Anyone know about psychology A level

[Restlessinthenorth]

Looking for opinions. My daughter is only likely to achieve a 3 in science GCSE (much stronger in other subjects). She is hell bent on doing psychology A level. Her school sixth form will not allow her to do this without a 5 in science. As a result she is going to leave and go to the local sixth form college as they have no mimimum science grade (but do require a 5 in English). I'm suspicious of this and it makes me question wether they are taking the right students who are likely to have success in order to fill the course.

id love to hear the experience of any teachers or parents of A level psychology students in terms of how important success at GCSE science is to succeeding in A level psychology

2 of mine did A level psychology. Both had a 7 in maths and one had 77 science the other 88. They both found the it a hard A level without biology A level. The one doing a psychology degree is weakest in the biological modules. It’s a tough a level and I don’t think a 3 on science will cut it, sorry to say

Our local college needs a 5 in essay based subject for it and a range of 5/6 grades. Shop around

DD took psychology as a fourth subject and hated it. It was the most dropped subject at her school. She dropped it after achieving an A at AS level.

At her school you could only take psychology if you achieved a B in GCSE English.

DD found the subject very dry and boring and extremely content heavy. In year 12 it was all about research methods and doctors (et al) with hard to spell names conducting horrible psycholigical experiments on groups of people.

You have to memorise all these case studies and use them to illustrate various theories.

The issue with psychology is that it is an untried subject and many young people think they will find it interesting then are disappointed at how much of a dull slog it is, hence the high drop out rate.

@Restlessinthenorth I agree that your DD needs to thoroughly research the syllabus to see if it is for her.

My Dd is just finishing psychology A level- she is doing the OCR syllabus. She got 9s in gcse sciences but hasn’t found psychology a walk in the park. It is a LOT of memorisation of studies so you have to be really good at cramming a lot of research into your head and explaining it and also talking about its reliability and validity. She spends every morning on the way to school asking me to test her on how the facts and figures from over 20 studies, and explaining concepts such as determinism, validity, inter rater reliability, and using these terms to analyse and evaluate historical studies. There is also a fair bit of maths as they have to know and apply statistical tests such as Mann Whitney U and spearman’s rho, and describe when to use these in psychological research. Quite tricky!! She is heading for a degree in psychology in September but a level has I hope been a good basis for this. I would say though that if your DD is determined, she could always start it and transfer to another course after a few months if it’s too hard. I know lots of friends kids who did this.

What job do you do? I have a Psychology MSc and would LOVE to use it to earn more money!

@KillTheTurkey similar income to the poster above. I’m pretty senior in industry behavioral research. Pays well, but you have to be ok in a tech heavy R&D environment.

Thank you all. Really appreciate everyone's thoughts and contributions. I am going to get my daughter to read this thread. As quite a few people have said, I am not sure that it will be what she thinks it is!

Just to add, I also did sociology A level at the same time. I absolutely loved psychology, I found it absolutely fascinating. I didn’t enjoy sociology as much. I found it quite dry.

My DD's best friend has applied to do A Level Psychology and both the 6th forms she has applied to want her to have 6s in sciences and maths to take it. These aren't really selective or competitive 6th forms, they just say that they know what background you need to have a chance at success in the A Level.

A grade 3 is a really low grade. If your dd is considering A Levels at all, then she surely has the ability to pull this up with study and revision before the exams?

My dd is also y11 and has also chosen psychology as one of her four options for alevel. (They choose 4 to drop one).

We’re in the gcse revision trenches at the moment. She is predicted 8s for bio and physics and 7s in maths and chemistry.

School sixth form (independent school) insist on minimum 7s in all sciences for psychology alevel. That in itself makes me nervous if she “just gets a 7” that she’ll find the course hard.

For psychology, you need a very solid understanding of applied maths (statistics ), and biology.
Understanding of scientific methodologies is an absolute must as well.
A basic understanding of chemistry is handy, but you don’t have to be a genius.

There's also the question of even if she makes it through a notoriously hard course, what grade she'd come out with.

I teach Economics and we require 5 in Maths and 6 in English and those are lowish requirements as the school is inclusive.

That means that although headline results are excellent, some students come out with CDE every year and there is the occasional U.

What would your daughter do with an E or U in Psychology. Would she still feel it had been worth it?

100 percent this. Don’t under estimate how good their maths also needs to be. Stats is a big part of it

I’m not good at maths yet I was able to handle the statistics involved with A level psychology. I studied A level psychology and sociology in just one school year and I achieved an A in both subjects.

@Villanousvillans that’s why i write “applied maths” :) no need for any pure maths, but a solid maths brain is absolutely required. I would say a 7 in maths gcse should be fine, similar for biology. chemistry and physics- not an issue if that’s the 3 (although very unusual to be competent at maths and that low in physics)

I concur. And as you said previously, chemistry would be useful in case of further studying Clinical Psych at uni as need to understand pharmacological effects, but not essential otherwise.

A 3 is a fail.

I don’t have maths GCSE yet I coped well with the stats.

Maybe have a chat with her about what she thinks it is and why she wants to do it. Psychology is very research based, which means understanding statistics and scientific methods. Because of the way popular psychology is portrayed, some people (I.e. younger me) think it’s going to be all the “sexy” stuff, like interpreting body language and diagnosing personality disorders. I studied psychology at degree level and was very surprised when I realized how science- heavy it was and tbh, I struggled. But did however go on to do a masters and PhD and became a chartered psychologist, but that was back in the olden days when uni entry requirements weren’t as tough. I had to be tenacious and put a lot of work in to get through the quantitative research methods modules. Loved the qualitative and excelled at that which kept me going.

Have you been to any college open days with DD? It might be better if she hears about the content of the courses directly from tutor to find out if she would be a good fit and be able to stick the 2 years.

Because of the way popular psychology is portrayed, some people (I.e. younger me) think it’s going to be all the “sexy” stuff, like interpreting body language and diagnosing personality disorders.

You have hit the nail on the head with this @MostlyGhostly . DD thought that A level psychology would be how you describe and was disappointed at how deadly boring she found it. So many people swapped to a different subject within the first two weeks, and those who started with 4 subjects just dropped it.

This is always the issue with an untried subject.

I loved psychology A level but then I find scientific methodology and research fascinating and it really taught me to question everything I read.

I found if you mention you’ve studied psychology to someone, they look at you quizzically and voice the concern that you’re going to psychoanalyse them.

This is exactly what dd thought GCSE Psychology would be like, influenced by pop culture Psychology! She’s in year 10 and is struggling with the Maths / statistics side as she has dyscalculia. Her school does the BTEC version of Psychology (not A Level) in sixth form and I’m thinking even that will be too challenging for someone with Maths and Sciences as their weakest subjects

Re: my above post - how do I break this to her? She’s mentioned Sociology and Criminology but would these also be a bad idea without strong Maths and Sciences?

all I know is that it’s a difficult A Level

Btec and t levels are an option and have psychology units