UNIVERSITY OF SURREY and CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY
PSYCHD IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
SELECTION 2013 - WRITTEN TEST
QUESTION PAPER
CANDIDATE INSTRUCTIONS
There are TWO parts to this test: Part 1 and Part 2
Candidates have 45 MINUTES to complete the test
Candidates should answer the questions in PART 1 first and are advised that they should do as best as they can on these questions before moving on to Part 2 of the test
All answers MUST be written in the answer booklet provided
Loose sheets of paper are provided for notes. They will be collected at the end of the test but will NOT be marked
Candidates are permitted to make notes on this test paper. It will be collected at the end of the test but will NOT be marked
WHEN THE INVIGILATOR INSTRUCTS YOU TO DO SO, TURN THE PAGE
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PART 1: SCIENTIST-PRACTITIONER THINKING [15 Marks]
This part of the test assesses your ability to think critically about research designs that may be used by applied psychologists to investigate practice-based healthcare questions.
Read the Research Synopsis below and then answer the questions for Part 1 in your answer booklet.
Research Synopsis
A research team was interested in whether high self-esteem helped athletes perform better in competition. To investigate this, they collaborated with the organizers of an international athletics competition, occurring in the UK.
One week before the start of this competition, all the competitors were required to complete a measure of self-esteem. Higher scores on the measure were taken to indicate higher selfesteem. The measure was chosen because it had shown good reliability and validity in a previous study using a UK sample. At the same time, the researchers recorded the competitors’ age and weight.
At the end of the competition, the competitors in each event were ranked based on their relative performance in that event. The winner in each event was given the lowest ranking
(i.e. 1) and the competitor in last place was given the highest ranking. The researchers then calculated the correlations between this ranking and the data collected one week earlier. Their findings are summarized in the table below.
Self-esteem Age Weight
Correlation with performance ranking
*p<.01
-.46* -.08 .15
Following this, the researchers developed a psychological intervention aimed at improving athletes’ self-esteem prior to competition. They conducted a small-scale randomized controlled trial (RCT) to explore the effectiveness of their new intervention. The sample in each group was 15 UK–based athletes and the control group received no-intervention. At a subsequent athletics competition, the intervention group had a median performance rank of 4 and the control group a median rank of 8.5. A Mann-Whitney U-test on the performance data produced a p-value of 0.07.
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PART 2: WRITTEN COMMUNICATION [15 Marks]
This part of the test assesses your ability to extract, interpret and summarise information in an appropriate written form.
In Part 2 of your answer booklet, write a succinct structured Abstract (i.e. using subheadings) of the study described below. Your Abstract must finish with a
Conclusion.
Study Description
The prevalence of negative attitudes towards mental illness has been recognised as a major public health problem (Putnam, 2008) because it can result in stigma, prejudice and discrimination. In order to understand and reduce prejudice and discrimination, a significant amount of research has examined the intergroup contact hypothesis proposed by Allport
(1954). This research indicates that direct contact between members of different social groups is an effective way of reducing stigmatizing attitudes, prejudice and discrimination towards minority out-groups. Education is also a method by which stigmatizing attitudes might be changed. Research evidence suggests that general information about mental illnesses can be sufficient to reduce stigmatizing attitudes towards people with, for example, a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
The aim of the current study was to compare the relative effectiveness of two different education interventions on college students’ attitudes towards people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
120 college students (101 women and 19 men; 86.3% White British) aged between 16 and 18 ( M = 17.50 years, SD = 2.73) were randomly allocated to one of three conditions:
 direct contact education (this involved a 6-week series of lectures on schizophrenia that were delivered by a college lecturer and a person with a diagnosis of schizophrenia);
 education without contact (this involved a 6-week series of lectures on schizophrenia delivered by two college lecturers);
 control condition (no education about schizophrenia was given in the 6-week period).
Prior to the start of the 6-week period, students completed three measures:
(1) general knowledge about schizophrenia;
(2) attitudes about whether people with schizophrenia are to blame for their condition;
(3) desired social distance from people with schizophrenia (i.e. how much one would be unwilling to socialise with, work with or have a member of the family with schizophrenia).
These measures were completed again at the end of the 6-week lecture period. The researchers calculated the change in scores across the two time points on these measures for each participant. The results are shown in the graph on the next page.
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12
10
8
6
4
2
0
-2
-4
-6
-8
10
9
2
-2
-1
-1
5
2
Direct contact education Education no contact
-7
No education

The p-value for the one-way ANOVA comparing change in blame scores was p=.96.

