Students will learn to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the following research methods, scientific processes and techniques of data handling and analysis, be familiar with their use and be aware of their strengths and limitations:
• Experimental method. Types of experiment, laboratory and field experiments; natural and quasi-experiments.
• Observational techniques. Types of observation: naturalistic and controlled observation; covert and overt observation; participant and non-participant observation.
• Self-report techniques. Questionnaires; interviews, structured and unstructured.
• Correlations. Analysis of the relationship between co-variables. The difference between
correlations and experiments.
Students will learn about scientific processes:
• Aims: stating aims, the difference between aims and hypotheses.
• Hypotheses: directional and non-directional.
• Sampling: the difference between population and sample; sampling techniques including:
random, systematic, stratified, opportunity and volunteer; implications of sampling
techniques, including bias and generalisation.
• Pilot studies and the aims of piloting.
• Experimental designs: repeated measures, independent groups, matched pairs.
• Observational design: behavioural categories; event sampling; time sampling.
• Questionnaire construction, including use of open and closed questions; design of interviews.
• Variables: manipulation and control of variables, including independent, dependent,
extraneous, confounding; operationalisation of variables.
• Control: random allocation and counterbalancing, randomisation and standardisation.
• Demand characteristics and investigator effects.
• Ethics, including the role of the British Psychological Society’s code of ethics; ethical issues
in the design and conduct of psychological studies; dealing with ethical issues in research.
• The role of peer review in the scientific process.
• The implications of psychological research for the economy.
Students will be informally assessed throught the unit and formally assessed during the first assessment week.
Develop the individual:
Students will develop an understanding of the research process involved within Psychology and the different processes of analysis used to understand the significance of data produced. They will reflect on the research process, considering ethical issues such as deception, informed consent and protection from harm.
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn to respect cultural views of research and consider whether results can be applied to all societies.
Students will continue to explore the approaches Unit as described in Term 1
This unit will be assessed informally throughout, within mock exams, and also at the end of the unit. Assessments will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing them unaided.
Develop the individual:
Students will develop an in-depth understanding of the different psychological approaches. They will be able to discuss the approaches and their views of the development and maintenance of behaviour.
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn to respect different views of behaviour whilst establishing a foundation for their own perspective.
Students will learn about:
• Caregiver-infant interactions in humans: reciprocity and interactional synchrony. Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer. Multiple attachments and the role of the father.
• Animal studies of attachment: Lorenz and Harlow.
• Explanations of attachment: learning theory and Bowlby’s monotropic theory. The concepts
of a critical period and an internal working model.
• Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’. Types of attachment: secure, insecure-avoidant and
insecure-resistant. Cultural variations in attachment, including van Ijzendoorn.
• Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation. Romanian orphan studies: effects of
institutionalisation.
• The influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships, including the role of
an internal working model.
This unit will be assessed informally throughout, within mock exams, and also at the end of the unit. Assessments will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing them unaided.
Develop the individual:
An understanding of the impact of an insecure attachment will enable students to develop an appreciation of their relationships in the present and in the future.
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn about:
• The multi-store model of memory: sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory. Features of each store: coding, capacity and duration.
• Types of long-term memory: episodic, semantic, procedural.
• The working memory model: central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad
and episodic buffer. Features of the model: coding and capacity.
• Explanations for forgetting: proactive and retroactive interference and retrieval failure due to absence of cues.
• Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: misleading information, including leading questions and post-event discussion; anxiety.
• Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, including the use of the cognitive interview.
Students will be assessed informally throughout, and formally within mock exams and end of topic assessments. These will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing them without the aid of notes or a plan.
Develop the individual:
Understanding how memories are made and how forgetting can occur, will afford students the opportunity to develop their study skills.
Create a supportive community:
Students will be able to aid their peers who do not study psychology in their revision and study skills.
Students will learn about:
• Types of conformity: internalisation, identification and compliance. Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.
• Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo.
• Explanations for obedience: agentic state and legitimacy of authority, and situational
variables affecting obedience including proximity and location, as investigated by Milgram,
and uniform. Dispositional explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian Personality.
• Explanations of resistance to social influence, including social support and locus of control.
• Minority influence including reference to consistency, commitment and flexibility.
• The role of social influence processes in social change.
Students will be informally assessed throughout the topic, and formally within the mock exams and end of topic assessments. Assessments will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing unseen questions.
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn about:
Data handling and analysis
• Quantitative and qualitative data; the distinction between qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques.
• Primary and secondary data, including meta-analysis.
• Descriptive statistics: measures of central tendency – mean, median, mode; calculation of
mean, median and mode; measures of dispersion; range and standard deviation; calculation of range; calculation of percentages; positive, negative and zero correlations.
• Presentation and display of quantitative data: graphs, tables, scattergrams, bar charts, histograms.
• Distributions: normal and skewed distributions; characteristics of normal and skewed distributions.
• Analysis and interpretation of correlation, including correlation coefficients.
• Levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal and interval.
• Content analysis and coding. Thematic analysis.
Inferential testing
Students should demonstrate knowledge and understanding of inferential testing and be familiar
with the use of inferential tests.
• Introduction to statistical testing; the sign test. When to use the sign test; calculation of the sign test.
• Probability and significance: use of statistical tables and critical values in interpretation of significance; Type I and Type II errors.
