Undergraduate courses
Our degree courses
We offer the following degree courses. Both have exactly the same course structure and Psychology content:
- Single Honours BA in Psychology - UCAS code C802
- Single Honours BSc in Psychology - UCAS code C800
Degree structure
Virtually all degree courses at the University of Sheffield are modular. To be awarded a degree involving Psychology you must obtain 360 credits - that is 120 credits at each of the three levels (years) of study.
Credits are obtained through taking modules. A full module is worth 20 credits, while a half-module is 10 credits.
Modules are either "core" (compulsory), "approved" (recommended) or "unrestricted" (free choice).
Assessment takes place at the end of the semester in which the module or half-module is taken. Most modules in Psychology are assessed by examination, although a number of Level 2 and 3 modules are assessed by coursework.
What is Psychology?
Standard textbook definitions go some way towards providing an answer:
- 'Psychology is the scientific study of behaviour and mental activity'
Perhaps a more helpful way of revealing the nature of psychology is to list some of the current research questions staff in the Department of Psychology at Sheffield investigate:
- How do our memories work?
- To what extent can computers be made to think like humans, or indeed to 'think' at all?
- Which neural circuits are affected in conditions such as Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and hypertension? Can these circuits be repaired?
- To what extent are environmental factors implicated in psychological disorders?
- What adverse effects can smoking, drugs and malnutrition have on an embryo?
- Why and how does language develop so rapidly in the normal child?
- How does binocular vision provide us with three dimension perception?
- How does loss of consciousness affect cognition?
- What factors predict the adoption of health-promoting behaviours such as exercise?
- What are the social aspects of chronic disease and disability?
- Can young children understand and use maps?
A degree in Psychology encompasses may different strands of research into human behaviour, including the biological bases of behaviour, theories and models of cognitive process, development through the life span, and human social interaction.
Psychology is thus a wide field of enquiry which has important links with the biological sciences on the one hand and on the social sciences on the other.*
(* Psychology is not the same thing as psychiatry, which is a branch of medicine concerned with the understanding and treating of mental illness, although many psychologists are interested in this topic.)