Unit 45 Assignment 3: Using resources within health and social care

P3: Present one complex piece of work as an example to demonstrate the use of
resources within own studies.

This assignment will present one complex piece of work Unit 4 Task 2 as an
example to demonstrate and explain the use of recourses within own studies. The
main recourses that will be discussed in this assignment are text books, word
document and internet.
With the aim of complete Unit 4 Task 2 which had to be in the form of an essay. I
had to describe physical, intellectual, emotional and social development for each
of the life stages of an individual in which I choose Aaliyah.
As I didn’t know much enough to answer that I had to do a research. I have used
Word document which allowed me to produce the essay. This is a programme
which is designed for creating documents such as letters, brochures, learning
activities, tests, quizzes and students assignments. Word document can be
installed into any computer or laptop and be used as a resource to help with
study or for commercial usage.
The first resource I used to find out more about the assignment and to get the
right information was the BTEC Level 3 National Health and Social Care: Student
Book 2 by Marilyn Billingham and Hilary Talman. This text book consist of many
different units and in order to find the unit I had to go to the index page. The
index page has a list of all the units within the book and the page number the unit
was on. The index page is very useful to this type of resource because it saves the
time from going through the whole book to find the unit I was looking for. The
book provided me with basic information child development it was easy to read
and understand because the text was set out clearly with subheadings and
paragraphs. The text book is a trusted source of information because if the book
was published it means that the publisher had to check the contents of the book
and whether it is true and based on facts.
The text book also provided me with definitions related to nature vs nurture
which I took into my assignment. In order to make sure that the information was I
copying from the book wasn’t plagiarised I referenced the book at the bottom of
my piece of work. While the book had useful background information my
assignment asked me to explain the different life stages which relates to an
individual the book was written in 2010 and therefore the information in the book
has not been updated since then.
In order to find newer information about child development I used the internet.
This resource provides recent and a wider context of information. I needed to use
to create information to put into my essay. Laptops and computers are also a
valuable learning tool for students at home. Students can solve homework faster
by having access to online books, journals and other news. Without leaving the
house we can use many manuals, dictionaries, educational programs and many
other facilities. We can easily and quickly get hold of full information we need
without a move or spending hours in libraries.
The internet is a search engine all you need to do is just type in a subject or words
related to what are you looking for. When you press search many articles,
websites and blogs will appear and you can choose the one which you think has
the best information. However not all the time the information you find is correct
since everyone have an access to internet and some of the information might be
untrue. I mostly use the NHS website for my assignments because it usually
delivers information on many different things based true facts and child
development was one of them. There was another website wordpress.co.uk that
had a lot of reliable information regarding my assignment it also had pictures
which I put into my essay to back up my text and make it look more interesting.
All the information I got from the internet I used in my essay but to make sure I
didn’t plagiarism I added the references. At the end of my essay I added in a
bibliography which had the links to the website I found my information on and
any other reference I used in my assignment. Without resources mentioned I
would have found it very hard to complete the assignment. The use of resources
to help study is very significant as it helps you to learn independently and search
for the things you need at a time.
M2: Explain the value of three different resources in the preparation of the
complex piece of work
For the same resource you need to consider the value of the resource. To do this
you will need to use an example/quote and explain why it was useful to the
assignment. Consider the following:
Word document helped that type up and produce my assignment it provided
variety of fonts and sizes. It also automatically counts the number of words in the
assignment and displays them in the status bar provided this helped me not get
confused with how many words I written. It also helped me to save work on a
flash drive, take them with me and work on the assignment somewhere else.
When I misspell a word, Microsoft Word will immediately underline it you can
then click on the word and get suggested spellings. If you also type a sentence
that has poor grammar word will underline the sentence for you. . For example”
When Aaliyah was 22 she got into an unexpected plane crash which lead to her
family being emotional. “This allowed me to change the document while I was are
still working on it.
This was very relevant to content to my assignment because without word I
probably wouldn’t be able to produce a ten thousand words essay by hand. This
resource didn’t provide me with information I needed since I used this to produce
my assignment. I wouldn’t have been able to complete the assignment without
Word because it helped me type up, check my spelling mistakes and pick the font
I wanted to use for the assignment I wouldn’t have been able to do this by hand.
BTEC Level 3 National Health and Social Care: Student Book 2 by Marilyn
Billingham and Hilary Talman provided me with a balanced, chronological
presentation of information. Textbook writers keep informed with the research in
a specific subject area which means that I was presented with the most valuable
information in this topic.Textbooks are typically written with detailed contents
pages and indexes and it was designed properly so it was easy for me to find out
what I was looking for. The material in each chapter is also usually presented in a
similar design which means that I knew exactly how to approach each topic as it
was presented. This wasn’t as relevant to the content of my assignment because I
could have found information on an internet health and social care textbook
instead of going to my teacher for one.
This resource didn’t provide a lot of information it only helped me with a little bit
of information for the nurture vs nature debate. For Example “Personal emotional
relationships are due to nurture as it is in our environment however it could be
stated that a woman chooses her significant other due to features her mother has
this could be due to nature.”I would have been able to complete the assignment
without the using the textbooks because I would been able to find the
information of nature vs nurture online.
Using the Internet gave me the ability to access all different types of information
from resources from across the globe. No longer limited by outdated manuals
anything I want to learn is only a click away. It is well documented that students
have dissimilar learning styles access to assignments online after hours can give
me the ability to complete assignments on my own timetable. With less books
and notebooks to carry around each day there is less of a chance that materials
will be forgotten or left behind. This means that I don’t have to no longer disrupt
lessons because I came to class unprepared or fall behind because I forgot to
bring their books home with them. I can also can access work and print pages
from specific sections or chapters as needed. This was very relevant because
without the internet I wouldn’t have been able to find information about
Aaliyah’s life or use find pictures of her for my assignment.
