Psychology
BSc in Psychology
Psychology is the key to understanding the workings of the conscious mind and this course provides deeper knowledge than gained from conventional medical training
Course Co-ordinator
Dr Rhiannon Turner
Department of Psychology
Institute of Psychological Sciences
Email: r.n.turner@leeds.ac.uk
Aims
- To enable medical students to have a much deeper understanding of human behaviour than can be acquired through conventional medical training
- To develop informed, mature and critical approaches to theory and data
- To give students the opportunity to conduct their own research project under the supervision of researchers of international and world-leading calibre.
Content of the Course
(i) Knowledge
- cognition, emotion & motivation [10 credits]
- visual perception and language [10 credits]
- developmental psychology & individual differences [10 credits]
- biological and abnormal psychology [10 credits]
- neuropsychology, learning & motivation [10 credits]
- social psychology [10 credits]
- research skills (statistics & research methods) [20 credits]
- miniprojects [20 credits]
- research project [20 credits]
Laboratory practical classes in which studies and experiments are designed and performed are supplemented by small group discussions and demonstrations. Special courses for intercalating students are offered to cover statistics and use of statistical packages at the start of semester 1.
The lectures are supported by tutorials. Each module in psychology involves an eleven week lecture course. Intercalated students also have a subject specific induction session for each course with the lecturer who is responsible for the course. Reading lists are provided for each of the lecture courses, including references to journal articles.
Psychology is a friendly department! Students interact, as far as possible, with every member of staff as well as with students on a range of psychology degree schemes, from psychology single subject to our joint honours programmes.
(ii) Skills
Students are encouraged to develop an empirical approach to the understanding of human behaviour and learn how to conduct psychological experiments and to cope with such problems as subject variability, the effects of multi-, and sometimes interacting- factors, distinguishing real effects from chance effects etc.
They learn to design and analyse experiments of their own, construct questionnaires and other empirical techniques.
(iii) Research Seminars
They are also strongly encouraged to attend an outstanding programme of Research Seminars, featuring world-leading researchers summarising their recent, often ground-breaking work. After the talks, the speakers take questions from students and experts. Seminars are optional, and cover a wide range of topics. To give a brief flavour, the 2006-7 programme includes talks on: working memory, attention, the genetics of psychoses, examining the firing of ensembles of hippocampal neurons to understand the aging brain, and metacognitive reflection on negative self-thinking.
(iv) Original Research
A crucial feature of the course is original research. In the latter part of the course, students undertake their own research project (worth 40 credits) in any area of psychological research, in which the many members of the Institute can offer expert supervision. These projects are carried out in laboratories, clinics, hospitals and other institutions with which the Institute has close contact. Topics investigated in recent years have included:
- Depression, appetite and malnutrition in end stage renal disease.
- Public opinion on mental health care and seeking help using grounded theory.
- The role of emotion in moral judgement - inconsequential, intrinsic or just plain inconvenient.
- Effects of buspirone, test experience and their interactions on the behaviour of swiss-webster mice in elevated plus-maze test of anxiety.
Assessment
The 6 ten-credit modules are each assessed by a 2-hour written exam paper and the twenty-credit Research Skills module by laboratory practical work. 3 practicals and the written reports of these practicals, comprise the Research Skills module. In addition, a research project (40 credits) is completed during the year. You can finish the programme in June, or optionally stay longer and work on your research project until the end of July.
