Psychology A-Level

Doing psychology at A level doesn’t mean you do a degree in it. I think, with maths, it’s great for management courses and these, from the best unis, produce highly employable graduates. Especially if they have done work experience. Psychology degrees might have a clinical placement but that’s fairly narrow. I think keeping options wider makes sense.

@Autumnalvibesofmellowness that's not true... depends on the university and shame on university lecturers peddling that lie.

The first thing you learn in psychology at uni is how the A level is unhelpful.

The push for stem is obliterating other subjects that we don’t value.

@stoneysongs Yes. You can see the truly hard subjects Brits shy away from!

Yes, MFL is in absolute crisis and English will follow if the trend continues. There are huge implications for teacher numbers long-term.

We are worried.

Blimey, French and German 😱

I did it decades ago. It was fascinating and useful. Paper 2 was statistical analysis of data, which was pretty challenging for a maths dunce like me!

Here’s a good national overview based on 2022 entries.

https://ffteducationdatalab.org.uk/2022/08/which-a-level-subjects-are-the-most-popular/

Psychology is the second most popular A level in the country, and the most popular with female students. Overall it is second only to Maths.

The blog is a depressing read as an English specialist 🤦🏻‍♀️

I did A level psychology and A level sociology in a year and I achieved an A in both subjects. I much preferred psychology as a subject. I found sociology to be too historically biased and you are tasked with learning about endless dead sociologists.

Maths is probably my weakest area but the statistics you study are nothing like every day maths. I coped with it easily.

I went into nursing and both subjects were useful but psychology more so. I learned so much about research methods and how to critique literature. These skills are transferable to many professions.

Similar here from WJEC - interesting because there's no choice of board in Wales, and fewer private schools doing their own thing.

www.wjec.co.uk/media/stglwbfv/wjec-gce-a-level-provisional-results.pdf

psychology is a very popular A level - prob one of the most popular ones as its can be combined with many other subjects and it also ticks the science box if a child wants to keep their options open but does want to do traditional sciences.

If you’re interested in the national grade distributions then the overview of 2023 results from AQA is interesting:

https://filestore.aqa.org.uk/over/stat_pdf/AQA-A-LEVEL-STATS-JUN-2023.PDF

In terms of numbers it is AQA’s most popular subject by a long way (but don’t be tempted to compare too closely with AQA’s other subjects as other boards have cornered the market there, eg Maths and Edexcel).

I suspect @sep135 is correct that the relatively low outcomes at her DCs’ school is a combination of self-selecting intake to the course and, possibly, mediocre teaching.

I think it might be hard to do well because there's such a range of skills required. So you need to be good at biology and maths, and good at writing, there's a lot of content to learn, names, dates and details to memorise, you need to understand historical/social context, plus research methods and ethics and apply that knowledge to new situations, and you need to be able to use the concepts and studies you've learned as evidence to back up an argument.

I think most A level subjects have fewer layers than this but might be wrong. Maybe sociology is similar but without the biology bits. DD has also found that while the concepts are interesting and fairly easy to understand, it's not a given that this will translate into marks. So exam technique is another skill that needs to be tip top.

However it requires a doctorate to become a psychologist and very very few do. So does she have any career reason to choose psychology?

I did psychology and the people on my course have done a wide variety of things.

A few have gone on to PhDs in research - I don't think any work in practice though.
Some went on to further studying to become mental health nurses, social workers.
I'm an accountant at a big 4, and psychology isn't an uncommon degree for people where I work.

It's a useful degree even if you don't necessarily use the actual content in a future job. The maths, the research, the essay writing, it's a lot of independent learning which is also a skill, and critical evaluation of research.

Of course anyone doing any degree needs to think about the reasons for doing it, and shouldn't do one for the sake of it. But if they're interested in it, it's a good degree for people who want to be able to apply for graduate jobs (whether all those jobs that ask for one actually require a degree to do it well is a separate conversation).

I’m really surprised to hear what you say about grade profiles.

It was a surprise and stood out like a sore thumb. Not one year either, over a good three or four year period. And without wishing to sound crass, pupils tend to be academic as the entrance exams are quite onerous so there's no obvious reason for it.

@sep135 I’m really surprised to hear what you say about grade profiles. My DD is currently applying for selective London sixth forms to do A levels including psychology. Their A*-A profiles for the subject are as follows:

School 1: A*-A 81% in 2022, 63% in 2023
School 2: A*-A 68% in 2022, 51% in 2023
College: A*-A 42% 2017-2021 (later subject stats not on website)

It's an excellent a level. A lot of it is statistical analysis and related to maths, and has quite a lot re biology in it too.

It's a proper science IMHO.

My son did it, loved it and is now reading it at Uni.

My sons go to a selective private school. The usual split of results by subject is probably 30-50% A star, 30% A and so on.

They have specialist psychology teachers but the highest grade is nearly always a B, which looks an anomaly amongst the other subjects. Not sure whether it's the teaching or that it attracts the less studious students but it tends to put off students who need 3 As for their university places and possibly becomes self-fulfilling.

No-one’s actually described it as ‘light’! One poster upthread said that it has a reputation for being light on MN but no-one has actually espoused that view. I suspect that for those who do think it’s ‘light’ there is a touch of internalised misogyny at play as it is a subject that it particularly popular with girls.

It can be a great choice but for me it comes down to the teachers. Because it’s a KS5 only subject there may not be a specialist in place to teach it in school sixth forms and it is worth asking about staffing. I have worked with a few Psychology graduates who teach a second subject at 11-16 and Psych A level post 16 but they are quite unusual, in state settings at least.

@Poseidensgrumpyneighbour I have just looked at the Complete University Guide and found 118 unis in this country offer some form of Psychology degree. It’s very popular at A level and widely studied. However it requires a doctorate to become a psychologist and very very few do. So does she have any career reason to choose psychology?

I cannot entirely see the value of it when combining it with the other subjects. It is an academic subject though. What about other sciences? Eg biology? FM is useful if she wants to study maths and great with economics.It’s not 1/2 an A level! Who think that these days? Many study maths with a combo of M, FM and one other subject. Plus engineers often take M, FM and Physics.

What career might she want? Music A level isn’t easy either but does this feature in her uni plans? Maths and Geography keep lots of doors open, music and psychology are more degree specific like politics, economics or sociology. That doesn’t mean they don’t have value.

I did A level psychology and I loved it. I found it so very interesting, which helped me to study. The maths is basically statistics, which wasn’t difficult even though I’m not generally great at maths.

You learn much about human behaviour and how your brain works, which is useful in every walk of life. You also learn about research methodology which again is very useful.

My DD is studying A level Psychology and enjoying it. She did a Psychology MOOC in Y11 to be sure it was a subject she wanted to study. Suggest she follows her interest.

My DD did Psychology A level. She enjoyed it as it was a new subject for her. Quite a bit of essay writing but not the same kind as for History or English - it's not supposed to be an easy read. It's also on Cambridge's preferred list of A levels for a variety of courses so I imagine is not considered a lightweight subject.
If she's interested as a possible degree surely studying it now will confirm that?

I did psychology A level and loved it. There is a lot of information to absorb and remember, to be able to quote specific case studies/experiments and remember who did them , and key details. Also like PP have said, it’s not about being able to read people’s minds or profiling murderers, but more about behaviour. Also lots of Freud, Jung etc which can be heavy going. It’s very interesting however it did not lead me onto a degree or career