BA (Hons) Psychology
with Integrated Foundation Year
Course Content
INTEGRATED FOUNDATION
ACADEMIC WRITING
Students will be exposed to academic writing rules and techniques, including effective and extensive reading strategies, effective participation in seminars and delivery of presentations, and effectively listening to and recording information from lectures.
ENGLISH LANGUAGE SKILLS
Learning how to master a language is no easy task. During this course, students will have the opportunity to understand the rules of the English language and apply them to a variety of contexts and situations, including academically.
DIGITAL SKILLS
Through this course, students will be exposed to critical digital skills needed for their academic courses, ranging from online safety to how to communicate through digital means.
ANALYTICAL AND PROFESSIONAL SKILLS
This module aims to develop conceptual and practical skills to enhance students’ ability to study, research, and gain employment in the field of Psychology.
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES IN PSYCHOLOGY
This module is an introduction to the world of psychology in order to understand the scientific underpinnings of psychology as a discipline, its historical origins, development, and limitations. The module will orientate the students towards some of the key concepts and debates, and it will briefly touch on all the other modules in order to provide a comprehensive introduction to the programme.
INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOBIOLOGY
This module is a fundamental core module of the course. It is designed to be an introduction to principles in Psychobiology and it aims to develop knowledge and understanding of the role of the brain and nervous system in psychological processes including language, memory, emotion, stress, psychopathology, and sensory processes.
FOUNDATION OF RESEARCH METHODS
This course introduces basic statistical tests and common research designs employed in psychological experimentation. There is particular emphasis on the execution and reporting of experiments, understanding, and interpreting the output of descriptive and inferential statistical tests, and how to use statistical computer software packages such as SPSS or R.
Year 1
BIOLOGICAL AND COMPARATIVE APPROACHES TO PSYCHOLOGY
This module is a fundamental core module of the course and is designed to be an introduction to the principles of Biological Psychology. The module aims to develop knowledge and understanding of the role of the brain and nervous system in psychological processes including language, memory, emotion, stress, psychopathology and sensory processes.
CLINICAL ASSESSMENT AND DIAGNOSTIC PROCESS
This course introduces students to concepts of Clinical Psychopathology and is aimed to provide students with some familiarity with medical diagnoses.
DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS
This module provides an introduction to experimental research and analysis in Psychology. It consists of two components: a lecture component that covers experimental design and statistics; a laboratory component then focuses on designing and running experiments, applying statistical analyses to generated data, and reporting experimental findings.
ETHICAL AND PROFESSIONAL SKILLS FOR PSYCHOLOGISTS
The module covers important ethical questions and field-specific skills needed for anyone interested in entering the field.
INFORMATION PROCESSING AND COGNITION
This moduel provides an introduction to topics and issues that are critical to the study of human information processing and cognition. Examples of methodologies and techniques employed in the field are used to present reseach within various topic areas.
PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF PSYCHOLOGY
This course introduces the students to basic concepts in philosophy and how they relate to psychology as a discipline. This module is offered in order to provide a broader, more comprehensive view of the social sciences and psychology in particular.
PSYCHOLOGY OF THE PERSON
This module is a fundamental core module of the course. It introduces the Psychology of the Person from four different perspectives: developmental, intelligence, social psychology, and personality. By the end of the module, students will have acquired knowledge of key concepts, measures, methods and theories relevant to studying human development, intelligence, self-concept, social influence, group processes, and personality.
Year 2
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
The module builds up from the first year to provide more specific and critical knowledge on Biological Psychology.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES
QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
This course extends the knowledge developed in the Design and Analysis module, and it continues to focus on the key skills needed to conduct quantitative-based psychological research, such as the execution and reporting of experiments, the understanding and interpretation of statistical tests, and the use of statistical packages such as SPSS or R.
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
This course is designed to help students understand why and how qualitative research is carried out in Psychology. A sample of current qualitative methodologies and examples of how qualitative methods may be applied in psychological settings are provided. Students are introduced to the processes involved in making sense of qualitative data and how qualitative data can and should be analysed and evaluated.
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
This is a fundamental core module of the course which focuses on the key concepts and theories in Social Psychology, including social cognition and person perception, attitudes and attitude change, social identity, prejudice, and human aggression.
Year 3
COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
The course allows students to dive into fundamental topics related to Cognitive Neuroscience and its applications.
GROUP DYNAMICS
HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHODYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY
This module aims to gain specialised knowledge about different perspectives of Psychodynamic Psychology by exploring historical and modern theories within the psychoanalytic approach.
PSYCHOLOGY OF SEXUALITY AND GENDER
This module offers students an overview of theories around sexuality and gender. It builds upon knowledge gained in 2nd-year modules (such as Individual differences and Psychopathology) and offers students the opportunity to develop knowledge of a specific topic.
Dissertation (Research Project)
In this module, students complete an empirical study which is then communicated in the form of a written report which includes: an introduction, methodology, description of data collection and analysis, and discussion.