Individual Investigation
A+ B C
Develops logical, coherent, and
1 detailed psychology
investigation proposals.
Critically and logically selects
and consistently and
appropriately acknowledges
2 an issue in psychology.
Investigation
information about psychology
and issues in psychology from a
range of sources
Clearly understands and
3 consistently uses well-
organised, ethical research
practices.
Obtains, records, and displays
findings of investigations using
appropriate conventions and
4 formats accurately and highly
effectively.
Uses perceptive and thorough
analytical skills to examine the
1 behaviour of individuals and
Analysis and Evaluation
groups of people in different
contexts
Logically evaluates procedures
and suggests a range of
2 appropriate improvements
Systematically analyses and
evaluates psychological
3 evidence to formulate logical
and highly relevant
conclusions.
Applies psychology concepts
and evidence from investigations
1 to suggest solutions to
complex problems in new and
familiar contexts
Application
Uses appropriate psychology
2 terms highly effectively.
Demonstrates initiative in
applying constructive and
3 focused approaches in dividual
and collaborative work.
Consistently demonstrates a
Knowledge & Understanding
deep and broad, knowledge
1 and understanding of a range of
psychology concepts and ethical
considerations.
Uses knowledge of psychology
perceptively and logically to
2 understand and explain
behaviours.
Applies a variety of forms to
communicate knowledge and
3 understanding of psychology
coherently and highly
effectively
Develops well-considered and
clear psychology investigation
proposals.
Logically selects and
appropriately acknowledges
information about psychology
and issues in psychology from
different sources
Understands and consistently
uses ethical research practices.
Obtains, records, and displays
findings of investigations using
appropriate conventions and
formats mostly accurately and
effectively.
Uses clear and well-organised
analytical skills to examine the
behaviour of individuals and
groups of people in different
contexts
Evaluates procedures and
suggests some appropriate
improvements
Uses mostly logical
approaches to analyse and
evaluate psychological evidence
to formulate consistent and
relevant conclusions.
Applies psychology concepts
and evidence from
investigations to suggest
solutions to problems in new
and familiar contexts
Uses appropriate psychological
terminology effectively
Applies mostly constructive
and focused approaches to
individual and collaborative
work.
Demonstrates some depth
and breadth of knowledge and
understanding of a range of
psychology concepts and ethical
considerations..
Uses knowledge of psychology
logically to understand and
explain behaviours.
Applies a variety of forms to
communicate knowledge and
understanding of psychology
coherently and effectively.
192950E
D E
Develops considered and
generally clear psychology
investigation proposals.
Selects with some focus and
mostly appropriately
acknowledges information
about psychology and issues in
psychology.
Generally understands and
uses ethical research practices.
Obtains, records, and displays
findings of investigations using
generally appropriate
conventions and formats with
some errors but generally
accurately and effectively.
Uses generally -organised
analytical skills to examine the
behaviour of individuals and
groups of people in different
contexts
Evaluates some procedures in
psychology and suggests some
improvements that are
generally appropriate.
Analyses and evaluates
psychological evidence to
formulate simple and
generally relevant
conclusions.
Applies psychology concepts
and evidence form investigations
to suggest some solutions to
basic problems in new or
familiar contexts.
Uses generally appropriate
psychology terms with some
general effectiveness.
Applies generally constructive
approaches to individual and
collaborative work.
Demonstrates knowledge and
understanding of a general
range of psychology concepts
and ethical considerations..
Uses knowledge of psychology
with some logic to understand
and explain behaviours.
Applies a variety of forms to
communicate knowledge and
understanding of psychology
with some general
effectiveness.
Prepares the outline of a
psychology investigation
proposal.
Selects and may partly
acknowledge one or more
sources of information about
psychology or an issue in
psychology.
Identifies and attempts to use
some ethical research practices.
Obtains, records, and displays
findings of investigations using
conventions and formats
inconsistently, with occasional
accuracy and effectiveness.
Describes basic behaviour of
individuals and groups of people
in different contexts.
For some procedures,
identifies improvements that
may be made.
Attempts to extract meaning
from psychological evidence and
to formulate a simple
conclusion that may be
relevant.
Applies some evidence to
describe some basic problems
and identify one or more
simple solutions, in familiar
contexts.
Attempts to use some
psychology terms that may be
appropriate.
Attempts individual work
inconsistently, and contributes
superficially to aspects of
collaborative work.
Demonstrates some basic
knowledge and partial
understanding of psychology
concepts and ethical
considerations..
Identifies and explains some
psychology information that is
relevant to understanding and
explaining behaviours.
Communicates basic
information to others using one
or more forms.
Identifies a simple psychology
investigation proposal.
Identifies a source of
information about psychology or
Pays limited attention to ethical
research practices.
Attempts to record and display
some descriptive information
about an investigation, with
limited accuracy or
effectiveness.
Acknowledges that individuals
and groups of people may
behave differently in different
contexts
Acknowledges the need for
improvements in one or more
procedures.
Attempts to organise some
limited evidence.
Identifies a basic problem and
attempts to identify a solution
in a familiar context.
Uses some psychology terms
Shows emerging skills in
individual and collaborative
work.
Demonstrates some limited
recognition and awareness of
psychology concepts and ethical
considerations..
Shows an emerging
understanding that some
psychology information is
relevant to explaining
behaviours.
Attempts to communicate
information about psychology.
 192950E

