GEMS

[cmcgui09]

Hey,
I suppose all of you studying psychology would know what GEMS are (that is gender, ethics, methodological and sociocultural) the things that we have to use to evaluate research...does anybody know how to put them in properly? I thought I was doing it right but I keep getting low marks and notes saying they aren't in there?

Thanks!
Chrissy.

[Alouette]

We call that "MCEG" in my Psych SL class (Methodology, Culture, Ethics, and Gender) but they're basically the same thing, right? Well, my one suggestion would be that if you want to get near the high markbands, you should make a paragraph at the end of your LAQ (or SAQ, I suppose) dedicated solely to evaluating "GEMS". I think the highest marked answers will have "GEMS" incorporated, though, and clearly evaluated in your answer. For example, when you mention an empirical study to support a concept that you're talking about, you might consider talking about gender or cultural/sociocultural bias that the researcher(s) may have, and maybe mention methodology and ethics when talking about the procedure.

Urgh, this feels like a unsatisfactory answer. I guess, for example, if you were talking about Freud's theory about penis envy, you would mention how Freud was male and wouldn't know exactly how females would feel, and that he grew up in the Victorian era, where women were generally suppressed. I would mention "G" and "S" right after saying who the researcher is... BUT I would only do so if it's relevant to the theory. "M" and "E" probably would come after the procedure of a study or its results. I think "GEMS" is best used to evaluate the extent to which empirical evidence supports the point you're making, though, by all means, you can use it to evaluate theories too...

[winter]

You don't need to use all four, only the ones that are relevant. I think you could get a paragraph for each evaluation point, if it's a long answer question. Don't go all out and try to fit the lot in, if one or more is clearly irrelevant. Quality, not quantity!

[Aether]

I didn't even know there was an acronym for that ... but yeah, we use them quite often. What I do, and it has resulted well with me, is that for every perspective there is at least one tangible study about the GEMS so I point it out whenever it is relevant in an essay. However, sometimes the GEMS implications are logical and just like Alouette mentioned in her Freud case, you just need to think a bit about the studies and cases.

[Eternalx]

Application (what is it) | Theory (who created it, with the year) | Application to Society (how to treat it)

G - Gender (talk about males & females and how that affects the experiment)
E - Ethics (distress, herm, deception)
M - Methodology (the method, was it good bad how can it be improve? what factors are not taken into account?)
S - Society and Culture (an example is white and black people. black people seems to suffer more illnesses etc etc)

Remember, you don't need to talk about all four. Just include what is relevant to the essay question.

Edited February 15, 2009 by Eternal.