A-Level Psychology

[Fehm]

Hey ;)

Ive chosen this to take up next year, but i was wondering what kind of tihngs do you study and is it an enjoyable thing to learn??

Rep for any help :) Thanks

[RandomManJay]

If it's AQA, they're changing the spec at some point to they get rid of coursework, but I'll tell you what I did to give you a rough idea:

For AS:
- Cognitive and Developmental Psychology, like memory and attachment.
- Physiological Psychology and Individual Differences, like stress and eating disorders (biological and psychology explanations).
- Social Psychology and Research Methods, like obedience and min/majority influence and the way research is conducted in psychology.

For A2:
- Social, Physiological, Cognitive, Development and Comparative Psychology, like relationships, pro/anti-social behaviour, biological rhythms, sleep and dreaming, brain and behaviours, emotion and motiviation, attention, social development, animal behaviours and cognition, and evolutionary explanations of human behaviour.
- Individual differences and perspectives, like psychopathology and treating mental illness, issues and debates, and approaches.
- Coursework, I don't know if this will be on next year, I don't think it will be since I think they're changing the spec this year for Sept 09, but you basically do a study and write up the report for it.

It is quite interesting and enjoyable if you are interested in it and interested in taking it into futher education and profession, but if you're not, it can still be interesting, but there is a chance you can get really bored quickly and begin to fall back because of the lack on interest and hence understanding. I'm taking it as a degree now and its great, I think my A-Level could have went better, but I had an arse for a teacher in A2 who ruined it for me, the most interesting section for me was psychopathology and he made it so dull I could have died of boredom.

*If you are wanting to take it into a degree and you do coursework in A-Level, don't take much attention in the way your told to layout the report, the A-Level spec is not the same as what its actually supposed to be like, by all means do the report as you're supposed to, but don't get into thinking that your doing it right because in terms of how they're supposed to be written, they have some parts wrong because they want to make it easier on themselves marking them :S, so best to forgot most of it before you do it at degree, it will same you a lot of time and worry ;)*

[Alkaz]

I dont do it but from my friends, apparently its really good but alot of theory work.

[RandomManJay]

I dont do it but from my friends, apparently its really good but alot of theory work.

Thats basically what Psychology is :P, just theory upon theory upon theory with the research to back it up, there's never one 100% explanation for something, its like hundreds of debates over everything, so much fun!

[Virgin Mary]

Let me sum it up for you:
Boys want to **** their mums and play with themselves when they're babies.
People are anorexic because they look in the mirror and see a fat person.
People are schizophrenic because they're crazy.

But obviously in a cliche course they will try and make the above sound like some kind of mathematical science.

[Throne Sofa]

I don't mind it, it gets a little bit boring at times though. You need to learn a ton of stuff and how to apply it.

[RandomManJay]

Let me sum it up for you:
Boys want to **** their mums and play with themselves when they're babies.
People are anorexic because they look in the mirror and see a fat person.
People are schizophrenic because they're crazy.

But obviously in a cliche course they will try and make the above sound like some kind of mathematical science.

Lol XD! But psychology is looking at why they want to have sex with their mothers, why they see themselves a fat and as for the Schizophrenia, you're way off :P. Also, I have to say the only mathematics psychology ever really uses is during the analysis of quantitative results and statistics, everything else is basically plain english (or whatever language your studying it in).

[Virgin Mary]

Lol XD! But psychology is looking at why they want to have sex with their mothers, why they see themselves a fat and as for the Schizophrenia, you're way off :P. Also, I have to say the only mathematics psychology ever really uses is during the analysis of quantitative results and statistics, everything else is basically plain english (or whatever language your studying it in).
It just comes off as being pretentious. Besides that everyone takes it and I don't know why and then they all complain about how boring it is.

[RandomManJay]

It just comes off as being pretentious. Besides that everyone takes it and I don't know why and then they all complain about how boring it is.

Its a very popular field at the moment with a lot of highly paid careers linked to it, so people think it must be good and go into with high expectations only to end up disappointed. Unless you're interested in it, it can be a pretty boring field, as I can imagine many fields can be if you're not interested in them. I am interested in it so I love it :).

[Fehm]

Lol thanks for all the help :) Its helped alot!

[JackBuddy]

Hated it, dropped it after a year. Only 7 people from 3 classes decided to continue with it.

You might enjoy it though.

[Immenseman]

I'm doing it atm and I orginally hated it but slowly it's getting better. I wouldn't advise picking it though.

[N!ck]

I don't like it. It's all retention and regurgitating in the exam. Loads of stuff to memorise/remember. Not my cup of tea.

[Virgin Mary]

Its a very popular field at the moment with a lot of highly paid careers linked to it, so people think it must be good and go into with high expectations only to end up disappointed. Unless you're interested in it, it can be a pretty boring field, as I can imagine many fields can be if you're not interested in them. I am interested in it so I love it :).
I always get the impression people pick it because they think it's going to be an "interesting look at the human mind". Most people end up hating it because, as you say, most people who take it don't want to be psychologists.

[JackBuddy]

I always get the impression people pick it because they think it's going to be an "interesting look at the human mind". Most people end up hating it because, as you say, most people who take it don't want to be psychologists.
That was my reasoning for taking it, and that I had no idea what else to pick.

[Immenseman]

Yeah people do it as it seems "interesting" it really isn't but I won't drop it because it's bearable unlike some of my other choices, lol.

[Inseriousity.]

It just comes off as being pretentious. Besides that everyone takes it and I don't know why and then they all complain about how boring it is.

I took it because I'm nosy! :P There are some interesting studies (the Freud/Hans study was like.... o...k). It's only boring if you walk into it with the wrong idea about what the course is (some people expect experiments and then are like -twitch- at all the theory involved).

[Liz♥]

When I was doing my A-Level for Psychology, I enjoyed it a lot because of the teahcer imo. We had 2 teachers at my college and one would always manage to make the lessons active and re-word what the cardwell said in order for us to understand it whereas the other teacher would teach us straight out of the book and not even bother re-wording it to make it easily understandable. Thanks to my first teacher i'm now studying child psychology at degree level because I do believe psychology is an in-depth interesting subject than what people make it out to be, at my college there was a weekend called the psychology residenital where we went out the class room to this place in Wales where we studied parapsychology, crimology & anthropology (one of the boys broke into tears when he thought he saw a ghost :P), because these sections of the psychology aren't included in the syllabus (well parapsychology is now included in the new one) and gave a chance to learn the other sides of psychology outside of the classroom and also because my teacher got a degree in parapsychology and it made me look at psychology differently because it's such a broad subject as it branches off into so many different areas which must mean, it must be good if there's this many areas of psychology to study.

If you're a determined student, and you're lucky enough to get a teacher that puts effort into the lessons then you will enjoy the lessons. But if you're just a deteremined student, it would be good to re-read over any sections you've read over in psychology to try & understand it, my friend who was with the other teacher ends up teaching herself and she still enjoys psychology because I guess the concept is overall interesting and is high in demand in the public as it's good knowledge to possess.

[RandomManJay]

I always get the impression people pick it because they think it's going to be an "interesting look at the human mind". Most people end up hating it because, as you say, most people who take it don't want to be psychologists.

There can be loads of reasons :P, I was just using that one reason as an example because a lot of people I know said that was why they picked it.