Stage 2 Psychology 2020

Individual Investigation
Assertiveness
SACE ID: 192950E
Does a child’s position in their family influence their cognitive level of
assertiveness?
 192950E
Proposal

Does a child’s position in their family influence their cognitive level of assertiveness?

Assertiveness is an adaptive approach of communication in which an individual expresses their feelings and needs
directly, while maintaining respect for others. Those who behave assertively are characterised by always
respecting the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of others as well as their own (Psychology Today, 2020; APA
Dictionary, 2020). The aim of this investigation is to analyse one’s assertiveness levels and specifically, determine
whether assertiveness levels differ due to a child’s position in the family.

This investigation will be completed as a quantitative observational design, as position in family will be assessed
which consists of pre-existing variables. The sample will be two Stage 2 Psychology classes from a population
of a local high school. Assertiveness levels will be measured in the form of a cognition questionnaire. Subjective
quantitative data will be obtained from the cognition questionnaire, where the higher the score, the more assertive.
This questionnaire will be measured on a 5-point frequency scale. It is hypothesised that “The eldest child in the
family will have the highest cognitive level of assertiveness compared to the youngest”.

The mean score for the cognition questionnaire results from both the youngest and oldest child will be represented
on a column graph comparing the average results for each group and the standard deviation will be calculated and
displayed on a table comparing the variance between the youngest and oldest child. If the hypothesis is supported,
the graph should show that levels of cognitive assertiveness will be higher for the eldest child, when compared to
the youngest child.

Words: 253
 192950E
Introduction

Does a child’s position in their family influence their cognitive level of assertiveness?

Assertiveness is an adaptive approach of communication in which an individual expresses their feelings and needs
directly, while maintaining respect for others. Those who behave assertively are characterised by always
respecting the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of others as well as their own. The aim of this investigation was to
analyse one’s assertiveness levels and specifically, determine whether assertiveness levels differed due to a child’s
position in the family.

This investigation was completed as a quantitative observational design, as position in family was assessed. These
were pre-existing groups. The sample was two Stage 2 Psychology classes from a population of a local high
school. Assertiveness levels were measured in the form of a cognition questionnaire. Subjective quantitative data
was obtained from the cognition questionnaire, where the higher the score, the more assertive. This questionnaire
was measured on a 5-point frequency scale. It was hypothesised that “The eldest child in the family will have the
highest cognitive level of assertiveness compared to the youngest”.

The mean score for the cognition questionnaire results from both the youngest and oldest child were represented
on a column graph comparing the average results for each group and the standard deviation was calculated and
displayed on a table comparing the variance between the youngest and oldest child’s cognition results. If the
hypothesis was supported, the graph should show that levels of cognitive assertiveness were higher for the eldest
child, when compared to the youngest child.
 192950E
Results

Mean results of youngest compared to oldest child in

relation to cognition questionaire
Total marks from questionaire 50
45
40
35 31.4 31
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Oldest Youngest
Oldest child and youngest child

Figure 1 – Depicts the mean results from the cognition questionnaire of participants who are the eldest shown in blue and the youngest shown in
orange.

Oldest Youngest
Mean Mean
31.40909 31
Standard
deviation Standard deviation
7.12 4.52

Table 1 – showing the mean and standard deviation between the youngest shown in orange and oldest child shown in blue

