UNIVERSITY OF SURREY and CANTERBURY CHRIST CHURCH UNIVERSITY
PSYCHD IN CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
SELECTION 2012 - WRITTEN TEST
QUESTION PAPER
CANDIDATE INSTRUCTIONS
There are TWO parts to this test: Part 1 (which has two sections – A & B) and Part 2
Candidates have 45 MINUTES to complete the test
Candidates should answer the questions in PART 1- SECTION A first and are advised that they
should do as best as they can on these questions before moving on to the rest 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
1
PART 1: SCIENTIST-PRACTITIONER THINKING
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.
There are 20 marks available on this part of the test.
Part 1is divided into two sections: SECTION A (worth 10 marks) and SECTION B (worth 10 marks).
Please ensure you answer the questions in SECTION A first.
Part 1 - SECTION A
Read the Abstract below and then answer the questions for Part 1- SECTION A in your answer
booklet.
Abstract
Background: In November 2011, the Care Quality Commission reported that too many hospitals in
England were failing to give basic care to the elderly. Of particular concern was the failure of staff to
meet the basic hygiene needs of elderly patients. The government and the public called for a review
of elderly care training and standards in hospitals in England. The current study used the Theory of
Planned Behaviour (TPB) to understand the attitudes and beliefs of healthcare students to helping
elderly patients in need. The TPB proposes three factors predict a person’s intention to help: (1) the
person’s attitude towards helping, (2) the extent to which the person perceives that significant others
(e.g. friends, family) would expect them to help, and (3) the extent to which the person believes they
have the ability to help the person in need. Also measured was the extent to which healthcare students
felt they would regret not helping an elderly person who needed help.
Method: An opportunity sample of 70 undergraduate nursing students (58 female, 12 male) with a
mean age of 24.98 (SD 2.81) from a University in the South of England participated. Participants
read a vignette (a short story) describing a fictitious elderly female hospital patient who was asking
for help with going to the bathroom. Participants then completed questions measuring their intention
to help the patient if they were in the situation described, the three TPB factors, and their anticipated
regret if they did not help.
Results: Regression analysis showed that the variables measured in this study explained 58% of the
variability in intention to help. Attitude towards helping, perceived ability to help and regret at not
helping were all significant predictors of intention to help.
QUESTIONS: PART 1 – SECTION A
Question (a): Give one advantage and one disadvantage of using a vignette in this research. [2
marks]
Question (b): Correlations between intention to help and the other variables were as follows: attitude
towards helping r=.53 (p<.001), perceived ability to help r=.63 (p<.001), and regret at not helping
r=.41 (p=.005).
Which variable has the strongest correlation with intention to help and what does the correlation tell
you about the nature of the relationship between these two variables? You must give both parts of the
answer in order to score the mark. [1 mark]
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Question (c): How much variability in intention to help was not explained by the variables in this
study? [1 mark]
Question (d): State one variable not measured in this study that you think might predict intention to
help and explain why you think this variable would predict it. You must give both parts of the answer
in order to score the mark. [1 mark]
Question (e): List five different reasons why the findings from this study cannot be generalised to all
cases of poor care in hospitals in England. [5 marks]
Part 1 - SECTION B
Read the study description below and then answer the questions for Part 1- SECTION B in your
answer booklet.
Study Description
Researchers have found that intention to perform a particular behaviour does not necessarily result in
the actual behaviour occurring. This is known as the ‘intention-behaviour gap’. A group of
researchers conducted a study to assess the extent to which intention to adhere to clinical guidelines
regarding the provision of hygiene care to elderly patients is related to actual adherence in nurses.
