BA Hons Education & Psychology

You'll take this class in semester 1 and are not expected to have any prior knowledge of psychology. It explores learning theory, developmental psychology, personality, biological psychology, and the scientific basis for psychology.

This class is taught in semester 2 and covers sensation and perception, cognitive psychology, social psychology, abnormal psychology, and research methods.

This class introduces students to a large and rich seam of disciplinary knowledge. It is an introductory class of potential interest to all who want to understand more about Education. Some of the key content to be addressed in the module is around the following:

• the field of study that is education: what it is and how we know that
• the context of education: some contribution of political, historical and economic dimensions to curriculum, schooling, policy, globalisation
• education achievement: some contributions of psychological, sociological and philosophical perspectives to topics such as learning, diversity, gender

On this module, students from across disciplines work together to learn about children and the communities in which they live; children's health and wellbeing; child protection; children's voice; children's play and play places. The notion that the health and wellbeing of children and young people is central to the advancement of society is a seminal theme in this module. 

The placement experience has been designed to allow students to undertake a work placement with children and young people from 0 - 14 years.  Placements will be provided in a range of settings outwith the mainstream classroom.

This class reveals how our understanding of higher mental functions has been enhanced through:

• theoretical and experimental studies of normal human cognition
• neuropsychological studies of how cognitive functions may be damaged as a result of brain lesions

This class introduces social psychological theories and research that provide insights into why people believe what they believe, and why they behave the way they do.

Topics covered include attribution theory, aggression, prosocial behaviour, group influence, norms, conformity, obedience, and attitudes.

It ends with an introduction to health psychology, demonstrating how social psychological principles covered earlier in the class are applied to pressing, real-world health issues such as dietary behaviour, smoking/alcohol-use, and suicide.

You'll be introduced to the main features of measurement, research design, and statistical analysis in psychology.

Following a general introduction, the course presents fundamental concepts, issues, and debates in the field of research methods.

You'll also become familiarised with the conceptual basis for inferential statistical testing, and introduced to different inferential statistics. Finally, a brief introduction to qualitative research methods takes place.

The overall purpose of this class is to develop your understanding of educational thought and language. Because this class is not organised around a given profession (e.g. teaching in schools) the discussion of education will be quite general and applies to any educational context, from parenting, to school, to college, to lifelong learning and informal education. ‘Education and Learning’ addresses questions that are at the heart of understanding what education is and what learning is. That these terms denote different things is an important starting point.

The purpose of Culture, Society, Formation is to introduce students to a sample of foundational texts which have informed and transformed our understanding of culture and society, and to consider the impact that these understandings have had and continue to have on education.

This class builds on year 2 and equips you with a broader, more advanced set of methodological and analytic skills. These skills are essential for carrying out the year 4 dissertation and for being able to read and understand articles published in academic journals.

You're encouraged to think scientifically about conceptual and practical issues related to the study of individual differences, with specific reference to intelligence and personality. You'll gain the chance to put this knowledge into practice by designing your own measurement instrument.

You'll be introduced to some of the core topics in cognitive psychology

• Perception and action, particularly how we perceive time and recognise faces
• Memory and learning, including models of episodic and working memory
• Language, including word production, sentence comprehension, and discourse processing
• Thinking, specifically problem solving, deductive reasoning and judgement and decision making.

This class reviews the ways that children develop from infancy right through to the end of adolescence. Key theories are presented and used to explore the extent to which children’s development is continuous or stage-like and whether specific skills develop more quickly than others. Issues relating to infancy, ‘theory of mind’ (understanding others’ thoughts and beliefs), executive function (planning and monitoring abilities), language, and communication form the core themes in the class.

The purpose of this class is to provide the opportunity for you to learn the basic principles of brain function, and to encourage you to address the implications of this understanding for their own view of how behaviour is generated. It includes coverage of electrophysiology and psychopharmacology, neuroanatomy, research methods in neuroscience. There are focused sections relating to the visual system and the motor system.

This class allows you to consider current ideas and positions within social psychology. Four themes drive the class

• Attitudes and attitude change, covering the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Health Belief Model
• Identity, with a focus on social, personal and group identities
• Prejudice, connecting both attitudes and identities, and covering a broad range of areas such as social representations, stereotyping, prejudice and conflict
• Epistemology, where consideration is given to the theory of knowledge, how social psychological knowledge is produced, and to what effect

Who are you, and what do you think about education, and why? Despite everybody being somehow involved in education, those important questions are rarely asked and reflected upon. The best way to engage with such problems is the encounter with the Other in either historical or intercultural perspective. Using a set of questions around fundamental pedagogical notions and concepts (such as ‘educator’, ‘student’, ‘pedagogical relationship’, ‘curriculum’, ‘pedagogical ethics’, ‘Education Studies’, etc.) the module will explore different answers to those questions that either have been given in our own culture in the past, or in other cultures in the past or today (for example, in East/ South East/ South Asia, in the Arabic world, in African societies, in South America, and amongst indigenous tribes and peoples around the globe).

Fundamental problems explored could include:

• what is education perceived to be?
• what is the educator understood to be, what is the student, and how is their pedagogical relationship established, organised, and justified?
• what is/are the purpose/s of education, and how does it/do they get justified?
• what is the relation between individual and social needs and desires within education?
• what ways of educating are preferred, and why?
• how is the reflection on education (i.e. Education Studies) codified and institutionalised; who is reflecting and what counts as an acceptable form of reflection, and why?

