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Unit Synopsis
In this unit you will be introduced to the foundations of abnormal psychology. As part of this, you will explore the major aspects of abnormal psychology, including diagnosis, etiology, assessment, treatment, research, and theories of a variety of psychological disorders. This will enable you to begin to integrate theory, research and practice considerations within areas of abnormal psychology.
Details
| Level | Undergraduate |
|---|---|
| Unit Level | 3 |
| Credit Points | 6 |
| Student Contribution Band | SCA Band 4 |
| Fraction of Full-Time Student Load | 0.125 |
| Pre-requisites or Co-requisites |
96 credit points
Important note: Students enrolled in a subsequent unit who failed their pre-requisite unit, should drop the subsequent unit before the census date or within 10 working days of Fail grade notification. Students who do not drop the unit in this timeframe cannot later drop the unit without academic and financial liability. See details in the Assessment Policy and Procedure (Higher Education Coursework). |
| Class Timetable | View Unit Timetable |
| Residential School | No Residential School |
Unit Availabilities from Term 3 - 2021
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Term 3 - 2022 Profile
Term 1 - 2023 Profile
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Term 1 - 2024 Profile
Term 3 - 2024 Profile
Term 1 - 2025 Profile
Term 3 - 2025 Profile
Term 1 - 2026 Profile
Term 3 - 2026 Profile
Attendance Requirements
All on-campus students are expected to attend scheduled classes - in some units, these classes are identified as a mandatory (pass/fail) component and attendance is compulsory. International students, on a student visa, must maintain a full time study load and meet both attendance and academic progress requirements in each study period (satisfactory attendance for International students is defined as maintaining at least an 80% attendance record).
Recommended Student Time Commitment
Each 6-credit Undergraduate unit at CQUniversity requires an overall time commitment of an average of 12.5 hours of study per week, making a total of 150 hours for the unit.
Assessment Tasks
| Assessment Task | Weighting |
|---|---|
| 1. Online Quiz(zes) | 30% |
| 2. Written Assessment | 35% |
| 3. Online Test | 35% |
This is a graded unit: your overall grade will be calculated from the marks or grades for each assessment task, based on the relative weightings shown in the table above. You must obtain an overall mark for the unit of at least 50%, or an overall grade of ‘pass’ in order to pass the unit. If any ‘pass/fail’ tasks are shown in the table above they must also be completed successfully (‘pass’ grade). You must also meet any minimum mark requirements specified for a particular assessment task, as detailed in the ‘assessment task’ section (note that in some instances, the minimum mark for a task may be greater than 50%).
Past Exams
All University policies are available on the Policy web site, however you may wish to directly view the following policies below.
This list is not an exhaustive list of all University policies. The full list of policies are available on the Policy web site.
Term 1 - 2025 : The overall satisfaction for students in the last offering of this course was 88.89% (`Agree` and `Strongly Agree` responses), based on a 30.51% response rate.
Feedback, Recommendations and Responses
Every unit is reviewed for enhancement each year. At the most recent review, the following staff and student feedback items were identified and recommendations were made.
Source: Student feedback
Some of the quiz questions / response options could be clearer.
Review and revise quiz items that are unclear and engage in peer review of quiz questions to ensure clarity and relevance to content in the unit.
Quiz items were reviewed and some items were removed or modified.
Source: Student email
Positive comments regarding compassion and empathy extended towards people with psychopathology in an informal manner during group discussions.
Formally include discussion of empathy and compassion for people with psychopathology into early lectures.
Students were encouraged to take a nonjudgmental stance towards people with psychopathology and take a positive, hopeful approach towards people making a recovery.
Source: Student email
Some student identified that a couple of questions in the quiz were unclear.
Continue to revise any quiz items that need clarification
In Progress
Source: Student email. SUTE comments
Some students had challenges in uploading the recorded video assessment.
Revise the uploading procedure for recorded video assessments. Emphasise to students that Echo360 - Moodle is the only acceptable method for submitting video assessments. Encourage students to upload the assessment early and contact TaSAC with any problems.
In Progress
Source: SUTE comments
Some students requested more video resources to be placed in the weekly Moodle tiles.
Source additional video resources and include current links in Moodle.
In Progress
On successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- Explain foundational knowledge of psychological disorders, including relevant diagnostic criteria, symptoms, presentation, aetiology, assessment, treatment approaches as well as epidemiology of different psychological disorders
- Critically evaluate the different theories of the aetiology of different psychological disorders and the basic approaches to the assessment and treatment of the major psychological disorders
- Critically evaluate the previous research, psychological report writing, as well as current debates and controversies that exist about specific psychological disorders and the general field of abnormal psychology.
| Assessment Tasks | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) | • | • | |
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | |
| 3 - Online Test | • | • | |
| Graduate Attributes | Learning Outcomes | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 1 - Communication | • | • | • |
| 2 - Problem Solving | • | • | • |
| 3 - Critical Thinking | • | • | • |
| 8 - Ethical practice | • | • | |
| Assessment Tasks | Graduate Attributes | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 10 | |
| 2 - Written Assessment | • | • | • | • | |||||||
| 3 - Online Test | • | • | • | ||||||||
| 1 - Online Quiz(zes) | • | • | |||||||||