BSc Educational Psychology

The unit is aligned with the QAA discipline benchmark statement for Psychology (2023)

The unit is concerned with understanding how theory and research in prevention science can be applied to educational settings to improve children’s social, emotional and behavioural outcomes.  Throughout the unit, students are encouraged to consider how knowledge and understanding of prevention can be used to support effective intervention within schools and educational environments.  At all times, students will apply their learning to concrete, ‘real world’ examples, working with materials and research from interventions currently in operation around the world. The current state of research within prevention science is considered, with students building their knowledge of the current state of the field. The unit begins with introducing the fundamentals of prevention science, defining the field and exploring it’s antecedents.  The unit moves to examine fundamental elements of intervention, specifically implementation and outcome measurement.  The unit then turns to look at different intervention ‘waves’, recapping course content in the context of universal, targeted, and whole school approaches.   Each session is divided into content (lecture and discussion) and applied work (workshop).

The assignment is an applied learning scenario, built from each week’s content. The assignment requires students to write their own grant proposal to implement and assess a prevention and/or early intervention programme within their chosen setting.  Students can decide on what issue they want to address (e.g. behaviour, health, social skills, employability, etc) with their own populations of interest and approach to intervention.  

• Provide coverage of the BPS core areas of individual differences, with further regard to social psychology, developmental psychology, and methods of research and enquiry.
• Equip students with knowledge and understanding of how theory and research in prevention science can applied in educational contexts to improve children’s social, emotional and behavioural outcomes.
• Enable students to critically assess evidence and issues relating to intervention and evaluation,  allowing them to make informed judgements and decisions about intervention in education.

The module forms part of the BSc Educational Psychology programme and conforms to the QAA discipline benchmark for Psychology required for accreditation by the relevant PSRB (BPS). There is a focus on teaching the skills needed for post graduate work in the field of applied psychology, including, but not limited to:

• Professional standards in communication
• Demonstration of reasoning and analysis skills
• Application of knowledge and critical thinking skills 
  to create novel and original solutions in applied contexts
• Demonstration of digital literacy
• High level skills in retrieval, organisation and 
  synthesis of complex material
• Autonomy and ownership of tasks, including effective personal planning and project management skills

Within the teaching processes, there are substantive learnt opportunities to practice and develop a range of interpersonal skills including inclusive and collaborative working, reaching consensus, verbal communication and acting sensitively to the needs and expectations of others.

Core knowledge is comparable to other Psychology degrees and therefore underpins further training for careers in the areas of applied psychology (e.g. Educational Psychologist, Clinical Psychologist, Health Psychologist, Occupational Psychologist, Counselling Psychologist etc). The content is specifically related to educational settings and as such immediately applicable to careers outside of the subject discipline (e.g. teaching, teaching assistants; SENCo; support workers).

Further, as a Level 6 unit the assessment method (to prepare a funding proposal) is an applied learning scenario – an authentic mimic of a an authentic and ‘real world’ task that students may likely face in their future careers. The assignment prepares and equips students for their future careers and develops employability skills (e.g. production of a ‘portfolio piece’ that acts as  demonstrable evidence of student skills).

The unit begins with introducing the fundamentals of prevention science, defining the field and exploring it’s antecedents.  The theory of intervention in the context of early prevention is further examined.  The unit moves to examine fundamental elements of intervention, specifically implementation and outcome measurement.  Applied examples in the context of school-based programming is examined and assessed alongside the research methodologies needed to examine these processes. The unit then turns to look at different intervention ‘waves’, recapping course content in the context of universal, targeted, and whole school approaches.   Core components in intervention are examined before a session dedicated to assignment preparation.

Indicative session structure:

Week 1: Defining prevention & intervention.
Week 2: Theorising and researching interventions.
Week 3: Implementation science.
Week 4: Assessing outcomes in the context of school-based evaluation.
Week 5: Does it work or not?  Complex answers to simple questions.
Week 6: Universal intervention.
Week 7: Targeted intervention.
Week 8: The ‘whole school’ approach
Week 9: Programmes to practice: Core components
Week 10: Assignment preparation

Pre-Sessional reading:  Each week, ahead of scheduled contact time, specific pre-reading is indicated, with the expectation for students to access this ahead of time.  These are typically seminal and/or instructional peer-reviewed papers or evaluation reports illustrating issues or examples relating to the intended learning objectives of the upcoming session.

Lecture & discussion: Live session time covers key content required to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the intended learning objectives of the session.  This includes group and class-based discussion.  Often, learning is through practical activities, with students working collaboratively to apply learning to specific cases or examples.  PowerPoint, Padlet, YouTube and practical materials are used within lectures to support learning.

Workshop: Each live session is followed by an applied workshop design to augment, extend and apply learning from the live session.  Workshops typically revolve around semi-autonomous group learning through the assignment of a broad task, requiring multiple steps and individuals work together to provide answers and/or complete further independent reading.  Each workshop task is incremental, requiring completions of the the previous week’s activities in order to build on the following week.  Tasks reflect the approach required for the assignment.

The lecturer remains ‘on hand’ during the workshop in order to scaffold learning and/or provide a check on progress of learning.  

Post-sessional activities: A range of guided reading and activity are signposted at the end of each week, designed to help consolidate and further learning from the live session.  Activities take the form of self-assessed ‘quizlets’ and multimedia presentation,

Further student directed and supplementary e-learning processes support the unit through the use of a class padlet.  Students post questions or discussion points to facilitate asynchronous discussion of points arising.

• Evaluate and apply prevention science theory and evidence to relevant educational contexts and how this can be  used to address later life outcomes.
• Apply knowledge relevant of  research methodology typically used in prevention science to describe and evaluate evidence supporting educational interventions.

• Apply knowledge and understanding of theory, evidence and research methodology to specific contexts, in order to create a coherent  a consistent argument and subsequent design strategy for intervention.

• Apply knowledge prevention science theory, evidence, and research modalities to a specific intervention demonstrating awareness of the practical issues involvement in intervention implementation and evaluation in order to produce a grant proposal

• Take charge of their own learning and undertake self-directed study  in order to find and make use of academic literature to support the production of a grant proposal.
• Make use of productivity software including text editing, presentation software and image editing (where necessary)  to support the production of a grant proposal.
   

Students are presented an applied learning scenario by which they are to propose the implementation and evaluation of a school-based intervention.

Online via VLE

http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/academicsupport/informationandadviceonlink2listsreadinglistsoftware/