MUSI20149: Music Psychology

10 online weekly quizzes, consisting of four questions (open book, open time) (40%) and a 2000 word written assignment (60%)

If you’re looking for an easy H1 Music Psych ain’t it. Let me explain.
So yea Music Psych has little to no commitment hours, as long as you do the quiz (in which you have a week to do) that pretty much it for most of the semester. Keep in mind the quiz questions were sometimes ridiculous super broad, and you couldn’t choose between two answers, I guess they do try to make it difficult. Keep in mind each question is worth 1% so try to get as little wrong, and don’t forget to do the quiz because you then lose an easy 4%. So you might be thinking, the weekly quizzes are easy right, why such a low rating. Let’s discuss the essay.
This essay had the least amount of instructions, I legit had no idea what to write. Basically, every week you will go through different topic, you can choose the topic (or two topics) you found the most interesting and choose this to be the centre of your essay. Based on the topic you chose in your introduction you must identify three key theorists and explain how their works have contributed to the research field in your topic. Then, in your body you must critically analyse three articles and evaluate their research design, research bias and their overall results. The introduction was super unclear I am still not sure if I even wrote what they wanted, the rubric required us to discuss quite a lot but I couldn’t fit it in the word count and just chose not to address the whole rubric. The body was actually interesting to write, each week Dr Kat critically evaluates two articles and she shows us the skills and approach we should take for the assignment, this was helpful. The conclusion required a discussion of future recommendations for any possible research.
My main complaint with the final essay was the lack of clarity we had on we were supposed to write (in the end, yes I did well). They changed the assignment to previous years and with such lack of clarity, I was so confused. I would encourage you to start your essay early (Week 10, because there is plenty of research you will need to do before you write).
Overall, a decent subject I have it little to no effort and still got a H1, it wasn’t easy the essay was stressful, but it does fulfil as a WAM booster.

Yes, with screen capture.

Many guest lectures but the coordinators are Dr Elly Scrine & Dr Katrina Skewes McFerran

A quick guide to language and argument analysis
HHD sample questions HHD 2019 Comprehensive examiner report analysis

No exam, no sample essays were provided

2.5/5

N/A

No lectures, just watch videos online, there is a 2 hour seminar for discussion but it not compulsory to attend.

2020 Semester One

H1

Ten weekly quizzes (40%) and an end of semester assignment (60%)

Are you looking for that ‘’easy H1 subject’’ with light workload that seems to be a bludge for the whole semester? Well music psychology offers you each of these aspects so do it now!

This was by far the easiest and most relaxed subject I have done in my entire degree so far. My last review for another breadth subject (critical thinking) I spoke about how that subject had rather difficult content, a massive workload and was very stressful throughout the year – music psychology was the complete opposite.

Lectures:

As chickenchowmien said in his review some of the lectures are very interesting whilst some are extremely boring. I do not think any of the content I had learnt throughout the semester will help me for the future but some of the content is extremely interesting (e.g. how music impacts identity and development, how music can change the brain, how music impacts mood and music’s overall function and purpose in our society). I think you will especially enjoy this subject if you are both a listener to music with good taste in a specific genre and also play an instrument.

Coordinator

Dr Grace Thompson is AMAZING. I emailed her once during the semester and about three times during exam period (for the assignment) and she seriously replies within one day and writes you ESSAYS in an attempt to help out. She will spoon feed you in order to help out on your assignment and other queries. She is probably the nicest, most informative coordinator I have ever had. She is a very nice person as well and is one of those coordinators who are really motivated and determined to make sure their students do well in the subject.

Quizzes:

You have ten quizzes. You need to get 100% in at least eight of them to get the full 40% of the subject. There are four questions, no time limit, about 1.5 days to complete the quiz by.

The first quiz I scored ¾ and it took me two hours to complete (lol). I panicked bad but then the next 8 quizzes took me less than 30 minutes (some took like 5 minutes to do) and all the answers were directly from either the lecture slides or readings. I did not bother to do the last quiz (got 0/0) because I had already gotten 4/4 for at least 8 of them.

Note: I had initially written another paragraph on how I completed these quizzes but I have deleted it. I’ll just say that cross checking the answers to the quizzes may be of help as everyone gets the same questions .

Thus far four people have told me their final marks for this subject and we all got the 40% for the quizzes.

Assignment:

I found the assignment rather chilled and laid back (mostly because I started very early and had done several readings prior to my preparation). I started about 2.5 weeks early (I was lucky to have all my exams very late in the exam period, hence was able to start the assignment early).

Our topic was not too complicated – how music impacts emotions and cognitions. For the first week it was very light work, just reading and planning and the last 1.5 weeks is where I did most of my work, finished my drafts, finished all my readings and research, wrote up a good copy etc).

All you really have to do is intertwine the literature taught in this subject with your own reflections (personal experiences) and produce a coherent 2000 word essay. You don’t even have to cover all the lectures from the course! If I recall correctly I used literature from five of the twelve lectures presented. ALSO, make sure most of your literature is from readings outside to what they have taught. I had about twelve references in my essay and to be honest this was not that hard because there is HEAPS of academic information regarding these topics and I found the content really interesting so read through the readings very quickly.

I also found it helpful to brainstorm some ideas with a friend during the assignment and also proof read each other’s work to give feedback on each other’s structure, content, expression etc. So group work for this subject can be beneficial.

With scores, I received a 79 in the assignment. Out of the four people who have told me their scores the lowest was 84 so we all got at least H2A for the assignment.

Just some tips for the assignment:
- Make sure you have MORE literature than reflections. The reflection bit is easy, to distinguish students you will need to have better literature
- Follow the criteria carefully. Grace gives out very clear and specific details to what she wants
- Email Grace if help is needed, if she is like how she was this semester she will literally write you essays to help out. In other subjects I’ve seriously had coordinators responding to me with one sentence answers – Grace is rare and so helpful
- Doing the readings throughout the semester rather than cramming during SWOTVAC is very helpful

PM me for more information! ☺

Yes, with screen capture

Dr Grace Thompson is the head coordinator and gives some of the key lectures, apart from that you have several different guest lecturers across the 12 weeks

No sample assignments given

5/5

There is a textbook Rickard, N. & McFerran, K. (2011). Lifelong Engagement with Music: Benefits for Mental Health and Well-Being. Melbourne: Nova Publishers. But it is seriously not needed, readings are suffice

One 2 hour lecture per week, that is all (24 contact hours).

2016, Semester 1

H1

Weekly participation in web-based quiz (40%= 10X4%); 2000 word written assignment, due at the end of semester (60%).

I chose this subject at the end of week 2 just before the last enrollments (I dropped MIIM20001) because I wanted a "relaxing" and "bludge" subject. Since lectures were at 9am and living 2 hours away, I probably attended about 3 lectures the whole semester. Some of them were very interesting while some were mind-numbingly boring. I remember in week 5, 6 or something we learnt about auditory damage from listening to music too loud for prolonged periods of time. The speaker, Jeremy Marozeau brought his machine which could measure how loud you listen to your music to! That was probably my favorite lecture all semester.

Every week there are 4 MCQ questions which make up the weekly quiz which contribute to your final overall mark. Each question is 1% and since there are 4 questions every week for 10 weeks, it makes up 40% of your overall mark. This is easy to attain some much required marks but make sure you do them well since mistakes may be detrimental to your overall score. Theoretically if you got 30/40 for the quizzes, to get a H1, you would need a 50/60 for the essay component. Whereas if you got 40/40 (not easy), you would only need a 40/60 (66.67%) in comparison. So yeh, I guess it does make quite an impact.

The reason why I gave this subject 4/5 was largely due to not much info about the final assessment. The final 60% essay to be honest, is a pain and I do not speak for only myself but for others when I say that the staff in this subject did not really give much detail as to what was expected of the assignment. The thing they provide is 2 sample essays which scored well but yeh maybe I'm just noob hahahaha I'm not sure how hard they mark the final essays and how hard it is to get a H1. But from my experience so far, I don't think it's as easy as everyone makes it out to be ? :/

Overall, I found this subject to be quite relaxing thorughout the semester at times very interesting.

Edit: put in grade mark + if anyone has any questions feel free to PM me.

Yes

Every lecture had a different speaker (don't remember the names)

N/A, 2 past sample essays were given to us.

4/5

There is one, but you don't really need it. If you want you can borrow it from the library or look it up online

1X2hr lecture per week

Semester 1, 2014

H1