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admit@essex.ac.uk |
www.essex.ac.uk/psychology | Psychology
You will be personally involved in the research activities of the Department. In particular, you will conduct your own research project in the final year from planning to writing-up, including designing the investigation, collecting and analysing data and finally interpreting your findings.
By the time you graduate from Essex, you will have a deep understanding of how psychology is used in the world. This will equip you well for future professional training in educational, clinical, occupational, child or counselling psychology.
What do I study? Both the BA and BSc Psychology courses are fully accredited by the BPS. This is required for graduate psychology courses and allows graduate membership of the BPS. Our BA and BSc courses are identical and cover core areas in psychology, including: developmental psychology; intelligence; language; memory; perception; social psychology; health psychology; and research methods and statistics.
Modules are taught by a combination of lectures and small group teaching. Assessment of modules is based on both coursework (eg essays and lab reports) and end-of-year exams.
First year You will take three compulsory psychology modules and an outside option. The psychology modules are:
Discovering Psychology is a lecture and class-based module which will give you an overview of all areas of psychology, including personality, social behaviour, perception, language development, cognition, memory, emotion, motivation, and abnormal psychology and its treatments.
Research Methods in Psychology is a lecture and laboratory-based module in which hands-on research methods are taught. The advantages and disadvantages of different methods are discussed. You will design, carry out and analyse practical experiments in class.
Statistics for Psychologists is a lecture and workshop-based module in which the fundamentals of analysing
and interpreting data are taught. These classes are timed to converge with the research methods module so that the statistical skills gained can be put into immediate practice.
Second year The second year provides ample opportunity for more independent work. Each of the modules employ both lecture-based classes and small group teaching. During the year, you will conduct four experimental studies as laboratory class assignments. The modules are:
Psychology Research provides further methodology and data analysis skills necessary to carry out psychological research.
Brain and Behaviour investigates the anatomy and physiological mechanisms underlying human behaviour.
Cognitive Psychology I covers visual and auditory perception, speech perception and production.
Cognitive Psychology II examines mental representations of concepts, memory, attention and visual word recognition.
Developmental Psychology covers child development on diverse aspects such as cognition, social development and early language acquisition.
Social Psychology examines the way people think and behave in the social world.
Personality and Individual Differences reviews the theories and approaches to personality, intelligence and individual differences.
Third year Throughout your final years you will work on an independent research project. In addition, the year will be made up of six specialist optional modules which are chosen from a wide range on offer.
Research Project The research project is an original piece of empirical psychological research. The project provides an opportunity to apply the statistical and research methodology learned during the first and second years of your undergraduate course. At the end of the year, you will present your work
both as a written report and during a poster session. Many of the research projects will be linked to active research going on in the Department. Some projects will be published in scientific journals. Typical psychology optional modules include:
Animal Behaviour studies the behaviour of animals from an ethological and comparative cognition perspective.
Cognitive Development provides a broad theoretical background to the cognitive development of infants and young children.
Cognitive Neuropsychology examines cognitive impairments, and the different types of neuro-psychological disorders.
Culture and Psychology examines how culture influences human experience including behaviour, thoughts and emotions.
Emotion explores how emotions arise and how they manifest as patterns of bodily response and mental activity.
Evolutionary Psychology examines how psychological traits are a product of natural selection and adaptation.
Hearing, Speech and Music examines the perception of complex sounds, such as those in speech and music, as well as cognitive aspects of sound perception.
History of Psychology outlines the emergence of modern psychology. It considers the origins and development of psychology in philosophical, political and religious thought.
Judgement and Decision Making investigates how people form judgements and how they make choices and decisions.
Reading Development and Dyslexia examines the skills required to decode single words and understanding of text in the development of reading.
Social Cognition investigates what people think, feel and do, and how this affects their interpretation of the social world.
Social Psychology and Health-related Behaviour discusses the epidemiological relationship between behaviours (eg diet and smoking) and health outcomes.
Undergraduate Prospectus 2012 | 199
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