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One of the skills forensic psychologists in training need to hone is that of paying attention to detail. Thoroughness in everything is essential and can range widely, from verifying research sources and accuracy in referencing to ensuring grammar and spellings enhance the meaning of a written piece of work and that argumentation is logical and either supports or disproves a hypothesis.
Submitting a piece of work is sometimes daunting. Writers talk about submission to publishing houses in terms of sending their babies out to face the world, and your sending in your submission does feel a little similar: you spend months if not longer gestating the idea, researching, developing the hypothesis, developing your research, analysing the results and then writing it up. At this point, students would be well advised to read, re-read and read again their work. No-one likes their progeny returned home unloved by the tough world of assessment. Here are a few tips I have picked up along my road to Chartership:
- In submitting research you need to have a clear rationale for the work and demonstrate in as many ways as possible how you have considered the ethics of the subject matter at hand, and the ethics of how you intend to deal with it. For example, if you are chartering independently and you do not have an ethics committee to approve your research, you will need to check this with the DFP and submit as evidence anything they respond with about whether the research can go ahead. I was using social media and Survey Monkey to access participants and use an online questionnaire. I asked the DFP if there were any ethical issues with this in their policy. I used their response as evidence of ethical consideration, not only checking my submission would be valid and acceptable, but also enhancing my work. I also evidenced how I would ensure people remained anonymous online, for example by removing IP addresses from the data downloads. I gave further evidence in how I gained online consent, how to ensure that participants have read the information and have given informed consent, all issues with ethical ramifications that show you have considered and made provision for all the possibilities.
- In analysing data, you need to justify any analysis that you use and you need to provide an adequate depth in the analysis. For the final write up you should bear in mind that the assessors want to see a report that could be published - you are providing evidence that you can write for non-researchers, such as non-psychologist stake holders. You may have to write two reports, one of a publishable quality and one a summary of research and outcomes aimed at stake holders. Trainees have been known to fail on the fact that they did not write for lay persons, or have failed because their final report conversely leaned towards appealing to the stakeholders and was not written with sufficient academic strength. It is important to her able to separate the two different styles of writing and try retain focus on what is required of each piece. I was one of the trainees who wrote too much for the stakeholders and not enough for publication and so all that was required from me was a bit of editing of language and structure - which sounds simple, but can be time-consuming.
- One of the requirements of Chartership is that you should demonstrate that you have conducted the research but the challenge in this is that submitting raw data is not acceptable as it could be used to identify your participants. It is therefore important to apply some creativity in how you do this. Remember, the registrar has to approve it first in your exemplar plan and this should help avoid the situation that you collect lots of data and evidence and the assessors refuse to accept it. Don't panic, listen to the registrars feedback and apply the advice.
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or location, you will fail. Be careful about headers, text, coding, letter heads and logos. Every identifier must go.
Above all, once you have submitted, don't let yourself become disheartened by feedback. The assessors do try to find positive aspects of your submission and they are very clear about what it is they want you to rework and resubmit. Sometimes they raise what might seem a frustratingly minor point, but this will be part of your learning to be thorough, to cover all angles, as is expected from a professional in any field. Make sure you have your eye on the fine detail, and success will follow.
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