Psychology

Year 12

Topic(s)

Why this? Why now?

Term 1.1

Research Methods

This topic is required to help you understand:

• What Psychology is?
• How it is studied
• How to carry out psychological research
• The importance of valid and reliable research
• How to evaluate psychological research
• The different types of research studies and methods
• Key terms and definitions

You need to understand this topic before you learn broader psychological concepts. This is often the hardest topic for students and is double weighted so it allows us to complete retrieval work on this topic throughout Year 12 and 13 really embedding the content.

Term 1.2

Memory

This topic has a large number of psychology studies and experiments that we carry out which allows you to apply your research methods knowledge. This topic therefore helps you to embed research methods and helps you to understand it in practice. This topic allows you to start evaluating studies for their strengths and weaknesses and acts as an introduction to the cognitive approach and cognitive neuroscience (studied in Biopsychology). Learning how to transfer information to our long and short-term memory supports with your A level revision. The essays for this topic follow a clear structure which helps you to develop your essay writing skills.

Term 2.1

Attachment

This topic introduces concepts such as classical and operant conditioning which are then revisited in the Behaviourist approach, Psychopathology and Schizophrenia. It starts to get you thinking about the nurture side of the nature and nurture debate. This topic allows you to re-cap and start applying your research methods knowledge on how psychological research can impact on the economy, society and government policy. This topics allows you to start writing more detailed debate based evaluation paragraphs that link into the broader positive or detrimental impacts Psychology can have on society.

Term 2.2

Psychopathology

This topic introduces concepts such as anti-depressants, the impact of genes, CBT therapy, treatments for phobias and mental health issues which are then revisited in the Approaches topic, Biopsychology topic and throughout Paper 3. It starts to get you thinking about the nature side of the nature and nurture debate. It also allows you to further apply your research methods knowledge on how psychological research can impact on the economy, society and government policy. This topics helps you to further develop your evaluation based writing arguing the broader positive or detrimental impacts of Psychology on society.

Term 3.1

Social influence

This topic helps you to understand human behaviour and the reasons why individuals may conform or obey. This topic re-caps the ethical issues learnt in research methods and allows you to apply this knowledge to relevant research. This topic further develops the critical argument of the cost-benefit analysis of Psychological research and the impact on society. The topic helps to further your understanding of the nurture side of the debate. The essays for this topic are more comprehensive so previous essay writing skills will be applied in this topic.

Term 3.2

Biopsychology

Psychopathology and memory act as a good basis to understand some of the key concepts in the Biopsychology topic. Understanding the basics of the nature and nurture debate helps with the evaluation of this topic and the ability to put forward counter nurture arguments from other topics learnt e.g. social influence. This topic forms the basis of the Biological approach and the biological theories in Paper 3.

Year 13

Topic(s)

Why this? Why now?

Term 1.1

Approaches

You will have already learnt most the basic theories that form the Approaches topic e.g. classical conditioning, operant conditioning, neuropsychology, neurons, memory models etc. This topic therefore acts as a retrieval practice for Paper 1. It will then help you to develop your understanding of these theories further and will allow you to apply them to relevant approaches. This topic with further develop your evaluation skills by evaluating approaches using key issues and debates in Psychology. This topic also introduces new theories that we will develop in Paper 3. You will also start to develop the ability to use other approaches and theories to contradict or form a counter argument.

Term 1.2

Aggression

The neural and hormonal and gene explanation will act a re-cap from previous biological topics e.g. psychopathology, biopsychology and the biological approach. This topic will also re-cap on the Social Learning Theory and will allow you to see the positive impact this approach had on our understanding of aggression and on societal rules/policies. The aggression topic allows you to further form your arguments for whether human behaviour is due to nature or nurture.  Interactionist approaches will be introduced during this topic. This topic will further develop your ability to evaluate using key issues and debates and will develop your essay writing skills using skills learnt during paper 1 and paper 2.

Term 2.1

Gender

The chromosomes and hormones explanation will act a re-cap from previous biological topics e.g. psychopathology, biopsychology and the biological approach. This topic will also re-cap the Social Learning Theory, Psychodynamic approach and cognitive approach. The gender topic allows you to further form your arguments for whether gender is due to nature or nurture. It also allows students to develop arguments based on their own experiences of gender in the wider world. This topic will further develop your ability to evaluate using key issues and debates and will develop your essay writing skills using skills learnt during paper 1 and paper 2.

Term 2.2

Schizophrenia

The genetics, dopamine hypothesis and neural correlates explanation will act a re-cap from previous biological topics e.g. psychopathology, biopsychology and the biological approach. This topic will act as retrieval of key theories such as operant conditioning, CBT, drug therapies and the importance of interactionist approaches (first introduced in the aggression topic). Schizophrenia will allow you to further develop your arguments for whether Schizophrenia and human behaviour generally is due to nature or nurture (or whether interactionist approaches should be used). This topic will further develop your ability to evaluate using key issues and debates and will develop your essay writing skills using skills learnt during paper 1 and paper 2.

Term 3.1

Issues and Debates

Issues and debates acts as a synoptic topic and will re-cap a range of previous topics through the learning of the key issues and debates. This topic allows students to further develop their evaluation skills and allows them to think about the links, similarities and differences between different topics and theories. It allows for more higher order thinking and is a perfect introduction into revision and improving exam technique (especially evaluation based answers).

Term 3.2

Revision/examinations

We will start by revising research methods followed by Paper 1, Paper 2 and finally Paper 3. Revision will be directed by student voice and feedback from examinations.