Psychology 2020A 650 FW24
Drugs and Behavior
If there is a discrepancy between the outline posted below and the outline posted on the OWL course website, the latter shall prevail.
WESTERN UNIVERSITY
LONDON CANADA
Department of Psychology
Fall/Winter 2024
Psychology 2020A Section 650
Drugs and Behavior
1 CALENDAR DESCRIPTION
Survey of the major drugs of abuse, including alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, opiates, stimulants, inhalants, and sedative-hypnotics. Discussion will focus on historical and current patterns of use and abuse, behavioural and psychological effects of acute and chronic use, psychological processes involved in drug effects, neurochemical bases for action, and treatment issues.
Antirequisite: Not Applicable
Prerequisite: Not Applicable
3 lecture hours; Course Weight: 0.5
Unless you have either the prerequisites for this course or written special permission from your Dean to enroll in it, you may be removed from this course and it will be deleted from your record. This decision may not be appealed. You will receive no adjustment to your fees in the event that you are dropped from a course for failing to have the necessary prerequisites.
2 COURSE INFORMATION
Instructor: Dr. Riley Hinson
Office and Phone Number: 6334 SSC 519-661-2111 x84649
Office Hours: By appointment
Email: hinson@uwo.ca
Time and Location of Classes: The course is asynchronous. I will give lectures (either live or prerecorded) via Zoom on Mondays (2:30-4:20) and Wednesdays (2:30-3:20) (all London, Ontario time). These classes will be recorded and posted to Voice Thread on the OWL course site. Students are not required to attend these live lectures. Students will have access to the lectures via the recordings.
Website: There is an Brightspace site for this course. Access to this site is via your id name and password (this is typically your last name and the code involving a combination of numbers and upper and lower case letters). Important course information will be posted at the website, and this is the main method of communicating information to students. It is the student’s responsibility to check the web site regularly for important course information. If you miss a course component (test, make up test, etc.) when the information for that course component has been posted on the web site, then you will receive a grade of zero (0) on that course component.
For courses that include an online component, students must have a reliable internet connection and computer that are compatible with online learning system requirements.
3 COURSE MATERIALS
All material that will be tested will be presented in the Zoom-recorded class lectures. If you would like to have a complete copy of most of the material that might be presented in class, you may purchase the entire set of my lectures from the Bookstore. You are not required to purchase this, as only the material presented in the recorded lectures will be tested. If you are considering purchasing the lectures from the Bookstore, make sure you get the correct book (you may contact me about this is you wish).
4 COURSE OBJECTIVES & LEARNING OUTCOMES
The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with the major drugs of use and abuse. These include alcohol, nicotine, caffeine, opiates, marijuana, sedatives, hallucinogens, stimulants, inhalants, steroids and other miscellaneous drugs. The history of use of the different drugs will be presented. The current use of drugs will be described. The behavioral effects will be presented. Behavioral and biopsychological research aimed at identifying factors involved in drug use will also be discussed.
By the end of this course, the successful student should be able to
- recognize and identify major drugs of abuse when they are discussed texts, news, public forums
- recognize and identify major concepts related to drug addiction
- recognize and identify major experimental procedures related to the study of drug addiction
- compare, classify, and interpret information about drugs and drug addiction as presented in texts, news, media or public forums
Student Learning Outcomes, Activities and Assessment
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Learning Outcome
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Learning Activity |
Assessment |
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5 EVALUATION
The evaluation and testing formats for this course were created to assess the learning objectives as listed in section 4.0 and are considered necessary for meeting these learning objectives.
Quizzes: These will count 50 marks. There will be weekly quizzes as indicated in the schedule in 7.0. (Note: There will not be a quiz on some weeks.) The quizzes will be “open book”, so you may have notes. You must complete the quiz by yourself. You cannot have any outside help. The quizzes will take place via Brightspace Tests and Quizzes. The weekly quiz will become available at 23:00 hours on Wednesdays and will be available for 24 hours until 23:00 hours on Thursdays. The quizzes will be time-limited meaning that while you have a 24-hour period in which to begin the quiz, once you begin there will be a limited amount of time to finish. Most quizzes will be 20 minutes. Once you start a quiz the time clock starts and will end in 20 minutes. You cannot exit the quiz and come back. Once you start you have 20 minutes to finish. The coverage for each weekly quiz will be posted to OWL. The quizzes will be MC. See 7.0 below for tentative quiz schedule.