According to figure 1, the average cognitive assertiveness score for the oldest child is 31.4, which is 0.41 marks
higher than the youngest child with an average cognitive assertiveness score of 31. This depicts a decrease of
1.30% in the youngest child’s cognitive assertiveness levels when compared to the oldest. This supports the
hypothesis, as the oldest child was predicted to have a higher cognitive assertiveness. This suggests that the oldest
child could influence the youngest child, thus, contributing to their similar cognitive assertiveness. However, as
the difference is less than 1 mark, although the hypothesis it is supported, this is not a significant difference
between both positions in family. Finally, the standard deviation from the oldest is 7.12 which shows a large
variance in results around the mean, compared to the youngest with a standard deviation of 4.52, showing less
variance of results around the mean. This suggests that there is a higher variance in the oldest child’s results
compared to the youngest.
 192950E
The sample consists of two Stage 2 Psychology classes from a local high school made up of 43 participants of the
age range 17-18, however, the sample is gender biased due to there being an inequal gender ratio of 29 females
to 14 males. This means, male representation is only 32.6% compared to the female representation being 67.4%.
This can be improved by increasing the sample size, which would obtain more reliable results and ensure the
sample is representative of gender, age, class, interests, and locality. As the population consists of Stage 2
Psychology students, this indicates that the results cannot be generalised to the wider community as it is only
representative of students interested in psychology, consequently, limiting the external validity. To surmount this,
participants would be randomly selected from the entire Stage 2 population, therefore, becoming more
representative of the wider population.

A Quantitative Observational designs allow variables to be investigated that would be unethical, impossible, or
too costly under an experimental design. In this investigation, it was not possible to manipulate position in family,
therefore the quantitative observational design was appropriate. However, this design cannot infer such a strong
cause and effect relationship since there is a greater chance of extraneous variables, affecting the results. For
instance upbringing and participants possibly having assertiveness training prior to the investigation, can impact
the validity of the results. This is due to the lack of random allocation of participants to groups. This could be
improved by conducting an experimental design where participants are required to go through a pre-test prior to
the investigation as well as controlled environments used to limit any extraneous variables that may affect the
results.

Due to the results being combined from previous years, this increases the sample size and therefore, improves the
external validity of the results as participant diversity is increased. The cognition questionnaire that evaluated
cognitive assertiveness was measured on a 5-point frequency scale. This improved accuracy of the results as it
measured the degree of assertiveness and established differences in scores between the eldest and youngest child.
Hence, the questionnaire was internally valid as it asked several questions that related directly to participants
cognitive assertiveness as the statements focused on the participants cognitive aspect of assertiveness. As
subjective quantitative data was collected from the questionnaires it is possible bias was present which could
reduce the reliability of the results. Participants may have also changed responses from the cognition questionnaire
to appear more assertive due to social desirability. Hence, participants were not answering to their appropriate
assertiveness levels, thus, reducing the internal validity of the results. This can be improved by conducting another
quantitative observational design to check reliability of results by observing participants behaviour and matching
the observations against their assertiveness results, hence, collecting objective quantitative data. The results
cannot be generalised beyond this investigation due to the gender bias, and lack of representativeness of only
students that are interested in psychology which lowers the validity.
 192950E
This investigation resulted in several ethical breaches. Though confidentiality was upheld through random
allocation of an anonymous identification number as the results were accessible by all participants they were not
deemed to be confidential. This could lead to vulnerability being caused by participants’ assertiveness scores
being known. Withdrawal from the investigation was upheld as participants who requested to withdrawal, were
respected. However, social conformity may have stopped participants from withdrawing from the research, as it
is likely participants did not want other participants attention drawn to themselves when withdrawing from the
research. To improve this, separate rooms for individual participants should be allocated to each participant to
minimise the effect of social conformity on the individual’s response to withdrawal from the research. This would
also minimise the potential of other participants possibly using assertiveness levels against individuals with a
low level of assertiveness, suggesting possible psychological harm to vulnerable participants.

The purpose of this investigation was to determine if a child’s position in family, influences their cognitive
assertiveness. It was found that this investigation supported the hypothesis “The eldest child in the family will
have the highest cognitive level of assertiveness compared to the youngest”. The results suggested that the oldest
child had a higher cognitive assertiveness when compared to the youngest child. Overall, the oldest child had an
increased cognitive assertiveness of 0.41 marks when compared to the youngest child. This depicted a decrease
of 1.30% in the youngest child’s cognitive assertiveness levels when compared to the oldest. Finally, the standard
deviation from the oldest was 7.12 which showed a large variance in results around the mean, compared to the
youngest which had a standard deviation of 4.52, showing less variance of results around the mean. This suggested
that there is a higher variance in the oldest child’s results compared to the youngest. Further research should be
conducted with the implementation of improvements to verify the validity of this investigation as to whether
position in family impacts levels of cognitive assertiveness, this would allow future results to add to the broader
knowledge of position in family and assertiveness.

Word count: 1406

References:

Psychology Today 2020, Assertiveness | Psychology Today, viewed 29 September 2020,

<https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/assertiveness>.

American Psychological Association 2020, Assertiveness - APA Dictionary of Psychology, viewed 29 September 2020,
<https://dictionary.apa.org/assertiveness>.