What do you do in your second and third years?

In your second and third years with us, normally all of your studies are in psychology and you would take the equivalent of 16 half units (modules) in the subject.

In second year, each module is designed to deepen your understanding of the core areas of psychology. We believe this gives you a good grounding in important and interesting areas of psychology allowing you to go on to more specialised areas later. The areas covered are also the areas required by the British Psychological Society if they are to recognise a degree (our single major courses have such recognition). The areas are: social psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, personality and individual differences, and research methods.

Staff and students discuss psychological research

In third year, major students do two further compulsory modules but then select options from a wide range including, for example, advanced coverage of core areas, clinical psychology, infant development, and psychotherapy.

As in your first year, in both second and third year you will receive some small group teaching on most of the modules and this means you get some small group teaching in each teaching term. These sessions give you the opportunity to test your understanding of material, ask questions and generally explore issues in more depth with a tutor and fellow students.

Student research

A popular component of your third year is the research dissertation, which is one of the two compulsory modules in third year. This is a thesis based on a piece of independent research which you conduct under the supervision of a member of academic staff. The research usually involves one-to-one tuition and students are encouraged to select a topic that interests them. To give you an idea of the range of work they choose to do, here are some recent dissertation topics:

cognitive development and children's drawings
the role of social stereotypes in the jury's decision-making in the courtroom
the effects of brain damage on face recognition
reach and grasp in children with developmental coordination disorder
the role of social contact in reducing prejudice towards children with special learning needs
false memories in children.

We provide a more detailed specification of degree content here