There will be a total of 9 weekly quizzes. The best 8 of these 9 quizzes will be used to calculate your quiz grades. For example, if each quiz was worth 12 marks, and we had 8 countable quizzes, there would be 96 possible marks, and if you make 80 marks, you have 83.33% on the quizzes, so 83.33% of the 50=41.67 quiz marks. Note since only 8 of the 9 quizzes will be used this is considered a flexible arrangement. As such the new option of being excused from a quiz without having to provide documentation to Academic Counselling does not apply. If you do not write one quiz that will have no effect on your quiz calculation since only 8 or 9 count. If you then miss another quiz or quizzes you must provide Academic Counselling with documentation. They will determine if you are excused and will post to the official site. If you are not excused the grade of such missed quizzes will be 0.
Per Western Technology guidelines—When taking quizzes you must not have the course site open in more than one window/browser at a time. If you have the course site open in more than one browser/window it may not accept answers to the test, it may shut down, it may do many undesirable things---and you will not be allowed any consideration in terms of the answers not being submitted, test timing out, etc. DO NOT HAVE THE COURSE SITE OPEN IN MORE THAN ONE WINDOW/BROWSER AT A TIME.
It is the student’s responsibility to ensure that they have appropriate and stable internet connections. If there are documentable system wide internet problems or problems with Brightspace itself (which Western Technology can check) then you would be excused from missing a quiz. However, issues with connectivity or settings originating at the student connection end are not considered adequate for missing or failing to complete a quiz.
You are not permitted to print screen or copy screen any of the questions on any of the quizzes. All questions on quizzes and tests are protected intellectual material and may not be copied without permission. If you copy questions on quizzes or tests this is considered an academic offense, so you should not be doing this. If you copy questions and in any manner distribute those questions, that is both an academic offense that may result in academic penalties and it is also a violation of copyright law.
December Final Exam: This will count as 50 marks. This test will be cumulative over the entire course. It will be MC. Psychology 2020A is a 650 course (online), and the December Exam will therefore be online. During the final exam you will be allowed to use written, printed notes, or electronic notes (including the Text Notes).
Completion of this course will require you to have a reliable internet connection and a device that meets the system and technical requirements for Zoom. WTS logs any problems with Brightspace or Zoom. If you have a problem with Brightspace or Zoom that is not logged as originating from Western’s resources, you will not be allowed any make up tests or consideration of grades. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have a reliable internet connection. Information about the system and technical requirements are available at the following links:
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us
* Please note that Zoom servers are located outside Canada. If you would prefer to use only your first name or a nickname to login to Zoom, please provide this information to the instructor in advance of the test or examination.
There will be NO MAKE UPS OF MISSED QUIZZES. See 5.1 on policy for missed work.
POLICY ON MISSING COURSEWORK
If you do not take a quiz and are not excused (via Academic Counselling) you will receive a zero (0) for the missed quiz, and that will become one of the quiz grades used to calculate you quiz average.
If you are excused from a quiz, the points assigned to that quiz will be added to the Final Exam. Since quizzes are worth 50 marks and there are 9 quizzes, each quiz is worth 5.56 marks. Any excused quiz will result in 5.56 marks being added to the value of the Final Exam.
The Psychology Department follows Western’s grading guidelines: https://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/general/grades_undergrad.pdf
The expectation for course grades within the Psychology Department is that they will be distributed around the following averages:
70% 1000-level to 2099-level courses
72% 2100-2999-level courses
75% 3000-level courses
80% 4000-level courses
In the event that course grades are significantly higher or lower than these averages, instructors may be required to make adjustments to course grades. Such adjustment might include the normalization of one or more course components and/or the re-weighting of various course components.
Policy on Grade Rounding
Please note that although course grades within the Psychology Department are rounded to the nearest whole number, no further grade rounding will be done. No additional assignments will be offered to enhance a final grade; nor will requests to change a grade because it is needed for a future program be considered.
6 ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION SCHEDULE
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Weekly quizzes |
50% |
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Final Exam |
50% |
7 CLASS SCHEDULE Tentative and subject to change
Shown below are the topics scheduled for each class, but that may change. Since the lectures are recorded you can always determine what has been covered. For those that have the Text Notes, the actual lines covered for each quiz will be posted to Brightspace after the Wednesday lecture of a week.
Each quiz starts at 23:00 hours, London, Ontario time on Wednesdays.
