Psychology

A-Level

Examination Board: AQA

Specification: 7182

Course Leader: Mrs K Smith / Mrs V Hendry

Contact Email: ksmith@tgschool.net / vhendry@tgschool.net

It explores so many aspects of human behaviour, it becomes hard not to see psychology all around you in your everyday life!  Rosie Y13

I never had a chance to study Psychology at high school, but since studying it at TGS it has quickly become my favourite subject. It is a fascinating subject with so many real-life applications. It has been so interesting learning about different behaviours in humans and even animals, and different mental processes that happen all the time without us even realising. I love how it has linked the topics of English and Science through the extended writing and the biological reasoning behind the theories.  It is an extremely interesting subject which I would recommend to anyone.  Maddy Y12

Are you interested in:

• How the mind works?

• The relationship between mind and body?

• Individual differences and mental disorders?

• The scientific study of the human being?

What Will I Study?

Psychologists try to understand people through careful controlled observation. All sciences rely on rigorous scientific methods and in this way, A-Level Psychology is no different to Biology, Physics or Chemistry. However, Psychology does not study molecules or plants, it studies people, their behaviour towards themselves and each other and how they learn and think. Most of the research that psychologists do falls into one of five general areas; developmental, social, physiological, cognitive and individual differences. Students will consider each of these in turn, using previous studies to help them understand the different approaches, and how these lead to different theories and explanations.

Paper 1: Social Influence, Attachment, Memory, Psychopathology
Within the topics for this paper, you will gain an understanding of not only how we think our memory works, but just how fallible your memory is and what can influence its accuracy. You will study how the attachments you make throughout your life, and particualrly in your childhood, are formed and how they might influence your adult relationships. Within Social Psychology we will examine the concepts of obedience and conformity, while in Psychopathology you will learn some of the ways we might identify what is classed as abnormal behaviour and how different psychological perspectives account for and treat abnormal behaviour such as phobias, depression and OCD.

Paper 2: Approaches in Psychology, Biopsychology, Research Methods.
In this unit you will learn about the approaches to Psychology including cognitive, biological, psychodynamic and behaviourism and humanistic and how these different perspectives try to explain human behaviour. You will also study how different areas of the brain may control behaviours, what happens when we remove half our brain and why sleep is so important! The final topic in this paper is research methods which will also be assessed in Paper 1 and Paper 3.

Paper 3: Issues and Debates, Gender, Schizophrenia and Addiction.
Throughout the topics in this paper you will examine different explanations for the diagnosis and treatment of schizophrenia as well as the psychology of addiction applied to smoking and gambling behaviours. In the gender topic you will study how our different psychologists believe gender may develop and how the media can influence this with much of this knowledge building on what you have learned for the Paper 1 and 2 topics. You will also look in detail at the issues of gender and cultural bias on research, the debates of nature versus nurture, free will versus determinism, and reductionism versus holism.

Additional Entry Requirements:

Grade 5 in GCSE English, Grade 5 in GCSE Biology and Grade 5 in GCSE Maths.

Assessment:

There are three 2 hour exams, each worth 96 marks and 33.3% of the final A-Level grade. Each exam will include multiple choice, short answer and extended writing up to a 16 mark essay. All exams will be taken in the summer of your second year. There will also be questions accounting for up to 10% of the marks allocated to Mathematical Skills.

Leading to futures in:

Many students go on to study a psychology related degree, but it will also prepare students well for other degrees and careers in areas such as biology, sociology, philosophy, maths, counselling, medicine (particularly psychiatry), nursing, nutrition, policing, criminology and forensics. The skills you will develop during the course will be useful for you no matter what field you choose to enter.

Mrs V Hendry (VHE)	Teacher of Psychology
Mrs K Smith (KSM)	Teacher of Psychology