Compulsory modules

First Steps in Becoming a Psychology Researcher
You will be introduced to research methods for psychology, including the philosophical underpinnings of qualitative and quantitative design, as well as data collection, data analysis, and report writing. Students will have a combination of in-person and asynchronous active learning, complemented by weekly 2-hour practical labs. The labs are applied in nature and you will get a deeper understanding of how qualitative and quantitative research works.

Understanding People
The core psychological topics in development, social, cognitive, and biological psychology, as well as individual differences, will be introduced. You will learn about how psychologists have carried out research to better understand human behaviour and thought in areas such as cognitive and social development, social influence, group processes, how we understand sensory information, memories, and the ways in which genes and hormones influence behaviour.

Introduction to Neuroscience
This module will introduce you to the anatomy and function of the nervous system, drawing on information from a range of organisms but primarily aimed at understanding the human nervous system. You will be given practical exercises to supplement your understanding of both human and animal anatomy and physiology, microscopy and recording techniques using computer based physiology work stations.

Human Physiology and Anatomy
This module will introduce you to the normal human anatomy and physiology. This will include the digestive, nervous, neuromuscular, respiratory, cardiovascular, excretory, immune, reproductive and endocrine systems, and their functions. We will also begin to explore how different pathologies can develop as a result of a deficiency or dysfunction within these body systems. A lab-based proforma will help you to understand how to analyse and interpret data. 

Practical and Academic Skills in Bioscience
The development of core practical skills is an essential component of a bioscience degree and therefore this module will enable you to develop laboratory and/or fieldwork skills appropriate to the subject you are studying in the School of Life Sciences in the first year of your course. This module will be delivered through a suite of timetabled laboratory and/or field-based sessions across  the year, allowing you to gain hands-on experience in a range of preparative, analytical and observational procedures, as well as in the safe use of equipment and general good laboratory working practices. You will also develop skills in data recording, analysis and interpretation using a laboratory/field notebook and completion of other assigned analysis tasks.

Compulsory modules

Next Steps in Becoming a Psychology Researcher
Building on ‘First Steps in Becoming a Psychology Researcher’, you will be introduced to more advanced topics in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. Qualitative topics include data collection skills, such as interviews or focus groups, as well as analysis techniques such as thematic analysis or discourse analysis. Quantitative topics includes factorial ANOVA, planned comparisons, etc. Content will be delivered via in-person teaching and asynchronous active learning and is complemented by practical labs where students can practice their skills.

Understanding People in Depth
Building on ‘Understanding People’, you will study theory and findings associated with developmental, social, cognitive, and biological psychology and individual differences. Topics on this module may include parenting, emotional development, attitudes, identity, perception, attention, and biological systems underpinning mental processes and behaviour. This module will highlight historical, individual and cultural developments in psychology, as well as integrating psychological sub-disciplines to give a more holistic understanding of human psychology.

Neuroimaging & Cognitive Neuroscience
One of science’s biggest unanswered questions regards how complex cognition, behaviour, and consciousness arise from the structure and activity of the brain. This module will introduce methods and applications of cognitive neuroscience as a way to study brain-behaviour relationships, how to test psychological theories of cognition, and understand the effects of brain injury and disease. You will learn about brain imaging methods such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) and EEG, etc. In addition, you will learn to apply each method to theoretical, applied, or clinical issues.

Optional modules

Psychopathology
"Psycho" translates to "mind" and "pathos" means "illness or disease"; "-ology" means "to study". In this module, we consider what has happened to the brain and the cognitive structure of the mind to cause them to develop conditions such as autism, schizophrenia and depression. The module will primarily offer a biological and cognitive perspective, but you will be encouraged consider other perspectives, drawing on the whole of the psychology curriculum.

Cyberpsychology - the psychology of technology and the internet
Cyberpsychology is a relatively new sub-discipline, but one that is increasingly relevant in today's online world.  In this module, the effects of the Internet and technology will be examined from a psychological perspective.  We will examine many contemporary issues such as online dating, the use of social media, online advertising, and how we interact with others on the Internet.

Collective Action and Social Change
You will learn about individual and group level processes that energize and sedate social change. You will be exposed to a wide variety of contexts from across the world and work of researchers from these contexts. You will then apply your knowledge to and learning to analyse and understand current events, protests, demonstrations, and larger social movements and provide recommendations to decision makers.

