Psychology Post 16

Psychology

Entry Guidance:

5 GCSEs grades A*-C. or equivalent.  As you have to be competent at both essay writing and statistics you need to be literate and numerate, and will need to have a grade B in English Language and a grade C in Maths as well as an interest in scientific analysis and human behaviour. Furthermore, a satisfactory period of induction will need to be completed to assess potential candidates' suitability for the course.  This course will only run if a sufficient amount of students express an interest.

Syllabus Outline:

At Garforth we study the OCR specification. The examination board has selected 15 specific research studies, which students have to understand and evaluate in great depth. The studies are drawn from the following areas of psychology:

  • Cognitive
  • Developmental
  • Physiological
  • Individual Differences
  • Social
  • Issues relating to the 15 studies including- advantages and disadvantages of laboratory, field and natural experiment and other research methods, evaluate ways of measuring behaviour, validity, reliability, reductionism, ethnocentrism, generalisability, ethics, quantitative vs qualitative data, psychometric testing, nature vs nurture, usefulness of psychological research.
  • You will also conduct four psychological investigations: an experiment, correlation, observation and questionnaire. You will learn how to write hypotheses, carry out different types of studies, descriptive statistics and inferential statistics.

For detail about some of these studies please see www.holah.co.uk

For Advanced GCE candidates study two of the ways in which psychology has been applied from the following: Forensic Psychology, Health and Clinical Psychology, Psychology of Education, Psychology of Sport and Exercise.
Approaches and Research Methods in Psychology.

AS
Unit 1 - 1 Hour written paper on research methods
Unit 2 - 2 hour written paper on the Core Studies

A2
Unit 3 - 2 hour written paper on the Applied areas
Unit 4 - 1.5 hour written paper on Research Methods and Approaches and debates in Psychology

General Comments:

Most students find learning the terminology and detail of the studies the most difficult challenge. However, they also report finding the subject extremely interesting. Psychology is an extremely diverse subject and one of the most popular degree programmes with fierce competition. Following a Psychology qualification further training can lead to clinical psychology, educational psychology, occupational psychology, health psychology, forensic psychology, research and teaching. Please see British Psychological Society website for details of career opportunities.