Applications of psychology
This module allows students to apply knowledge to understand how psychology can address complex, real-world situations. It covers a range of areas, some taught in other modules, with students producing a poster, a brief written piece of work, and an audio-visual presentation, which aims to illustrate a possible application of psychological knowledge to a given situation. The students have some flexibility in choosing the topic to address within a set list of scenarios.
This module will integrate students’ understanding across areas of psychology in an applied setting. Topics will vary depending on the problem scenarios covered. For instance, it may require that students focus on psychological inputs to solving current and topical real-world problems such as flooding in a major city, or the effects of crowd violence. These will be introduced in sessions where the relevant areas of psychology are introduced in the context of the problem (problem-focused learning) and will include:
- social psychology
- cognitive psychology
- clinical psychology
- developmental psychology
- neuroscience
- biological psychology
- research methods
- statistics
- psychological skills;
- and allied disciplinary areas.
This module will not follow a simple topic-by-topic structure but will guide students in their research of the literature and application of psychology to solving problems.
If you complete the course successfully, you should be able to:
- Appreciate the complexity of real world scenarios and see the potential role of Psychology (interacting with other disciplines) in addressing these issues.
- Apply psychological and other theory and research, and be aware of its limitations.
- Discuss and apply ethical considerations impacting on applied psychological and other research.
- Develop and demonstrate presentation skills in a variety of formats to explain their work.