Health Psychology
Why do people behave the way that they do around their health?  
You will learn about key theories and models from health psychology that help us to understand the psychological aspects of health, the main methodological approaches we use to study health psychology, and how we can develop health interventions to promote aspects of health. You will also learn more about the inequalities in health that exist in society, and what we might be able to do to tackle them.

Child Psychology in Practice
Psychology is used in many fields and professions which seek to improve the lives of children. One of the most common ways is in interventions, which are designed to address developmental, social, or educational issues. This module will introduce you to the foundational principles of intervention design and evaluation and how psychology has been applied in a variety of contexts, which may include: how children learn, healthy and unhealthy relationships, children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), amongst others.

Wellbeing & Mental Health in the Community
In this module, you will be introduced to different communities and how mental health and wellbeing might vary depending on the community. You'll be taught about the short-term and long-term consequences of mental health and wellbeing for individuals but also society more broadly. You will also start to think about what you can do as a researcher to help your community.

Neurodevelopment
In this module you will learn how the body builds its nervous system on an anatomical, physiological and molecular level. We will try to answer questions about how neurones grow, migrate and change, how synapses are made and pruned and how wiring develops with particular reference to vertebrate nervous systems.  The module includes a discussion of postnatal development and the ways in which the nervous system continues to change during childhood, adulthood and old age.

Neuropharmacology
By the end of this module, you will be able to discuss how medications that are aimed to treat neurological and mental disorders would usually apply their effects (e.g., binding to specific substrates). You will be able to critically appraise preclinical trials (in models of disease) and evaluate the effectiveness of an intervention in the clinic (clinical trials). You will be able to explain absorption, metabolism, solubility, ability to cross the blood-brain barrier, clearance (excretion and secretion), and toxicity (ADMET) of a drug of choice in neuroscience. You will be able to discuss about drug-receptor interactions, dose-response (concentration response in models of disease) and how presence of confounding factors could alter   distribution, metabolism, and elimination of drugs systemically or within the nervous system. You will also be able to link basic principles of neuropharmacology, molecular mechanisms, and therapeutic index with wider disciplines such as population health, health economics, and neuroanatomy. Finally, you will be able to critically evaluate advances made in neuropharmacology towards precision therapy and personalised medicine in recent years.

Learning & Memory
How we learn and remember events is a complex process that we often take for granted. Learning is critical to how we adapt our behaviour in an ever-changing, and often challenging, environment. Memories allow us to draw from our experiences and come to define who we are. In fact, they are so crucial, it would be extremely difficult to function with any kind of impairment to our learning or memory. The human brain is highly plastic, changing significantly following experience and can support many different types of learning and memory. In this Learning Memory module, you will understand how the brain encodes, stores and recalls information, which are also important challenges in neuroscience research. 
Tutorials and workshops throughout the module will support group discussion of core material and you will explore many of the fascinating behavioural, cellular and biological aspects of how we learn and remember.

Neurophysiology
Neurophysiology is important for understanding how the brain processes information and regulates behaviour. In this module, you will examine the physiological mechanisms behind neuronal activity, including membrane properties and ion channels, which are crucial for generating action potentials. Synaptic transmission and plasticity will explain how neurons communicate and how learning occurs. You will also explore sensory system physiology and functional connectivity, which are key to understanding perception, cognition, and how disruptions lead to neurological disorders.

Flexible Work Placement (Level 5)
In a competitive job market, practical skills and understanding workplace dynamics are crucial. This module allows you to gain hands-on experience, enhance your employability skills, and provide valuable insights into the professional world. You will be supported via a range of activities to secure a role and can source your own placement or apply to university-sourced roles. This module has built-in flexibility on when and how you complete your placement around existing demands.

Please note: You cannot take both Flexible Work Placement (Level 5) and Flexible Work Placement (Level 6) 

Compulsory modules

Being a Psychology Researcher
The dissertation module, which runs over Autumn and Spring Semesters, offers the opportunity to put into practice all the scholarship and research methods skills developed over the Psychology Course. Successful completion of the Final Year Project is a prerequisite for a psychology degree to confer British Psychological Society Chartership, which is necessary to pursue any professional career in psychology. You will design, conduct and write-up a piece of original empirical work.

