Question
(a) Describe:
• a study on promoting healthy eating in schools, and
• a study on promoting health and safety in worksites. [6]
(b) Evaluate:
• a study on promoting healthy eating in schools, and
• a study on promoting health and safety in worksites, including a discussion about experiments.
Evaluation in your answer can include strengths, weaknesses and a discussion of issues and debates. [10]
Section D: Organisational Psychology
Answer all questions.
Mark scheme
12(a) Describe: 6 Award up to 4 marks
• a study on promoting healthy eating in schools, and where the response has
• a study on promoting health and safety in worksites. described only part of the
question even if the
Use Table A: AO1 Knowledge and understanding to mark candidate responses to this response otherwise meets
question. the criteria for level 3.
Candidates must discuss both types of a study on healthy eating in schools and a study on
health and safety in worksites. They can include examples of any appropriate studies. For L3 for a study need
some detail of the
Details may include: procedure (e.g. details of
how food dudes was used
Study on healthy eating in schools with children or the
participants; details of how
Tapper et al. token economy carried
Food dudes. – a number of different studies that were completed by the authors are described out) and at least 1 result.
in the study and any or all are creditworthy.
Whole school programme of 4–11 year olds in a primary school. Shown food dudes Alternative study on
programmes and given a course of lesson materials including stickers, letters home pack, staff healthy eating in
manual, etc. Lasted for 16 days and was covered each day in school. Children were schools – O’Brien et al.
enthusiastic about the work and improved their attendance. After four months reported to (2021) Abstract
continue to be eating more fruit and vegetables. Schools are identified as a
key setting to influence
Study on health and safety in worksites children's and
adolescents' healthy
Fox et al. eating. This umbrella
Workers at two open-pit mines used as participants. Employees earned stamps for working review synthesised
without lost-time injuries, not being involved in equipment damaging accidents, adopting evidence from systematic
safety suggestions and behaviour which prevent injury/accident. Lost stamps if they/other reviews of school-based
workers injured, caused equipment damage or failed to report injury/accident. Stamps could nutrition interventions
be exchanged for thousands of items in a shop on site. Results – large reduction in lost days designed to improve
due to injuries, lost time injuries and costs of accidents/injuries. Reduction in costs far exceed dietary intake outcomes in
the cost of token economy and improvements maintained over several years. children aged 6 to 18
years.
Other appropriate responses should also be credited.
12(a) They undertook a
systematic search of six
electronic databases and
grey literature to identify
relevant reviews of
randomized controlled
trials. The review findings
were categorised for
synthesis by intervention
type according to the
World Health Organisation
Health Promoting Schools
(HPS) framework
domains: nutrition
education; food
environment; all three
HPS framework domains;
or other (not aligned to
HPS framework domain).
Thirteen systematic
reviews were included.
Overall, the findings
suggest that school-based
nutrition interventions,
including nutrition
education, food
environment, those based
on all three domains of the
HPS framework, and
eHealth interventions, can
have a positive effect on
some dietary outcomes,
including fruit, fruit and
vegetables combined, and
fat intake.
12(a) These results should be
interpreted with caution,
however, as the quality of
the reviews was poor.
Though these results
support continued public
health investment in
school-based nutrition
interventions to improve
child dietary intake, the
limitations of this umbrella
review also highlight the
need for a comprehensive
and high quality
systematic review of
primary studies.
Alternative study on
health and safety at
worksites. LaMontagne
et al. (2004Aims: (1) To
develop a transparent and
broadly applicable method
for assessing occupational
safety and health (OSH)
programmes or
management systems; (2)
to assess OSH
programmes in a sample
of manufacturing
worksites; and (3) to
determine whether a
management focused
occupational health
intervention results in
12(a) greater improvement in
OSH programmes
compared to minimal
intervention controls.
Methods: OSH
programmes were
assessed using an
adaptation of the US
Occupational Safety &
Health Administration’s
1995 Program Evaluation
Profile. Scores were
generated from 91 binary
indicator variables
grouped under four
“Essential Elements”.
Essential Element scores
were weighted to
contribute to an overall
programme score on a
100-point scale.
Seventeen large
manufacturing worksites
were assessed at
baseline; 15 sites
completed the 16-month
intervention and follow up
assessments.
Results: There was
considerable variation in
Essential Element scores
across sites at baseline as
judged by our instrument,
particularly in
12(a) “management commitment
and employee
participation” and
“workplace analysis”. Most
sites scored highly on
“hazard prevention and
control” and “training and
education”. For overall
OSH programme scores,
most sites scored in the
60–80% range at baseline,
with four sites scoring
below 60%, suggesting
weak programmes.
Intervention sites showed
greater improvements
than controls in the four
programme elements and
in overall programme
scores, with significantly
greater improvements in
“management commitment
and employee
participation”.
Conclusions: The OSH
programme assessment
method used is broadly
applicable to
manufacturing work
settings, and baseline
profiles suggest needs for
improvement in OSH
programmes in most such
worksites.
12(a) Despite a small sample
size, results showed that
sustained management
focused intervention can
result in improvement in
these OSH programme
measures
12(b) Evaluate: 10
• a study on promoting healthy eating in schools, and
• a study on promoting health and safety in worksites,
including a discussion about experiments.
Evaluation in your answer can include strengths, weaknesses and a discussion of
issues and debates.
Use Table B: AO3 Analysis and evaluation to mark candidate responses to this question.
A range of issues could be used for evaluation.
These include:
• Named issue – Experiments – Likely evaluation points include – ecological validity,
reliability, demand characteristics, controls, control of extraneous variables. Tapper’ study
was a field study and Fox et al. was quasi experiment.
• Use of children in research – Strengths – can be ethical if consent gained from parents
and child can be informed of the nature of the study if old enough to understand, as
improving healthy eating this will have a good outcome for the children (unless in a control
group), children may not show demand characteristics if they don’t know or understand
that they are in a study, children’s eating is different in different cultures due to
socialisation and differences in availability/advertising of products so may not be
generalisable. Weaknesses – could be ethical issues as children are more sensitive than
adults, child may try and please the researcher/their teacher and this leads to demand
characteristics/social desirability, children may not realise the importance of being honest
about their eating outside of the classroom.
• Longitudinal studies – Strengths include that it shows change in behaviour over time,
often can get more detail due to the length of time spent with participants. Weaknesses
include that it involves a lot of commitment/time/cost of the psychologist and their
university/funding body and participant attrition. Tapper’s whole school programme was
initially done over 16 days and a 4-month follow-up (at some of the schools involved).
Food dudes in the nursery had a 15-month follow-up. Interventions of introducing new
fruits and vegetables was done slowly which helped to increase consumption so is a
strength of the longitudinal method for this research. Fox et al. 1970–1985 – 15 years.
12(b) • Generalisations from findings – Fox et al. was just done on mine workers in the USA,
Tapper was on children aged 4–11 in the UK.
• Quantitative and qualitative data – Likely evaluation points – depth of data, bias in
interpretation of data, comparisons/statistical analysis
Other issues could include:
• evaluation of data collection methods used
• ethics
• Idiographic and nomothetic
• Determinism versus free-will
Other appropriate responses should also be credited.