M September 9: Introduction I
W September 11: Introduction II
No Quiz this week to allow for late registrants not missing first Quiz
M September 16: Introduction III
W September 18: Alcohol I
Quiz 1 on material from S9/11/16
M September 23: Alcohol II
W September 25: Alcohol III
Quiz 2 on material from S18/23
M September 30: No Class
W October 2: Alcohol IV
No quiz this week
M October 7: Alcohol V
W October 9: Alcohol VI
Quiz 3 on material from S25/O2/O7
M October 14: No Class
W October 16: No Class
M October 21: Cannabis I
W October 23: Cannabis II
No Quiz this week
M October 28: Tobacco I
W October 30: Tobacco II
Quiz 4 on material from O9/O21/23/28
M November 4: Caffeine I/Stimulants I
W November 6 Stimulants II
Quiz 5 on material from O30/N4
M November 11: Stimulants III/Hallucinogens I
W November 13: Hallucinogens II
Quiz 6 on material from N6/11
M November 18: Hallucinogens III/Sedative Hypnotics I
W November 20: Sedative Hypnotics II
Quiz 7 on material from N13/18
M November 25: Sedative Hypnotics III/Opiates I
W November 27: Opiates II
Quiz 8 on material from N20/25
M December 2: Opiates III
W December 4: Gambling I
Quiz 9 on material from N27/D2
8 Academic Integrity
Scholastic offences are taken seriously, and students are directed to read the appropriate policy, specifically, the definition of what constitutes a Scholastic Offence, at the following Web site: https://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/scholastic_discipline_undergrad.pdf.
Possible penalties for a scholastic offence include failure of the assignment/exam, failure of the course, suspension from the University, and expulsion from the University.
Statement on Use of Electronic Devices
You are allowed to use electronic versions of notes during quizzes and tests.
Multiple Choice Exams
Computer-marked multiple-choice tests and/or exams will be subject to submission for similarity review by software that will check for unusual coincidences in answer patterns that may indicate cheating.
Exam Proctoring Software
Tests and examinations for online courses may be conducted using a remote proctoring service. More information about this remote proctoring service, including technical requirements, is available on Western’s Remote Proctoring website at: https://remoteproctoring.uwo.ca.
9 Academic Accommodations and Accessible Education
View Western’s policy on academic accommodations for student with disabilities at this link.
Accessible Education provides supports and services to students with disabilities at Western.
If you think you may qualify for ongoing accommodation that will be recognized in all your courses, visit Accessible Education for more information. Email: aew@uwo.ca Phone: 519 661-2147
10 Absence & Academic Consideration
View Western’s policy on academic consideration for medical illnesses this link
Find your academic counsellor here: https://www.registrar.uwo.ca/faculty_academic_counselling.html
Students must see the Academic Counsellor and submit all required documentation in order to be approved for certain academic considerations. Students must communicate with their instructors no later than 24 hours after the end of the period covered SMC, or immediately upon their return following a documented absence.
Medical Absences
Submit a Student Medical Certificate (SMC) signed by a licensed medical or mental health practitioner to Academic Counselling in your Faculty of registration to be eligible for Academic Consideration.
Nonmedical Absences
Submit appropriate documentation (e.g., obituary, police report, accident report, court order, etc.) to Academic Counselling in your Faculty of registration to be eligible for academic consideration. Students are encouraged to contact their Academic Counselling unit to clarify what documentation is appropriate.
Religious Consideration
Students seeking accommodation for religious purposes are advised to contact Academic Counselling at least three weeks prior to the religious event and as soon as possible after the start of the term.
11 Other Information
- Office of the Registrar: https://registrar.uwo.ca
- Student Development Services: sdc.uwo.ca
- Psychology Undergraduate Program: https://www.psychology.uwo.ca/undergraduate/index.html
Students who are in emotional/mental distress should refer to Health and Wellness@Western https://www.uwo.ca/health/ for a complete list of options about how to obtain help.
Please contact the course instructor if you require material in an alternate format or if you require any other arrangements to make this course more accessible to you.
If you wish to appeal a grade, please read the policy documentation at: https://www.uwo.ca/univsec/pdf/academic_policies/appeals/appealsundergrad.pdf. Please first contact the course instructor. If your issue is not resolved, you may make your appeal in writing to the Undergraduate Chair in Psychology (psyugrd@uwo.ca).
Copyright Statement
Lectures and course materials, including power point presentations, outlines, videos and similar materials, are protected by copyright. You may take notes and make copies of course materials for your own educational use. You may not record lectures, reproduce (or allow others to reproduce), post or distribute any course materials publicly and/or for commercial purposes without the instructor’s written consent.
Policy on the Recording of Synchronous Sessions
Some or all the learning sessions for this course may be recorded. The data captured during these recordings may include your image, voice recordings, chat logs and personal identifiers. The recordings will be used for educational purposes related to this course, including evaluations. The recordings may be disclosed to other individuals participating in the course for their private or group study purposes. Please contact the instructor if you have any concerns related to session recordings. Participants in this course are not permitted to privately record the sessions, except where recording is an approved accommodation, or the student has the prior written permission of the instructor.
12 Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that Western University is located on the traditional territories of the Anishinaabek, Haudenosaunee, Lūnaapéewak, and Chonnonton. Nations, on lands connected with the London Township and Sombra Treaties of 1796 and the Dish with One Spoon Covenant Wampum. This land continues to be home to diverse Indigenous Peoples (First Nations, Métis and Inuit) whom we recognize as contemporary stewards of the land and vital contributors of our