Professional Skills for Researchers
Building on the skills developed in previous years, this module will support you in the final steps to being a psychology researcher. The module is designed to enhance your broad employability skills that are transferrable beyond academia, such as using AI ethically, data protection/handling, ethical awareness, science communication, etc. In addition, the module will provide you with advanced skills to support with conducting your dissertation, providing skills around research design, data collection (e.g. advanced Qualtrics skills, PsychoPy skills, etc), and analysis support.

Grand Challenges in Psychology
This final year module serves as the culminating and integrative experience of our undergraduate degree programmes. In this capstone module you will extend your appreciation of how psychology and psychological science have developed culturally and historically to get us to where we are now. Indicative topics include: consciousness and cognition; the use of psychology for manipulation and control; the replication crisis and open science; understanding conflict and entrenched beliefs; and psychology in the criminal justice system. These topics will be explored in a way that extends and synthesizes your previous learning from across the breadth of the programme.

Neurodiversity in Society
This module focuses on neurodiversity in society: how do individuals differ from each other, and what effects could these differences have? Indicative topics include discussing diversity in cognitive processing styles, social preferences, behaviour, and brain structure and function, with reference to illustrative examples, including the autism spectrum, dyslexia, sensory processing, gender diversity, etc. You will consider how neurodiversity is represented in the media and potentially misunderstood in society.

Optional modules

Health, Illness, and Coping
Aims to cover aspects of health, disease, and disease prevention from a Health Psych perspective. Indicative content includes: Psychology of health, health cognitions, illness experience in the context of socioecological settings, critical approaches, illustrated through acute and long-term health conditions, models of behaviour, critical approaches to understanding health behaviour in the context of different acute and long term health conditions and contexts, public health promotion/prevention, health literacy, how to design, develop, adapt and evaluate health behaviour change interventions.

Morality in Action: Justice, Society, and Climate Change
This module explores the fundamental questions of morality and justice, including how we decide what is right and wrong, how we assign blame and responsibility, and the factors that affect trust and cooperation. It delves into the psychological mechanisms underlying justice and the application of these concepts in society. Additionally, this module goes on to examine these concepts and the human involvement in real-world problems with a specific focus on climate change, addressing both the problem and potential solutions.

Cognitive Psychology
This module will develop your ability to evaluate and test cognitive psychological models. You gain a solid understanding of cognitive models across a variety of subdisciplines within cognitive psychology and be able to evaluate the capacity of models to explain human thinking and behaviour. You will also explore the development of cognition to more deeply understand the origins of key cognitive processes introduced in the module. In this module, you will broaden and deepen your thinking about the origins of cognitive domains and methods used to study cognition.

Gender and Sexualities
You will participate in a series of interactive classes and online activities which examine the theories and methods used to examine gender and sexuality from a psychological perspective. Indicative content may include, for example, inequalities associated with particular identities, barriers for different gender identities and sexualities, stereotypes, specific gender and sexuality community issues and intersectionality. You'll be encouraged and supported to engage in up to date debates and insights, and critically evaluate psychological research and theory in gender and sexuality.

Psychology in Education
Psychology in Education is designed to develop your understanding of psychological research, theory and practice in education.  Discussion of current issues where psychology can be applied will encourage you to think about key people in education, issues around diversity and wellbeing in addition to thinking about learning. You will learn to apply your psychological knowledge to propose interventions to enhance educational experiences or consider how challenges within educational settings can be solved and how the effectiveness of interventions can be measured.

Wellbeing & Mental Health Practice
In this module, you will be introduced to advanced psychological approaches to predicting and protecting wellbeing and mental health. In this module, you will reflect on different wellbeing and mental health interventions and apply them to your own day to day living and the impact these have on your quality of life. This will inform the assessment where you reflect on the different interventions and explore one intervention in depth.

