Studying psychology

Year 1

Never studied psychology before? Don't worry, Psychology is not always taught at school level and so the first year of your degree assumes that students have no prior knowledge of psychology. During your first year, we aim to familiarise you with the subject matter of psychology and the methods psychologists use to investigate psychological phenomena. We introduce you to the biological basis of psychology, as well as understanding human behaviour from a collective and idiographic perspective.

Although students are often surprised at the strong influence of statistics in psychology, we also aim to take the fear out of number crunching. Unlike many universities it is only during your second year at Aberystwyth that you start to use computer software to learn your statistics. Experience has shown us that getting to grips with statistics in the first year using formulae and calculators is a better way of developing real understanding – and our existing students agree. Instead, we have or students work out their statistics by hand and students have found this method of learning to be highly informative method for introducing statistical and experimental methods in psychology.

Year 2

The second year of your degree is composed entirely of “core” modules. These are the essential aspects of the subject you need to understand as a psychology graduate and are compliant with the British Psychological Society syllabus. You will also revisit the sum of subjects introduced in your first year, but at honours level, your ability to understand complex concepts will really be tested. In your second year you are introduced to statistics software, however, you also learn why quantitative methods are not the only way to investigate psychology. This means that you will also be learning more advanced qualitative research methods building on the foundations of your first year.

Year 3

In your final year you have the chance to make choices about what you want to study. Modules are provided within the areas of research expertise of our staff. For example, you can study the psychology of language, or psychology of music. You can learn more about social interactions both in the real world and the cyber environment or you could explore the complexities of psychology applied to health and illness. It may be that you have a particular interest in psychology not covered in the taught courses, if so with the support of an expert member of staff you can investigate that interest in the Dissertation module.