Introduction

These pages give an overview of the BSc Psychology programme at the University of York. We outline the overall structure of the course below, and you can find out more detail on the organisation of different elements of the course (year 1 and 2 "strands" and third-year modules) by following the links. Note that this guide describes the the course as it currently runs. The core structure of the course is stable but we may change some of the details from one year to the next (for example, the order and content of individual teaching blocks and range of advanced modules may change). These pages and the accompanying Handbook provide key information that you will need throughout the course. Once you are enrolled on a particular module you can find much more information about day-to-day requirements, resources (such as reading lists and lecture recordings) and announcements through the Yorkshare VLE (University login required). 

Years 1 and 2

Teaching in the first two years consists of five courses, or strands, that run in parallel. Together these strands give a broad coverage of the main areas of Psychology.

• Brain & Behaviour. This strand examines the structure and function of the brain as it affects behaviour. It will focus on how basic neuroscience, the effects of brain injury and the latest neuroimaging techniques can be used to explain the brain processes that underpin behaviour and cognition.

• Perception & Cognition. This strand discusses the processes through which our senses gain and interpret information about our world. The strand describes in detail how information from our major senses passes to the brain for further processing. Cognitive psychology concerns the underlying nature of human intellectual abilities such as attention, thinking and memory.
• Development & Language. This strand focuses on how infants and children learn to perceive and interpret the outside world, how they acquire language and how they learn to reason. It also explores abnormalities of development and how development can be affected by deprivation.

• Social, Personality & Abnormal Psychology. This strand covers core themes of the social human being including personal relationships, aggression and co-operation, personality and individual differences. The clinical aspect of this strand examines the causes of mental illness, including schizophrenia, anxiety and depression.

• Research Methods in Psychology. This strand provides students with the practical skills in experimental design, methods and data analysis needed for the programme. Practical classes linked to the other strands furnish the student with hands-on experience in all aspects of psychology as an experimental science.

Year 3

Advanced modules

In the third year students choose advanced modules from a selection offered each year. The topics offered can change from year to year.

Literature Survey

Final year students also undertake a literature survey which requires researching a clearly defined area of study of your choice. Recent examples include:

• The effect of child abuse on self-esteem
• Sensation seeking and risky sport
• The critical period hypothesis in second language acquisition
• Do environmental factors lead to late-onset Alzheimer’s disease?
• The effect of birth order on personality development
• The relationship between eating disorders and superficial self-harm.

Project

The final year research project is the single most important component of the degree and requires students to conduct and write up an original piece of research, working closely under the supervision of a member of staff. Students have access to all the sophisticated research facilities of the Department. Recent projects have investigated a wide range of topics, for example: 

• ‘Boredom eating’ as a possible cause of obesity
• The neural basis of face perception
• fMRI assessment of simulated visual loss seen in glaucoma
• The relationship between social class and expressive language in primary school children
• The effects of albinism on social behaviour in a captive population of wallabies
• English and Mandarin speakers’ perception of time.

Each year several of the best undergraduate projects are published in mainstream scientific journals, and many of our projects have won prestigious national prizes. For example, York project students have won the national EPS/BAAS prize a record 5 times.