The p-value for the one-way ANOVA comparing change in knowledge scores was p=.02. Post hoc tests showed that both education groups differed significantly from the control group but not from each other.

The p-value for the one-way ANOVA comparing change in desired social distance was p=.004. Post-hoc tests showed that the direct contact education group differed significantly from both the education without contact group and the control group. The education without contact group and the control group did not differ significantly from each other.
END OF QUESTION PAPER
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UNIVERSITY OF SURREY and CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY
PSYCHD IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
SELECTION 2013 - WRITTEN TEST
ANSWER BOOKLET
This answer booklet is divided into TWO sections:

Questions for Part 1 of the test and space to write your answers;

Instructions for Part 2 of the test and space to write your Abstract.
Candidates should answer the questions in Part 1 first before moving on to the rest of the test.
PLEASE PRINT YOUR FULL NAME CLEARLY IN THE BOX BELOW:
PLEASE WRITE YOUR DATE OF BIRTH IN THE BOX BELOW:
PLEASE TICK THIS BOX ONLY IF YOU HAVE APPLIED TO BOTH THE SURREY
AND THE SALOMONS COURSES
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QUESTIONS: PART 1: SCIENTIST-PRACTITIONER THINKING
Questions 1 to 9 concern the correlational part of the study.
Question 1: Why was it important that the measure of self-esteem showed good reliability and validity? [1 mark]
Question 2: Why might there be doubts as to the reliability and validity of the measure of self-esteem in this study? [1 mark]
Turn over for the next question
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Question 3: What was the main advantage of requiring all the competitors to complete the measure of self-esteem? [1 mark]
Question 4: What was the most important problem with requiring all competitors to complete the measure of self-esteem? [1 mark]
Turn over for the next question
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Question 5: What was the main research reason for measuring self-esteem some time before the competition? [1 mark]
Question 6: What disadvantage might measuring self-esteem in advance have when it comes to trying to interpret the findings? [1 mark]
Turn over for the next question
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Question 7: Some athletes took part in more than one event in the competition. In such cases, the researchers only included in the analysis the athlete’s data from their first event. Why do you think the researchers did this? [1 mark]
Question 8: Without repeating the numbers, briefly summarize the key findings of the correlational part of the study. [2 marks]
Turn over for the next question
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Question 9: What is it possible to conclude from the correlational part of the study in relation to the researchers’ hypothesis that high self-esteem helps athletes perform better in competition? [1 mark]
Questions 10 to 13 concern the RCT part of the study
Question 10: In an RCT, why is a control group included and why are participants randomly allocated to the intervention and control groups? [2 marks]
Turn over for the next question
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Question 11: What might be a better control group than the no intervention control group and why? [1 mark]
Question 12: From the RCT data, the researchers concluded that the intervention did not improve competition performance and so was not worth studying further. Is this a reasonable conclusion? Please explain your answer. [1 mark]
Turn over for the next question
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Question 13: How generalizable are the RCTs findings? Please explain your answer.
[1 mark]
END OF PART 1 QUESTIONS. TURN OVER FOR PART 2
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PART 2: WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
Please write your Abstract in the space below. Continue over as many pages as you need but bear in mind we are looking for a succinct Abstract. Please remember to structure your
Abstract (i.e. use sub-headings) and to provide a Conclusion to it.
You should pay attention to readability, spelling, punctuation and grammar.
Turn over for continuation sheets
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Turn over for continuation sheets

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