Behavioural Neuroscience
Behavioural Neuroscience is a multidisciplinary module designed to develop an understanding of human and animal behaviour in terms of nervous system function. The module content focuses on the brains of mammals — especially humans — through a detailed examination of both cortical and subcortical systems that mediate specific behaviours. There are occasional references to lower vertebrates and even invertebrates where the study of shared mechanisms in simpler animals is useful. Modern Neuroscience is an interdisciplinary study, and this is reflected in the syllabus in that it draws on information from anatomy, physiology, neurochemistry, neuropharmacology and neuroendocrinology to bring about an understanding of behaviour. Topics covered include motivated behaviours that comprise basic and primal drives to adapt to the environment such as pleasure and pain, stress, emotions, sleep and consciousness. Although there are no prerequisites for this module, if you have little or no background in Neuroscience you may find some of the module content challenging. There is supplemental material listed on the KLE to help you master the module topics. There is also a special “crash course” seminar in basic Neuroscience. You will take a very active role in your own learning, working in a small group with other students. There will be close guidance of module tutors to help you develop the lecture content and deliver a part of the curriculum. This will include the preparation of supplemental study notes, reading lists and SAQs.

Neuropathology
In this module, you will learn about the pathophysiology, aetiology, and predisposing factors of a number of common neurological, neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders. You will study clinical manifestations of neurological disorders, cellular and molecular mechanisms, and advances made in diagnosis, prevention, prediction and treatments of these pathologies. Problem Based learning (PBL) sessions will enable you to develop transferable skills such as team work, group-based learning, and problem solving. 

Regeneration and Repair in the Nervous System
The adult nervous system displays quite a remarkable ability to regenerate following degeneration or trauma. Furthermore, it has been extensively demonstrated that primary neuronal tissue/cells can be transplanted into the adult nervous system, and given an appropriate time period can integrate with the host tissue, ultimately restoring neurological function. You will explore regeneration and repair strategies across the peripheral and central (brain and spinal cord) nervous systems, and examine their application in an array of neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, Alzheimer's disease, spinal cord trauma and stroke. The module is mainly delivered through the release of short, pre-recorded videos which will be fully supported by live workshops and tutorials all delivered by tutors with active research in nervous system regeneration and repair. You will hear about their current research and get involved in debates on current regeneration topics. Additionally, thanks to the in-course assessments and associated workshops, you will explore and learn two important and essential skills in science: how to write a grant proposal and how to critically peer-review.

Current Research Topics in Neuroscience
Neuroscience is one of the fastest growing research areas with new concepts and ideas emerging all the time.  Keeping track of these new areas is a challenging but rewarding task for the neuroscientist, especially those interested in deep knowledge of their subject and potentially interested in a research career. In this module you will learn about the most recent advances in selected fields of neuroscience and their implications. You will be expected to read journal articles on a specific topic and learn how to summarize and evaluate the subject area concisely, in the process developing a better understand of the subject and an ability to identify the key points and what they mean for the future of neuroscience.

Special Senses
In this module, you will learn about the special senses i.e., vision, hearing, balance, smell, and taste. You will be able to explain transduction (how the effective stimulus is converted into electrical signals in the periphery), transmission (how these signals are conveyed to the brain), processing (how the nervous system analyses the information) and perception (what aspects of the stimulus humans become aware of). You will also learn about the aetiopathology and cellular and molecular mechanisms behind common diseases and disorders of special senses as well as neurological disorders that affect special senses. You will be able to critically evaluate a research paper in the field and enhance your understanding about advances in research and discovery. 

Flexible Work Placement (Level 6)
In a competitive job market, practical skills and understanding workplace dynamics are crucial. This module allows you to gain hands-on experience, enhance your employability skills, and provide valuable insights into the professional world. You will be supported via a range of activities to secure a role and can source your own placement or apply to university-sourced roles. This module has built-in flexibility on when and how you complete your placement around existing demands.

Professional Experience in Education
This module gives students interested in pursuing teaching or training as a career the opportunity to gain experience in the world of teaching in schools and colleges. You will develop skills highly valued by employers such as communication, and interpersonal skills, whilst learning to address individual needs and developing engaging teaching materials. You will be supported via a range of activities to prepare for your placement and have the choice to source your own placement or apply to university sourced roles.

Please note: You cannot take both Flexible Work Placement (Level 5) and Flexible Work Placement (Level 6). You also cannot take both Flexible Work Placement (Level 6) and Professional Experience in Education.