AS/A2 IN PSYCHOLOGY One Year AS-Level Course or Full Two Year A-Level Course
Why Study Psychology?
Is Psychology the right subject for me? The most important quality for anyone wanting to study psychology is to find people fascinating. Students will need to be willing to have their ideas and opinions challenged, be able to see both sides of an issue and be willing to listen to and take on board new ideas and novel arguments.
Subject at AS
At AS students learn about 5 major approaches to psychology. In each approach they discover a key topic of research, learn about important studies in that topic and find out how psychologists conduct research in that area. They also learn to use statistical tests to interpret data collected in class exercises.
The 5 approaches are: Social Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, the Psychodynamic Approach, the Biological Approach and the Learning Approach. Assessment is on two units:
Unit 1
Assessment: 1 hour 20 minutes written exam in January (40% of the total marks), externally assessed Unit 2
Assessment: 1 hour 20 minutes written exam in June (60% of the total marks), externally assessed
The papers include Multiple Choice, Short Answer and Extended Writing Questions.
Subject at A2
The A2 course gives students the opportunity to study some uses of psychology in the real world. Students discover how the approaches come together to explain human behaviour. They are encouraged to use recent evidence from events in the news. The 4 applications from which students select 2 are: Criminological Psychology, Child Psychology, Health Psychology, and Sport Psychology. All students study a further application - Clinical Psychology and look at issues and debates drawing together all the material from the AS and A2 courses. Assessment is on two units:
Unit 3
Assessment: 1½ hour written exam in January (40% of the total marks), externally marked
Unit 4 Assessment: 2 hour written exam in June (60% of the total marks), externally marked
The papers include Short Answer and Extended Writing Questions. 48
Ms C Glasgow Entry Requirements
The course involves some essay writing, data collection and interpretation of evidence, therefore students wishing to apply for psychology need to have gained a minimum of:
BC in Science C in Maths or Statistics C in English Language
Looking to the Future
Psychology is a very useful course for anyone entering a career where there is lots of interaction with people including journalism, nursing and marketing. Students planning on entering Higher Education will find psychology invaluable because it sits on the boundary between the Arts and the Sciences, combining elements of both. For students following the Arts route, psychology shows their competency in scientific thinking and numeracy and for those following the Sciences route it allows them to demonstrate their ability to construct well-argued essays.
Further information can be found on the British Psychological
Society’s
website at
www.bps.org.uk and the Edexcel website at
www.edexcel.org.uk
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