Staff news

Psychology win award for revised programme

The University’s psychology department has been recognised for improvements made to its undergraduate programme.

The department was recently named joint winner of the British Psychological Society’s Award for Innovation in Psychology programmes for 2016.

The award recognises the substantial revisions that have been made to the University’s psychology programme over the past two years.

Improved programme

Changes have been made to improve the active engagement of students in the course, and give them more experience with psychological research and transferable skills.

Engagement is an important part of effective learning practice, and the award recognises the department’s efforts to develop the programme to support this further.

They have been ensuring a strong integration of all aspects of the course, allowing theoretical knowledge to be supported by practice. Narrative lectures and practical sessions draw together important themes in psychology, and have been praised by year 1 and 2 students.

Research methods

Another important part of the course’s development and innovation has taken place in research method teaching.

Understanding of statistics is vital in the learning of psychology, and the department’s intensive teaching and lab experiences developed for psychology students has fostered desirable employment skills, as well as building a sense of community within the department.

The changes have received excellent feedback from students on the programme. The next phase of improvements will focus on the programme’s honours years.

Related links

Why study Psychology at Edinburgh?

British Psychological Society