Mark O’Reilly & Hayley Smith

1. Mark O’Reilly & Hayley Smith

2. What is Psych Apprentice? A fully functional website that will host a variety of animated tutorials. Animated tutorials are based on psychology topics. The tutorials give a brief, scientific overview of a given topic. The website will also give suggestions for extra resources for further research.

3. Who is it aimed at? • Anyone with a new interest in the field of psychology. Primarily beginner psychology students. • Tutorials are scientific but manageable and understandable for a novice in the area.

4. History • This idea stemmed from a multimedia project we completed in second year. • Animated tutorials briefly explaining famous psychological experiments.

5. Multimedia Learning • Sweller (2005) suggests that more information can be processed by the brain if it is delivered through different modalities simultaneously. • Still a risk of cognitive overload leading to greater need for user testing to maintain effectiveness.

7. Development • Using the well-known software process model, waterfall model, we can develop Psych Apprentice in a systematic, and therefore, more reliable approach.

8. Requirements Gathering • Methods used include two informal focus groups directed towards the two streams; psychology & practice and psychology & technology. • Participants were current second year Applied Psychology students. • The aim was to discover which modules these participants had most difficulty with last year. • We could then focus on the troublesome areas and create genuinely helpful tutorials.

9. Analysis of Results • Topics that emerged as ‘problem topics’ for students were analysed and divided into three groups; • Psychology Topics • Non-Psychology Topics • Specific to IADT

10. Course Topics

11. Non-Course Topics

12. Topics Specific to IADT • Of the people who mentioned problems that were relating only to IADT: • 50% said the use of • the printers was a problem. • 37% wanted assistance • with using the library. • 13% had trouble • understanding the class • timetable.

13. Decisions… • After this, it had to be decided which topics to focus on for the tutorials • ‘Psychology Topics’ will take the main focus, including statistics, concepts of psychology and the brain. • ‘Non-Psychology Topics’ may feature depending on time constraints. • ‘Topics Specific to IADT’ will not be included.

14. Who is the user? • A vital piece of information to have when designing software is knowing who the user is. • This information is valuable in terms of layout, navigation and overall style of the software. • To display our user’s information, a user persona was created. • This is a simple, fictional bio of a user.

15. Design Phase - Logo • A logo can make a brand instantly recognisable and can draw people closer to the brand at a first glance.

16. Design Phase – Logo • Several different designs were created and tested, all designed around the concepts of psychology and learning.

17. User Testing • User Testing was carried out on the wire frame and the logo. • Wire frame – No problems • Logo – ‘too plain, difficult to read’.

18. Design Phase – Wire Frame • A wire frame design is a very basic diagram of the layout of a piece of software. • It allows for users to visualise the design and give their feedback i.e. Is the design intuitive?

19. Research into Topics • Research into the topics has been carried out to ensure that the tutorials will be informative and reliable. • As the research is carried out, a specific script for the tutorials is created. • Due to the typical user demographic, language is kept scientific yet interesting and emotive.

20. Research into Topics • What is psychology • Psychology as a science • Perception • Memory • The Brain • T-tests • Ergonomics

21. Tracking Progress • Our progress is documented online www.psychapprentice.wordpress.com • Advantages of online portfolio- • Accessible, reliable, modern, tracked chronologically.

22. Skills Learned • Project/ contingency planning, research skills, multimedia, team work. • Essentially every practical skill learned throughout our course to date has been applied to the project. • One of the core learning experiences to date has been the importance of project management (Weiss & Wysocki, 1992; O’Connell, 1996)

23. Future opportunities • Psychapprentice represents real world experience which is sought after from any employer. • These skills can be applied to increase the potential of later projects, including our 4th year research.

24. Future of Psych Apprentice 2012 • January and February will represent our primary development phase.  • During these months the main technical challenges will be dealt with. • Creating the animations in Flash • Recording and editing audio • Create website and host online

25. March draws us near to the end of the production cycle and is where largest degree of our user testing will take place. • This will be done through focus groups, surveys and one on one task analysis with users to identify possible issues or faults with the website itself.

26. Reflection • We experienced difficulties with having to prioritise other assignments due to their immediate deadline. • It is only upon reflection that we realise the volume of work we have achieved to date. • This has mostly been research based, but we have created a strong foundation. • We are enthusiastic about moving forward.

27. References Mayer, R.E. (2005) Introduction to multimedia learning. in R. E. Mayer (Ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. New York: Cambridge University Press. O'Connell, F. (1996). How to run successful projects ii. London: TJ Press. Sweller, J. (2005) Implications of cognitive load theory for multimedia learning. in R. E. Mayer (Ed.). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. New York: Cambridge University Press. Weiss, J. W., & Wysocki, R. K. (1993). 5-phase project management, a practical planning & implementation guide. Cambridge: Basic Books.