Full Two Year A-level Course
A LEVEL IN PSYCHOLOGY Why study Psychology?
Miss L King
Psychology is the scientific study of human behaviour, cognition and emotion. Students will need to be willing to have their ideas and opinions challenged; be able to see both sides of an issue; to and take on board new ideas and novel arguments. Psychology provides many opportunities to develop skills in assessing debates and arguments. As the subject material is research based you will learn to use statistical tests to help interpret data collected in class exercises. We will consider several aspects of our behaviour and the explanations put forward by psychologists for why we behave, think and feel, the way we do.
Entry Requirements
The nature of the course means that having maths, science and English language to Grade B or better at GCSE level, is strongly advisable.
What will I learn?
What do your dreams mean? Is it possible to assign gender? Can memory and forgetting be explained? Why do people at times behave in extreme ways in crowd situations? How can learning be explained? Does exposure to violence on TV result in violent behaviour? Why are eye witness testimonies not reliable? This course tries to answer these questions and many others, providing a comprehensive overview of the scientific study of thought and behaviour. It explores topics such as perception, prejudice, learning, memory, decision-making, culture, persuasion, relationships, dreams, bonding in infancy, research methodology and data analysis. The course will look at how these aspects of the mind develop in children, how they differ across people, how they are wired-up in the brain, and how they break down due to illness and injury.
Subject in Year 12 Social Psychology
• Obedience and prejudice, theoretical explanations
• Social research methods, studies, key questions Cognitive Psychology
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
48 • • • • Memory processes and theories •
Experimental methods, studies, key questions Biological Psychology
CNS and neurotransmitter functioning
Brain structure & function related to aggression Correlational methods, studies, key questions
Learning Theories
• Theories of conditioning, phobias • Research methods, studies, key questions
Subject at A-level Clinical Psychology
• Treatment for disorders Criminal Psychology • Jury decision making
• Causes and treatment of crime Child Psychology
• Attachment in infancy • Autism
Psychological Skills • Review of methodology • Review of studies • Issues and debates in psychology
Assessment A two-year course with three written exams in May/June 2018.
Looking to the future 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 science route it allows them to demonstrate their ability to construct well-argued essays.
• Effects of deprivation • Eye witness testimony • Schizophrenia Issues in diagnosis
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