Psychological Approaches (A)

How might psychologists take these different approaches to understanding and solving the current crisis regarding concussions and football? What type of questions would they ask?  What might they see to be the 'cause' of the problem? What are some of the variables each type of psychologist would be interested in knowing?  What combination of approaches might be useful and why? Psychoanalytical Approach, Sociocultural Approach, Behaviorism, Cognitive Science

Research Methods

Pretend that you have been given funds to conduct research on the topic of football and concussions.  The aim of your research is to better understand the topic.  What type of research might you conduct? Please develop ONE research proposal by answering the following questions: What might each of the projects be able to tell us? Can we ever begin to look at cause and effect? How?  What might correlations tell us? What variables would you be interested in exploring?

You must you TWO research methods discussed in class: descriptive (case study, interviews, observation), correlational (survey), and experimental (researcher controls Independent Variable)

Action/Policy

What type of action should be taken to help solve this problem?  What can be done by coaches? Students? Players? Parents? Family? Staff? Educators?  What rules could be put into place to help reduce the number of concussion/deaths/head injuries?  What type of laws might be put in place?  What can psychologists tell policymakers about the topic? Please create a total of THREE policies and consider the above questions for each one.

Education/Interdisciplinary Thinking

It has become your job to develop an educational course on the topic of concussions in the NFL.  Your students will be interested in knowing everything there is to know about the topic.  What psychology topics would you want to cover? Why would these topics be important to understand? Now, think outside of psychology.  What other subjects/disciplines might be necessary to incorporate to the course? What would each of these disciplines offer?  How would you target students of different ages? Please answer the above questions for THREE different classes: Elementary school students, High school students, and College students.