Everyone who is interested in looking beyond their own educational horizon to learn about others and oneself is very welcome on this educational journey.

The purpose of this module is twofold. First, it aims to offer an overview of key considerations (e.g. literacy, multilingualism, new technologies) in the development of educational activities for adult learners through a series of pre-placement seminars. Second, you'll have the opportunity to apply the new knowledge and skills learned during a one-week placement with an organisation that works with adult learners.

This module will focus on children and childhood in contexts other than formal education settings that will be explored elsewhere. The aim of this module is to introduce students to the concepts of child and childhood through a range representations. The class will draw on children in film, art and literature to explore representations of children and childhood and experiences of childhood.

This team-taught module will introduce you to the theory and practice of educational research. This includes lectures on the principles of research design and seminars in which you'll collaborate in small group projects, familiarising yourself with qualitative and quantitative methods and their uses for interdisciplinary education studies research. The module will be assessed through a short essay and a research proposal, in preparation for dissertation planning.

The dissertation is an opportunity for you to undertake an original piece of research, closely supervised by a single member of staff. Planning for the dissertation begins in year 3, and dissertations can be of such high standards that they are subsequently published in peer-reviewed academic journals.

This class is offered by the Strathclyde Business School, and draws on current themes in Human Resource Management understood from the perspective of micro-organisational behaviour theory and research. Although the theoretical underpinning of the material covered is primarily about work and organisational issues at the level of individual behaviour in organisations, a contextual understanding of these issues is also encouraged.

Choice of topics may include:

• Belief & Anomalistic Experience
• The Psychology of Mental Health
• Artificial Intelligence
• Psychology & Ageing
• Psychology of Language
• Critical Review
• The Psychology & Cognitive Neuroscience of Face Recognition
• Neuropsychology of Ageing and Dementia
• Physiological Psychology
• Health Psychology
• Practical Aspects of Memory 

Students have the opportunity to undertake a 20 credit work placement class where they will have the opportunity to apply their academic knowledge and skills in a workplace setting, and develop both personally and professionally. Students are supported to find a suitable placement and throughout the experience. Previous placements have included: the NHS, Schools, University departments and third sector organisations such as health support and rehabilitation charities.

This class is an option which is available to a restricted number of students who'll apply to take part. It involves a placement with a European University partner working in a research team during the summer between years 3 and 4. Additional assessment is to be completed during semester 1 of year 4.

Educational Representations in Film and Literature provides you with opportunities to reflect on educational questions through popular literary and visual media. The opportunity to interpret and reflect upon education in the context of popular culture allows you to examine theories in practice, albeit fictional contexts of practice. As well as the representations of education, the literature regularly embodies the pedagogical intentions of the author, intentions which will be explored in the module. These and other considerations form the structure and content of this module.

The Dissertation in Education is designed to further your development of a questioning, self-evaluative and reflective approach in a major in-depth piece of work demanding independent, self-motivated study and the sustained application of professional research and enquiry skills. The widest possible range of topics, types of project, modes of enquiry and of research techniques is encouraged. What projects have in common is the individual student’s ownership and control of the project and the expectation of high quality work.

The purpose of this module is to allow you to engage in independent study on a topic in education of your choosing, and to develop skills in a self-analytical and critical approach to learning. The topic can be negotiated and developed within the context of the Joint Honours Education programme, and in relation to your own individual academic and professional interests. The module is intended to allow you to develop the knowledge and skills required to identify and conceptualise an area of study in education and develop a critical, informed and conceptual understanding of the topic chosen. The distinctive feature of the module is that it aims to provide you with the challenge of becoming independent, self-managing learners and of experiencing and understanding both the satisfaction and the challenges of working autonomously.

Education is not uncontested. Its place within society, and the fact that nearly all have experience of education and related institutions means that a plethora of ideas and ideologies of education abound. This module discusses some of the ways in which educational moments are constructed through politics, society, culture and religion. It encourages you to delve deeply into the various forms theories and ideologies take: their formation and maintenance; and then deconstructs these. It locates education as a societal right rather than a personal endeavour so that internationally, nationally and locally agreed and contested matters take centre stage.

The ability to be creative is highly valued across society, and has at times been described as one of the key ‘21st Century skills’ in education. Well beyond their school days, learners are going to find situations where they need to use their imagination, and come up with ideas. Businesses need to find creative ways to thrive and serve their customers, teachers need to be creative when designing lesson plans, and citizens need to find creative solutions to their problems. This module will explore the psychology behind creativity, and tackle misconceptions such as the idea that it is the province of only certain fields, or that some people are creative and others are not. It will also provide a toolkit to help participants to develop their own creative strategies.

This module introduces students to how individuals learn a second/foreign language across the lifespan. Students will explore the process of acquisition, models of learning, and policies and political contexts that motivate language learning. This module covers language learning in both a Scottish and global context, with specific attention to the global spread of English.

Influences are everywhere. Parents try to influence children, and children try to influence parents. Friends sometimes try to influence each other. Teachers try to influence students, advertisers hope to influence consumers, politicians wish to represent, but also to influence, the public. In this 10-credit module, we will explore certain problems around educational influence. The module is structured around three main questions: what educational influence means, to what extent it is justified, and how it is achieved. The module will explore examples of educational influence drawn from one or more of the following contexts: morality; politics; religion; sexual orientation; psychology; environmentalism; art and aesthetics; technology and social media.