I think if we have learned anything from the exam questions in the new AQA A Level Specification, it is that it is essential for A Level Psychology students to be competent and confident in their use of maths. Past papers, although few in number, have already featured questions involving drawing graphs, calculating a percentage… Read More Maths in Psychology
A Level Psychology students often find the statistical tests and the concept of significance challenging. Students that come across statistical tests in other subjects are usually a bit more confident, but the cloud of maths fear that seems to loom over many budding psychologists can prove to be a real hindrance. This is why I… Read More Taking the Sting out of Statistical Testing
Most evaluations of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for depression in A Level Psychology (Psychopathology, AQA) are likely to include the strength that the therapy is considered to have no side effects. Students who are attempting to develop their arguments are likely to contrast the risk-free nature of CBT with the greater risk of negative side… Read More CBT for Depression: Risk free?
Yesterday’s BBC news (25th Jan 2018) included a story which was littered with hooks for students to hang their knowledge of the ways of measuring crime. Students are required to know about official statistics, victim surveys and offender surveys and need to be able to evaluate these ways of measuring trends in the type and… Read More Forensic Psychology: Measuring Crime
I’m always interested in why some concepts, that seem straight forward to teachers, can consistently baffle students. The conventions of writing up a scientific investigation fits in this category of needlessly tricky areas. This post contains some ideas to promote understanding and improve retention of these concepts. The exact wording in this section of the… Read More Reporting Psychological Investigations
Reductionism can feel like a really hard concept to teach well. Initially students seem to grasp the idea that some approaches are limited by the focus of the explanation of human behaviour. The term reductionism then becomes a popular stick with which to beat the numerous theories and explanations in A Level Psychology. It is,… Read More Reductionism: Levels of Explanation
About 10 years ago, Chef and TV personality Jamie Oliver led a successful campaign to improve the quality and nutritional value of school dinners. The TV series aired in 2005 (“Jamie’s School Dinners”) played a significant part in changes being made to the policies surrounding the content of school lunches across the country. This campaign… Read More Minority Influence and Social Change: Jamie Oliver’s Latest Campaign
Although there is no shortage of resources available for the teaching of many of the so-called “classics” in Social Psychology, such as Milgram’s obedience studies, I thought it was still worth blogging about an article In August 2015’s The Psychologist magazine entitled “Rhetoric and Resistance”. Stephen Gibson (Department of Psychology and Sport, York St John… Read More Milgram: Beyond the numbers…
In this post I will attempt to clarify the use of the terms reciprocity and interactional synchrony. The new specification for AQA places more emphasis on the formation of attachments and has removed the need to explore the impact of day care. The topic of “Attachment” now starts by exploring the early interactions between infant… Read More Attachment: Reciprocity and Interactional Synchrony
There are a few new (at time of posting) additions to the Psychopathology topic in the AS and A Level course for AQA but I thought I would blog about the return of the “statistical infrequency” definition of abnormality in the revised specification. This definition has a history of being in and out of the… Read More Psychopathology: The Return of the “4th” Definition
Psychology Teaching Ideas 