Description
Written by leading psychology authors, Cara Flanagan, Matt Jarvis, Rob Liddle, Julia Russell and Mandy Wood, this book’s engaging visual style and tone will support your students through every step of the Year 1 or AS course and help them prepare thoroughly for assessment.
- Endorsed by Edexcel offering high quality support you can trust.
- Designed to motivate students of all ability levels with a stunning visual style to help them engage with the information.
- Each topic is presented on one spread to help students instantly see the whole picture, with description and evaluation clearly separated.
- ‘Apply it’ activities provide plentiful opportunities to help students develop and practise their application and research methods skills.
- Numerous links are made between topic content and ‘Individual Differences’ and ‘Developmental Psychology’.
- Evaluation points relating to ‘Issues and Debates’ are integrated into every topic spread.
- A chapter is dedicated to research methods and practical activities are included in each chapter to prepare students for research methods questions and practical investigations.
- Visual summaries help ensure students have a good grasp of the basics.
- Lots of exam support throughout to help students understand the assessment objectives and mark schemes, and guide them on the skills they need for exam success.
Cara Flanagan is one of the best known and most respected authors for A Level Psychology. An expert teacher with examining experience and a well-known conference presenter, Cara is renowned for creating resources that students love to use.
Matt Jarvis is an experienced teacher of psychology from GCSE to postgraduate level. He is an experienced examiner and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. Matt currently teaches psychology at a sixth form college and holds the title of Honorary Research Fellow at Keele University. // Rob Liddle has more than twenty years' teaching experience in psychology, from GCSE to postgraduate study. A psychology graduate with a Masters in Organisational Psychology, Rob is an established author with examining experience.
Julia Russell is Head of Psychology at The Queen's School, Chester and a lecturer on the MSc in Teaching of Psychology at Glyndwr University. She has extensive examining and authoring experience.
Mandy Wood is a psychology graduate with many years experience of teaching the subject. She leads a thriving school department, teaching A Level and International Baccalaureate. Mandy runs workshops and training days for teachers and creates and shares resources with the teaching community.
“Anyone who is serious about wanting to achieve in Edexcel AS Psychology must read this book. All 240 pages are bursting with all the information needed for the exam; nothing is wasted, irrelevant or ambiguous. It is a comfort to know that dedicated, expert teachers who know the Edexcel specification well and know what students and teachers want out of a textbook, have written it.
The first element of the book is dedicated to understanding the exam and tips on writing extended essays; command words, assessment objectives and how they are broken down in marking points are clearly explained with examples. There is also a section detailing the issues and debates that are woven throughout the specification. The fact they are all in one place makes it easy to ‘dip into’ whenever the need arises.
Each of the five chapters is dedicated to the five topics you need to know for the exam; social psychology, cognitive psychology, biological psychology, learning theories and research methods. They are clearly colour coded so you can go straight to the area you need. Each chapter is formatted in the same way to help in navigating your way around and organised into two page spreads. Each spread is dedicated to a specific part of that topic. For example the Social approach section for Obedience has 4 main spreads dedicated to Agency theory, social impact theory, Milgram’s baseline study, Milgram’s variation study. It cannot be any easier to go directly to the area you need.
A typical main spread includes a revision summary, key terms, core content (broken down into clear assessment objectives,) study tips, stretch and challenge exercises, quick check exam questions, references to methodology and a link to the issues and debates. It makes clear reference to the specification and what you need to know for the exam. In essence it caters for low ability students as well as most able and talented.
One of the most challenging aspects of the Edexcel specification is to incorporate a key question and a practical, and this book has addressed both these aspects very well. Two examples are given with a detailed breakdown in how to write a good 8-mark response as well as a stretch and challenge question, study tips and exam focus questions. In addition, two ideas for practical investigations are also given for each Topic allowing the student to replicate with ease or to conduct their own and an invaluable checklist is supplied to help them on their way.
The icing on the cake is the revision summary at the end of each chapter. Succinctly put together to see ‘at a glance’ the areas covered, which is an invaluable resource when it comes to revision. Not satisfied with that the authors then go further by supplying a range of practice questions, answers and feedback topped off with a range of multiple-choice questions to check student knowledge.
To summarise, this textbook is a must for the classroom, the authors have succeed in creating a comprehensive but easy to read psychology resource dedicated to the Edexcel specification, which clearly lays out what students need to know for the exam and how to achieve success. I cannot recommend it enough and I am sure that the A level book coming out in September will not only complete the set, but will be of the same calibre too.”
Jackie Moody, ATP Magazine Review
“An essential book to support this course, very helpful and useful.”
“Very good book, doesn’t have any waffle and very recent references. Information is written on the page as an essay should be structured. 100% recommend.”
5 star Amazon reviews
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