This provided me with a lot of information which helped me a lot with finding out
about Aaliyahs life story to physical and psychological changes which may be
associated with ageing.For Example” When Aaliyah would get to have consistent
with her self-esteem and self-confidence it suggests that she has belief within her
ability and identity if she fails to have any of these two factors it’s possible that it
could be having a negative effect on her wellbeing because this could mean that
she’s stressed.” I wouldn’t have been able to complete the assignment without
using the internet because that’s where I got most of my information about
Aaliyah and research regarding my assignment. I wouldn’t have been able to find
research on Aaliyah in a library as library in England don’t really have information
about 90s black R&B artists.
D2: Evaluate the three resources in terms of validity
Most websites are certainly valid mostly as some are reliable specially certain
websites like the NHS website. On the other hand there are some websites that
are totally invalid an example of this would be Wikipedia. People can go online
and edit this website as a result everything a individual reads might not be from a
reliable source. The decent websites such as the NHS website are quite up to date
and consist of really good information and a number of case studies. Websites are
really easy to use and contain a range of information such as pictures, tables and
diagrams. Websites can be really inviting they can also be colourful this is better
than a website looking really dull and uninteresting as nobody would want to read
the information there. The NHS Website test their ideas with users and use the
feedback they receive to learn and develop to make sure their content is safe,
correct and up to date.
One advantage of using the NHS website for research is that they include the date
that it was posted and when it was reviewed by including a date the website
allowed me to make decisions about whether that information is recent enough
for their purposes.
Another advantage is that it used the right domain which is nhs.uk this shows that
it’s the real NHS website and not a fake one. Some domains such as .com, .org,
and .net can be bought and used by anyone. However the domain .edu is set
aside for colleges and universities while .gov means it’s a government website.
These two are usually reliable sources for information I was careful not click on a
domain with .org, because .org is usually used by nonprofit organizations which
might have an agenda of persuading rather than educating.
The last advantage of using the NHS Website is that the website is wellstructured
and organised which was easier for me to get the information I needed. The
grammar and sentences also made sense. Poor spelling and grammar are a sign
that the site might not be trustworthy and I dint see any of this on the NHS
website. In an effort to make the information presented easy to understand,
reliable websites watch writing style closely this can be very subjective but a
stylish site can be an indication of more reliable information. Good design helps
make information more easily accessible.
One disadvantage about using NHS website was that it didn’t have the right
pictures and all the information I needed to complete for most of my essay so I
only used it for finding out about nature vs nurture and child development as it
was the most accurate website I have found based on those topics. I had to go on
wordpress to get the right pictures for my assignment.
Another disadvantage is I might not have been able to use the website if the
internet goes down and I didn’t have any data left if this happens I won’t be able
to retrieve any information as connection is needed to access the information
which will be impossible if a computer and connection is not available. Also in
some occasions the site might go down or the computer might crash.
Textbooks are right resources too as they are reliable. Textbooks are dependable
as they have to be checked by a number of agents before they get published
therefore there won't be any false information in there. Textbooks are also a
decent resource as they include case studies and real life situations. Textbooks
also consist of a lot of information as they can be hundreds of pages long.
Textbooks contain a blurb on the back so if you're not sure that the book you
have picked is relevant to what you need it for then you can read on the back to
check. You can get almost any textbook you're looking for at your local library so
you don't have to pay to read them.
An advantage about using the BTEC Level 3 National Health and Social Care:
Student Book 2 is that it had the author name so I could find other reliable
information on another one of the author textbook if I need to use the
information for another time. Not all textbooks has the name of the author with a
listed author is one indication of a credible textbook. The fact that the author is
willing to stand behind the information presented and in some cases include his
or her contact information is a good indication that the information is
dependable.
Another advantage using the BTEC Level 3 National Health and Social Care:
Student Book 2 is that the end of each chapter or topic it listed all the useful
websites and sources used to find the information helping to produce this
textbook this means that the website is reliable. I also find out about information
that I probably wouldn’t find on the internet or it will be hard for me to find this
shows that good textbooks are brilliant teaching aids.
One last advantage is that scholarly books contain reliable information and this
can include wide ranging accounts of research, historical data, overviews, experts
views on topics. Textbooks are useful when I require background information and
related research on a topic when I want to add depth to a research topic.
One disadvantage is not being able to see people reviews of point of views of this
textbook. Also since the author is not present when others are getting
information there is no opportunity to ask questions or have thing explained in
better detail etc. One last disadvantage is because it can take years in some
examples to write and publish books they are not always the best sources for
current topic.
Using Microsoft word is very dependable because it can effortlessly correct any
mistakes which I make when typing up assignments. It also save multiple versions
of documents and easily sort them so that I can go back to previous versions of
the same document
When writing this essay the format of the text and general page was layed out
properly so that I could make the page look more pleasing and easier to read. Also
I easily saved the document and sent it straight to my teacher which saved me
money on printing and it is much easier to do
A disadvantage of using Microsoft word is that data can sometimes be lost due to
data corruption. On the other hand this could happen to someone hand writing a
letter because something could happen to the paper such as a pen leaking. One
last disadvantage of using Microsoft word it needs a computer to edit or view
documents which might sometimes not be there especially when on the go. Some
individuals might not have access to computers or laptops which could delay the
amount of time they could work on an assignment.