Self-teaching A-level Psychology

I really wanted to do psychology as a GCSE however I was unable to change. I decided to choose my A-level options on stuff I'm good at and interested in. I considered Psychology however I thought it would be too risky.

But later today I realised I could self-teach AS Psychology on top of my 4 subjects at school. The idea is currently to buy a textbook, download the spec and plan out how I'm going to go through it starting with a couple of hours a week in the holidays and then 4hrs per week when Y12 begins.

I would only decide whether to go through with the rest of the syllabus and take the AS exams in the summer a month or so before entries for exams close, depending on its success and enjoyment. And I would only do A2 if one of my other AS subjects goes badly but this goes better.

However I have a couple of questions:
- do you think it's possible to do 5 AS subjects?
- is my plan sensible?
- is this textbook a good one to use?

Thanks :smile:

Reply 1

Davalla

Original post by jamestg

Question #1: It depends very much on what subjects you'll be doing, and how well you think that you will be doing. If you're willing to take up a lot of time to succeed, then yes, otherwise you could end up with five less than average grades as a result.
Question #2: Again, this depends on what you're doing and how well you think you're going to do. Psychology isn't the hardest subject to self teach but it does have a lot of content that you will need to learn, so before you even buy a textbook you should research the subject before hand to see if you think you're capable- look at some of the past exam papers and their mark schemes or look at other peoples' notes for the subject to give you a better foundation to work on.
Question #3: I have no idea. Regardless, one source of information may not be enough for you to do your best; some textbooks often lack the information that others contain, so you should look to combine what's in the textbook with notes from other people, for example.

So yes it is possible, but you're going to be decreasing the probability of getting above standard grades with the more workload that you put yourself in.