I'm guessing Mark kindly added this reference to our links section?
http://www.all-about-psychology.com/
This makes for a good exercise in evaluating the source of our research. Who built this site? What are their credentials? How are they funded? Are they for profit, non-profit? Who is their target audience?
2 comments:
Built By: David Webb, who says he has a masters degree in occupational psychology. No way to verify this information. He says he attended a college named Sheffield in the UK, but I don't know anything about the college certification system in the UK so i couldn't tell if it was a legit school or not.
At this point I can't verify his credentials. On the site there are many disclaimers about the information given, and there are no affiliations with other psychology organizations/sites.
The actual site construction seems to be done by a company called "SiteSell.com" that's a sketchy, "marketing empowerment" tool/site builder. It seems that the abundance of google-ads are funding the site, there is so much advertising and such little design quality that it can't be that expensive to host.
the information provided is mostly basic stuff, links to outside sources, dictionary and wikipedia-like explanations of topics. there are some sketchy areas in which site visitors can ask questions, post articles etc, which could mislead readers. I would guess that the site's target audience is those who don't have any psych experience, the uninformed, people who are trusting of what thye find online. there are some sections that list different types of degree programs, and accrediation explanations that are available in the psych field, alot of outside links. it seems that would be good for someone who doesn't know much about psychology but would be interested in becoming one, maybe an older adult going back to school or a middle-high school student.
the link/content ratio is terrible, there's very little actual information provided, and there are as many ads as links. the advertising and actual site content are hard to distinguish. i feel that the site would be a bad source to use, and that i would not trust the links provided.
and I think it's possible the creator of the site is making enough off of advertising that he could make a profit, i can't be sure, but it's definitly possible.
Post a Comment