Psychology in Education BSc (Hons)

Year one introduces the core areas of psychology and students reflect on a range of issues relating to psychology and education.

What is Psychology?

This lecture series explores the historical and conceptual issues underpinning the study of psychology as a scientific discipline.

Individual and Group Perspectives

Lectures explore theories and conceptual issues in social psychology and individual differences, and their relationship to important social issues (e.g., racisms, populism, the environment).

Research Design and Analysis 1

In this lecture and seminar series, students develop an understanding of basic research designs, and are introduced to statistical analysis.

Developing a Psychological Imagination

Students engage in a series of structured activities that support their critical thinking, presentation, writing, and research skills. These skills are developed in the context of working as an individual and as part of a tutorial group.

Ethical Dilemmas in Psychology

This lecture series explores the history of psychology and ethics, in addition to possible future ethical issues for psychology.

Psychology and Globalisation

This lecture series considers how globalisation has affected our understanding of psychological theories and constructs, and informed the methods used in psychological science.

Science, Data, Facts, and Truths

These seminars explore how biases in human thinking and reasoning affect how we think about real-world social problems. Students work together to acquire data in relation to a real-world social problem of their choosing.

Experimental Programme Design

These seminars give a hands-on introduction to programming psychological experiments.

Reflective Learner in Psychology

Students work in tutorial groups to explore topics encountered in lectures and seminars and apply these to the field of education. Example topics include individual differences in learning, ethical dilemmas in educational contexts, and how psychology can help to understand global challenges within education.

Year two focuses on the topics of cognitive and developmental psychology, and on applications of psychology. Students will gain knowledge and awareness of how psychology can be applied to the field of education, covering topics such as inclusion, wellbeing, technology, and life-long learning.

Vision and Cognition

This lecture series explores how our visual and cognitive processing systems influence how we perceive information.

Developmental Psychology

This lecture series examines how humans change cognitively, socially, and emotionally over the lifespan across different experiences and contexts.

Research Design and Analysis 2

These lectures and seminars build on the introductory understanding of research design and analysis gained in Year 1. Students collaborate in small groups to conduct two research studies (one experimental and one qualitative).

Health Psychology

These lectures explore the role of psychology in supporting psychological health. There is a particular focus on evaluating how psychological perspectives can be used to inform health interventions in the workplace.

Educational Psychology

These lectures discuss fundamental issues in educational psychology. Topics include classroom behaviour, young people who are considered to be at risk in education, civic engagement, and thriving neighbourhoods.

Clinical Psychology

These lectures examine psychological models applied to mental health. The curriculum covers classification, assessment and treatment, and focuses on specific diagnoses including anxiety, trauma, stress, PTSD, mood and eating disorders, depression, addiction, psychosis, and schizophrenia.

Psychological Interventions

These seminars build on Science, Data, Facts, and Truths from Year 1 and allow students to develop a psychological intervention for an individual, an organisation, or a community in a topic of their own choosing.

Applied Psychology Research

In these tutorials, students will work to develop a research funding proposal for a piece of psychological research within the field of education.

Year three covers biopsychology, motivations, and emotions, and students choose two option courses based on their interests within psychology and education. In this year of the degree students also complete an independent research project focusing on the intersection between psychology and education.

Biological Psychology

These lectures explore psychology from evolutionary, genetic, and physiological perspectives.

Motivation and Emotion

This lecture series investigates motivation and emotion from various psychological perspectives (e.g., attitudes and self-concept, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and goal setting).

Research Design and Analysis 3

These lectures and workshops support the Dissertation and help to further develop the skills to be an independent researcher.

Future Challenges for Psychology and Society

In this lecture series we return to some important themes previously explored in the curriculum and re-examine them with consideration of a range of forthcoming challenges.

The Research Project: Dissertation

Students are guided by a supervisor in Psychology to produce an independent research project exploring the links between psychology and education. The Dissertation is completed following the principles of the Open Science Framework.

Students select two courses from the following, all of which can be explored within the context of education (topics subject to change):

Counselling Theory and Practice

This course introduces students to a range of different counselling theories and tools that can be adapted as appropriate to meet a client’s needs. Students have the opportunity to apply basic counselling skills related to Person Centred Therapy and explore the ethical, legal, and diversity frameworks which inform current practice.

Psychology of Religion

This course offers a critical scientific approach to the study of the psychology of religion, including the origins of religious belief, the relationship between religion and physical and mental well-being, and the relationship between religion and political violence / terrorism.

Psychology of Aesthetics and the Arts

This course is an opportunity for students to reflect on the relevance of the psychological function of our everyday perception of the world, both natural and built, which typically involves the experience of beauty and ugliness. The preferences and dislikes that are formed often reflect our identity and determine the choices of individuals and society.

Psychology of Peace and Conflict

This course explores how psychologists have contributed both conceptually and empirically to the understanding of war, peace, and conflict resolution. In addition, students are introduced to a range of peace-making strategies and given the opportunity to apply these to conflict situations.

Human Memory

This course provides an in-depth understanding of human memory. It expands on the underlying processes across different contexts, such as, how memory influences eyewitness performance, how memory interacts with technology, how memory changes through ageing, and how memory can explain individual differences in the acquisition of literacy skills.

Cognitive Neuroscience

This course explores the structural and functional brain mechanisms associated with information processing during high-level cognitive functions, such as, attention, decision making, and consciousness. Students have the opportunity to gain experience of how different techniques in Cognitive Neuroscience, especially electrophysiology, contribute to our understanding of the neural basis of cognition. 

Communicative Development in Educational Settings

This course cover topics such as, why communication matters, the home learning environment, child directed speech, shared reading, bilingualism, developmental language disorders, storytelling, and the role of peers. There is also an opportunity for an immersive experience with psychometric measures that are typically administered by researchers and Educational and Clinical Psychologists. Psychology in Education students are guaranteed a place on this option course.