Module PSYS3041: PSYCHOLOGY AND HEALTH

Department: Psychology (Applied Psychology) [Queen's Campus, Stockton]

PSYS3041: PSYCHOLOGY AND HEALTH

Pre-requisites

Corequisites

Excluded Combinations

Aims

• To provide an introduction to the ways in which psychological factors affect health and illness

Content

• Psychology and health promotion/disease prevention
• The psychology of illness
• Judgement and decision research applied to health care
• The module will also cover related conceptual and historical issues in psychology

Learning Outcomes

• Students passing this module should be able to:
• Explain the ways in which beliefs and behaviours play a role in health and illness
• Describe how theories in health psychology can be turned into practice for maintaining and improving people's health in a range of health care settings

• Students passing this module should be able to:
• Locate, read and review a body of research evidence
• Adopt and critically evaluate different theoretical perspectives and see the relationships between them
• Interpret and evaluate the significance of empirical work

• Students passing this module should be able to:
• Undertake critical evaluation of the quality of evidence and arguments
• Communicate complex ideas effectively in their written work producing a clear, well-written essay
• Demonstrate independent learning

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• Knowledge and understanding is developed through the weekly 2 hour sessions involving variety of learning modes including lectures, student presentations, video-based material, and some small group work
• This knowledge will be assessed in the summative assessment, and the written examination. These assessments will be essay-based, providing students with the opportunities to demonstrate their abilities to appraise and apply empirical and theoretical in a critical manner
• Preparations for presentations promote students' abilities to locate, read and evaluate a body of evidence. These abilities are assessed via the summative essay and written examination. Feedback is provided for the summative assessment
• All modes of teaching are designed to promote critical evaluation of evidence and arguments, to adopt different theoretical positions, and to interpret empirical work in terms of theory. Assessment of these abilities is based on the summative essay and written examination. Feedback is provided for the summative assessment
• Written communication skills are developed through the preparation for the essay and examinations. Assessment of the skills is based on these formative assessments. Feedback is provided for the summative assessment
• Good IT skills are required for the preparation of the summative essays. Feedback is provided regarding the adequacy of these skills where necessary

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment

Two workshop presentations.