Level 1 Psychology 101
PSYC101 Course DescriptionTeacher in Charge: Ms R. Lomax.
Recommended Prior LearningThe maturity to cope with all aspects of human behaviour and mental health issues in a classroom environment. Please be aware this is a literacy heavy course.
Psychology 101
Psychology is the study of human behaviour. The emphasis of this course is on helping students understand the theoretical concepts and research methods associated with Psychology.
The Year 11 Psychology programme looks at the following areas;
- Ethics: Students will be introduced to ethical issues and the New Zealand Code of Ethics. In this topic, we will investigate both ethical and unethical psychological experiments.
- Approaches: We will investigate the different ways of explaining human behaviour by looking at a range of different approaches. Students will learn about the key ideas, assumptions, theories and supporting evidence for each approach.
- Methods: Students will learn about the different types of research methods in psychology, focusing on observations, experiments, case studies, and surveys.
- Social psychology: Psychologists are very interested in understanding why we conform to group or individual pressure. In this topic, we will examine the influence of conformity on behaviour and will run our own conformity experiments.
- Media psychology: Students will explore how individuals interact with media technologies, how these interactions influence their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours, and how media content and platforms shape perceptions and identities.
There are no externals in this 101 course
Course Overview
Term 1
Ethics: What makes something morally right or wrong? How does this inform our decision-making in Psychology?
What would you do?
This topic will be assessed with a Level 2 Psychology standard NCEA internal AS 91848 “Examine ethical issues in psychological practice” (3 credits, r lit).
Term 2
Approaches: Psychologists try to explain human behaviour in various ways - we call these approaches. We use different methods of research (like observations and experiments) to study behaviour.
Term 3
Fields: Psychology is a broad subject with different fields of interest that lead to different careers. We will focus on a few fields, including
- Health Psychology
- Media Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
Term 4
Debates: In Psychology, we are interested in explaining behaviour. Often explanations result in big debates like:
“Is nature at fault or is it nurture?”
“Is that due to free will or is it determined?
“Does that rule apply to everyone?”
Pathway
NCEA Level 2 Classical Studies 201, NCEA Level 2 Geography 201, NCEA Level 2 Health 201, NCEA Level 2 History 201, NCEA Level 2 Legal Studies 201, NCEA Level 2 Psychology 201
Career PathwaysCounsellor, Psychologist, Psychiatrist, Primary School Teacher, Secondary School Teacher, Social Worker, Psychotherapist, Career Consultant