Psychology

Course summary

If you wish to study Psychology, it is not necessary to have studied the subject before, although an interest in human behaviour and science is advantageous. During the course, you will need to be able to communicate effectively and research information from a variety of sources and will be expected to keep up-to-date with current affairs and relate these to relevant areas of Psychology. Invariably students in Year 12 are new to psychology therefore we offer a clearly structured introduction to the course which includes writing summaries of research, completing worksheets, practising exam questions and developing a comprehensive glossary to enable them to be psychologically literate. Transferable learning skills such as collaborative group work, peer assessment and academic reading are developed through a variety of classroom and homework based activities which promotes critical thinking skills necessary for detailed analysis and evaluation of research data. The latter half of Year 13 is based around comparison of the effectiveness of the different perspectives adopted by psychologists in studying human behaviour, including their implications on philosophical debates such as our free will to make choices. The focus is on developing skills in building arguments with knowledge gained over the whole course. Although there is no coursework component in A Level psychology, and no continuous assessment that contributes towards the final grade, students are given the opportunity to recreate key experiments and all students will carry out small scale independent or group research projects.