What you will study
This module will introduce you to a range of aspects of the core curriculum which underpins Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) with the British Psychological Society. The topics covered include relationships, attention, memory, the brain, and health and well-being, with references made to real-world applications using engaging current literature and case studies to bring the content to life. The module draws on a range of voices to encourage critical thought and debate, and issues around diversity will be directly embedded into the curriculum.
The module is comprised of the following four study blocks of theoretical content and will deliver research methods in parallel.
Introductory Block: This introduces a range of perspectives in psychology and starts to consider ethical issues in historical and contemporary psychological knowledge and research.
Block 1: This focuses on social psychology, including topics such as obedience, conformity, group processes, social cognition, including bias, prejudice (with a particular focus on outsiders and groups in conflict), relationships, cultural diversity and differences from across the globe, and learning from watching.
Block 2: This explores cognitive psychology, including perception, attention, and memory, focusing on remembering and forgetting and the application of memory research to witnessing and recall.
Block 3: This examines biological psychology. You'll explore the human brain and how we can understand diversity and difference, learning and conditioning, and examine how psychology can help us understand physical and mental health.
Running alongside the theoretical material, you'll have the chance to develop your research skills and apply these to the topics you are studying. Each week you'll take an in-depth look at the different perspectives taken in psychological research and consider examples from theory to illustrate where our psychological knowledge comes from. You will be supported to ask and answer different psychological research questions and consider the ethical implications of the proposed work. You'll explore and develop your understanding of a broad range of qualitative techniques, including thematic and discursive analysis, and phenomenological research.
You'll also be supported to develop your skills in quantitative research and have the opportunity to use a specialist software package (SPSS) to summarise and describe numerical information, examine associations between data sets, and test hypotheses. For both qualitative and quantitative research, you'll have the chance to engage in ‘real world’ studies and produce research reports to summarise your findings, a key skill for future work in the psychological field.
You will learn
On successful completion of this module, you will have:
- an advanced understanding of some of the core domains within psychology as specified by the relevant professional bodies
- demonstrated a critical understanding of the types of evidence and research methods used in psychology
- an awareness of the importance of ethical issues in the practice of psychology and apply such knowledge in the critical review of published research and the design of original projects.
- critically examined how psychological theories and research methodologies are used in practice or professional contexts.