  • the list of references (if used)
  • words in diagrams or tables of data (if used)

There is no specific penalty for writing more or less than the recommended word count.  However, your reflective statement needs to be sufficiently long to demonstrate engagement with the assignment, and, as with all assignments should ideally not significantly exceed the suggested word count.