Module Review: PL3250

Module: PL3250 (Human Performance)

AY18/19 Sem 2

Grading: 

• Tutorial attendance & participation: 10%
• Quiz 1: 25%
• Quiz 2: 25%
• Final exam: 40%

Review 1:
Lecturer: Assoc Prof Maria Kozhevnikov

Tutor: Jolene Low Jia Ying

What it’s about: From IVLE’s module description, you can probably already tell that the 1st half of the syllabus is mostly a revision of cognitive psych (topics on attention and memory). However, there is an increase in focus on the neuroscience aspect of cognition that your cognitive psych prof may have glossed over. The 2nd half of the syllabus is slightly more interesting and delve into topics such as arousal, individual differences in intelligence and human computer interaction.

Prof Maria is quite a nice lecturer and is accommodating to questions from students. However, she has a very strong accent and speaks very quickly so it can be quite difficult to understand her. She also tends to breeze through her slides (80+ slides in 1.5 hrs) without thoroughly explaining some of the more complicated terms causing quite a bit of confusion.

Assignment workload: No assignments.

Thoughts about the tutor: Jolene comes across as a cheerful and chill tutor. She has the vibe of a friendly senior rather than as a “teacher” (not a bad thing though). She is also quite patient and tries her best to answer questions that we have. However, human performance is not Jolene’s research area (she specializes in social psych iirc) so she sometimes had difficulty in answering students’ questions. Nevertheless, she generally had a positive teaching attitude and she became more confident in her knowledge of human performance in the 2nd half of the semester.

Tutorials were generally quite relaxing. Jolene will do a quick recap of the previous week’s lecture before giving us some pair-work worksheet. She will then walk around to clarify any doubts we have with regards to the worksheet. I’m not so sure how we were graded on that but I’m assuming we were graded for completion of the tasks rather than for “correctness”.

There were only 3 “official” tutorial sessions. The other 2 tutorial sessions were replaced with participating in Prof Maria honours thesis student’s longass experiment on spatial navigation and a visit to the VR lockdown room at scape orchard. The experiment lasted for slightly over 2 hours and I was totally drained after the experiment. The VR lockdown room was supposed to allow us to experience the state of flow first hand. However, due to many technical problems coupled with the impatient staff, the only “flow” I achieved was the blood gushing through my veins to my head in anger. Nevertheless, I appreciate Prof Maria’s good intent in helping us to gain a better understanding of research designs in human performance and to allow us to experience cognitive phenomenons first hand respectively.

Project workload & question/theme: No projects.

Readings: There were about 2-3 readings each week — usually 1 chapter from the textbook and the other 1-2 readings were from journal articles of varying length. The textbook was a pain to read as it was written in a convoluted manner. The journal articles varied in difficulty — the shorter ones (5-6 pages) were manageable while the longer ones (20-ish pages) definitely required more time to digest. 

Exam: Quiz 1: Open-book. 3 essays +1 bonus question. Duration: 1.5 hrs.
Quiz 1 tested on content covered from weeks 1-5 and was held in week 7. 2 of the essays were application-based. We were given 2 short articles (about 1 page each) and asked to critique the article based on our knowledge of the relevant theories. The other essay was integrated in nature and asked us to compare the memory systems across different groups of people (experts, non-experts, etc.). The bonus question was a giveaway and asked you to critique the compulsory reading on the hippocampi changes in taxi-drivers in London. I was rushed for time during the entire quiz and barely finished on the dot. I did not do well for this quiz as I did not know what kind of answers Prof Maria wanted.

Quiz 2: Open-book. 2 x 2 choose 1 essays + 1 bonus question. Duration: 1 hour 15 mins.
Quiz 2 tested on content covered from weeks 6-10 and was held in week 11. The 1st section was a choice between an essay on applying the theories of human error to your life or a discursive essay on whether the rubik’s cube can improve spatial intelligence. The 2nd section was a choice between the discussion of the 3 views of intelligence to fluid and spatial intelligence or using theories of cognitive styles to account for findings in a case study. The bonus question was a very simple opinion question on whether you thought that your visual or spatial intelligence was better based on your own experiences. I think most people scored full marks for this question. I found this quiz to be more manageable than the 1st quiz.

Final exam: Open-book. 4 compulsory essays. Duration: 2 hours.
The final exam was cumulative although a large bulk of our answers came from content that was not tested in the last 2 quizzes. The 1st question asked us to evaluate whether we achieved the state of flow during the VR lockdown room experience and to take into consideration the different factors which either helped or impede the process of achieving the state of flow. We were also asked to consider whether we have ever achieved the state of flow in our lives and to justify why. The 2nd question was an opinion-based question on how the field of human performance has evolved over the past 25 years, how we think human performance will continue evolving over the next 25 years and how technology can play a role in human performance research. I can’t remember what the last 2 essays were but I vaguely recall 1 of them requiring us to apply concepts of spatial navigation while the other was an opinion piece on what kind of navigator we think we are. I found that the questions were fairly challenging and this is to be expected especially since it was open-book so the questions will naturally test us on our application of the various topics, rather than mere regurgitation of facts.

Recommended if…: If you enjoyed Cognitive Psychology you may have a higher probability of liking this module. A caveat: the style of exam questions may be quite different from the style of other modules (this is one of the very few psych mods that is open-book) so you may be thrown off. Also, the prof for this module isn’t particularly good in her teaching so you will have to be independent in your own learning. If you are the type of student that relies heavily on lecturers (nothing wrong with this, we all have different learning styles), you may be better of taking another module like PL3260, where the prof will handhold you more.

Rating: 2.5/5

Expected grade: B (because I did poorly for the 1st quiz)

Actual grade: B