They recruited a volunteer sample of 20 nurses. Nurses’ intention to adhere to clinical guidelines
was measured using a single percentage scale ranging from 0 (no intention to adhere to the guidelines)
to 100 (intention to adhere to the guidelines completely). Nurses’ attitude towards the clinical
guidelines were also measured using a single Likert-type scale ranging from 0 (do not agree with the
content of the guidelines at all) to 7 (agree completely with the content of the guidelines). Two weeks
later, the researchers measured adherence by using structured observation of the nurses’ behaviour on
the ward. Each nurse was observed by a single rater who assessed them on the extent to which they
met 6 specific guidelines for hygiene care with every patient between 11am and 2pm on three
consecutive days. The rating scale was two-point: the guideline was met or was not met.
QUESTIONS: PART 1 – SECTION B
Question (a): Why do you think the researchers measured nurses’ attitude towards the guidelines? [2
marks]
Question (b): Give one limitation of measuring adherence two weeks after measuring intention [1
mark]
Question (c): If you were doing this study, how would you maximise the reliability of the
measurement of adherence? [2 marks]
Question (d): What is one design weakness of observing nurses between 11am and 2pm each day?
What would you propose as an alternative and specifically why would this be an improvement? [3
marks]
Question (e): Give two separate dimensions upon which volunteer nurses might differ from nurses
who do not volunteer to take part that would be relevant to the meaning that could be made of the
findings of this study [2marks]
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PART 2: DATA INTERPRETATION AND WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
This part of the test assesses your ability to extract and interpret information and summarise it in an
appropriate written form. You will be marked on presentation as well as content. Please ensure your
writing can be read.
Read the Description of data below and then write your answer in Part 2 of your answer booklet
following the instructions given in the answer booklet.
There are 10 marks available on this part of the test.
Description of data
The senior management of an NHS mental health trust is considering whether to invest in video
conferencing (VC) technology. The mental health trust covers a wide geographical area and clinical
staff members sometimes have to travel between 30 and 60 minutes to attend staff meetings. The
managers hope that introducing VC technology will reduce the need for their staff to travel and so
increase the time staff can spend on clinical work.
To help their decision-making, the managers have asked you to review the literature on the
effectiveness of VC and then provide some summaries of this. You conduct a literature search and
find three relevant papers. The main results of these papers are presented in the table below. You
should use the information in this table to complete the tasks provided in Part 2 of your answer
booklet. When considering the data in the table, it would be best to give consideration to the
implications of the design and sample used in each study.
Study
Participan
ts
1
10 mental
health
clinicians
Design
Intervention
Group
Control
Group
Baseline then
intervention
Remote staff
join staff
meetings
using VC
-
Results:
average staff
attendance
Before VC =
65%
Results:
percentage of
staff satisfied
with meetings
Before VC = 50%
With VC =80%
With VC = 80%
p=.15
2
3
50 physical
health
teams per
group
Randomised
Controlled
Trial
(RCT)
Remote staff
join staff
meetings
using VC
Remote
staff
attend
meetings
in person
50 mental
health
teams per
group
RCT
Remote staff
join staff
meetings
using VC
Remote
staff
attend
meetings
in person
4
p=.25
Intervention =
90%
Intervention =
81%
Control = 87%
Control =80%;
p=.55
Intervention =
79%
p=.91
Intervention =
83%
Control = 64%
Control =56%
p=.02
p=.04
PART 2: WRITTEN SUMMARIES
There are two written summary tasks to complete.
Task 1:
Write a summary of the findings in the table concerning the impact of using video
conferencing to help remote staff join staff meetings. The summary should focus on
providing interpretation and synthesis of the findings, a recommendation to the trust
management and a brief rationale for this recommendation. Re-statement of the findings
without interpretation will not be awarded marks. You may assume that the readers of this
summary can understand common academic/scientific language. You should write in prose
and not note form. [7 marks]
Task 2
The senior management of the trust also wants you to provide information to an adult serviceusers group to support a consultation process. Therefore, you need to write a new version of
your response to Task 1 that covers the same content but uses language that will be accessible
to NHS adult mental health service-users. You should write in prose and not note form. [3
marks]
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