• Factors affecting the choice of statistical test, including level of measurement and experimental design. When to use the following tests: Spearman’s rho, Pearson’s r, Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney, related t-test, unrelated t-test and Chi-Squared test.
Students will informally assessed throughout the topic, and formally assessed within mock exams and end of topic assessments. These will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing unseen questions.
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn about:
Origins of Psychology: Wundt, introspection and the emergence of Psychology as a science.
The basic assumptions of the following approaches:
• Learning approaches: i) the behaviourist approach, including classical conditioning and Pavlov’s research, operant conditioning, types of reinforcement and Skinner’s research; ii) social learning theory including imitation, identification, modelling, vicarious reinforcement,
the role of mediational processes and Bandura’s research.
• The cognitive approach: the study of internal mental processes, the role of schema, the use of theoretical and computer models to explain and make inferences about mental processes.
The emergence of cognitive neuroscience.
• The biological approach: the influence of genes, biological structures and neurochemistry on
behaviour. Genotype and phenotype, genetic basis of behaviour, evolution and behaviour.
This unit will be assessed informally throughout, within mock exams, and also at the end of the unit. Assessments will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing them unaided.
Develop the individual:
Students will develop an in-depth understanding of the different psychological approaches. They will be able to discuss the approaches and their views of the development and maintenance of behaviour.
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn to respect different views of behaviour whilst establishing a foundation for their own perspective.
Students will learn:
• Definitions of abnormality, including deviation from social norms, failure to function adequately, statistical infrequency and deviation from ideal mental health.
• The behavioural, emotional and cognitive characteristics of phobias, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
• The behavioural approach to explaining and treating phobias: the two-process model, including classical and operant conditioning; systematic desensitisation, including relaxation and use of hierarchy; flooding.
• The cognitive approach to explaining and treating depression: Beck’s negative triad and Ellis’s ABC model; cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), including challenging irrational thoughts.
• The biological approach to explaining and treating OCD: genetic and neural explanations; drug therapy.
This unit will be assessed informally throughout, within mock exams, and also at the end of the unit. Assessments will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing them unaided.
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn about: • Types of conformity: internalisation, identification and compliance. Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch. • Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo. • Explanations for obedience: agentic state and legitimacy of authority, and situational variables affecting obedience including proximity and location, as investigated by Milgram, and uniform. Dispositional explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian Personality. • Explanations of resistance to social influence, including social support and locus of control. • Minority influence including reference to consistency, commitment and flexibility. • The role of social influence processes in social change.
Students will be informally assessed throughout the topic, and formally within the mock exams and end of topic assessments. Assessments will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing unseen questions.
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn about: • The multi-store model of memory: sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory. Features of each store: coding, capacity and duration. • Types of long-term memory: episodic, semantic, procedural. • The working memory model: central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer. Features of the model: coding and capacity. • Explanations for forgetting: proactive and retroactive interference and retrieval failure due to absence of cues. • Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: misleading information, including leading questions and post-event discussion; anxiety. • Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, including the use of the cognitive interview.
Students will be assessed informally throughout, and formally within mock exams and end of topic assessments. These will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing them without the aid of notes or a plan
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community:
Students will be assessed informally throughout, and formally within mock exams and end of topic assessments. These will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing them without the aid of notes or a plan
This unit will be assessed informally throughout, within mock exams, and also at the end of the unit. Assessments will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing them unaided.
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn about: • Caregiver-infant interactions in humans: reciprocity and interactional synchrony. Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer. Multiple attachments and the role of the father. • Animal studies of attachment: Lorenz and Harlow. • Explanations of attachment: learning theory and Bowlby’s monotropic theory. The concepts of a critical period and an internal working model. • Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’. Types of attachment: secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant. Cultural variations in attachment, including van Ijzendoorn. • Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation. Romanian orphan studies: effects of institutionalisation. • The influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships, including the role of an internal working model.
This unit will be assessed informally throughout, within mock exams, and also at the end of the unit. Assessments will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing them unaided
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn about: Data handling and analysis • Quantitative and qualitative data; the distinction between qualitative and quantitative data collection techniques. • Primary and secondary data, including meta-analysis. • Descriptive statistics: measures of central tendency – mean, median, mode; calculation of mean, median and mode; measures of dispersion; range and standard deviation; calculation of range; calculation of percentages; positive, negative and zero correlations. • Presentation and display of quantitative data: graphs, tables, scattergrams, bar charts, histograms. • Distributions: normal and skewed distributions; characteristics of normal and skewed distributions. • Analysis and interpretation of correlation, including correlation coefficients. • Levels of measurement: nominal, ordinal and interval. • Content analysis and coding. Thematic analysis. Inferential testing Students should demonstrate knowledge and understanding of inferential testing and be familiar with the use of inferential
Students will informally assessed throughout the topic, and formally assessed within mock exams and end of topic assessments. These will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing unseen questions.
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community:
Students will learn about: •The nervous system •The endocrine system •Neurons and synaptic transmission • The role of adrenaline •The fight or flight response
Students will be informally assessed throughout the topic, and formally within the mock exams and end of topic assessments. Assessments will comprise of exam style questions and essays. The essays will be written under timed conditions. As the unit progresses students will advance from writing essays with the support of plans to completing unseen questions.
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community:
New Description
Develop the individual:
Create a supportive community: