For those who believe Psychology is a "soft subject"

Why?

I want to know what makes people think that Psychology is a soft subject?

Candidates are required to memorise a lot of relevant information and be able to apply the criteria correctly. Candidates are required to learn many Psychological studies, which sometimes include great amounts of details and have to learn criticisms for each topic. How is this easy? There is quite a lot of content to have to memorise which by itself can be perceived as challenging

A2 Psychology - is quite challenging. You have to outline large essays, include many studies and criticisms usually consisting of 3 or more pages all in 25 minutes.
You have to do this for three essays.

The PSYA3 results which came out were not the best set of results nationally. If Psychology was hard shouldn't most people be scoring grade A's and B's?

No trolling. Simply a debate!

Reply 1

BradfordCityJoss

I laughed when I saw Psychology had been included in the science faculty on my school website.

Reply 2

Nymthae

16

I'm assuming because anybody can memorise a bunch of stuff, if they really tried. I doubt i'll ever *quite* understand what goes on in Physics no matter how hard I try :tongue:

I don't think anybody disputes the workload of the subject.

Not everybody is allowed to get A's nationally, it would completely defeat the point.

Reply 3

Noodlzzz

21

Original post by BradfordCityJoss

I laughed when I saw Psychology had been included in the science faculty on my school website.

I laughed when I saw you thought it wasn't a science.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 4

Blue_XD

I personally don't do psychology so I don't claim to know exactly how hard it is. However, at my school at least it is generally the less intelligent or lazy people who take it so that may be why they don't all get As.

Reply 5

Nightstar-27

12

People consider psychology soft as there is a view that it is only 'applied biology'. Also people seem to think psychology is stuck in the time of Freud and only comes up with theories. People have no idea how much psychology have been involved in mapping out and determining the roles of the different brain parts and so fourth.

Reply 6

Aku-gila

11

I currently do A2 Chemistry, Biology + Psychology and I find Psychology to be the hardest of the three by far. It all depends on the person I suppose.

Reply 7

BradfordCityJoss

Original post by Noodlzzz

I laughed when I saw you thought it wasn't a science.

What is scientific about conjecture and mysticism?

Reply 8

goodboy4444

1

Original post by Nymthae

I'm assuming because anybody can memorise a bunch of stuff, if they really tried. I doubt i'll ever *quite* understand what goes on in Physics no matter how hard I try :tongue:

I don't think anybody disputes the workload of the subject.

Not everybody is allowed to get A's nationally, it would completely defeat the point.

History??

Reply 9

Ferrero Rocher

12

I do Psychology, and tbh it does involve memorising a huge amount of detail and writing long essays. But I still think its not hard, most of its concepts are really easy to understand as compare to other sciences like Biology and Chemistry.

Reply 10

riotgrrl

19

I did psychology AS and to be honest, it was pretty much memorising bunch of stuff that people said and then saying "but this might not be right cos their sample size wasn't large enough!!!" It didn't really involve much analysis. The concepts are pretty easy to understand too and the longest answer was like 12 marks?

Reply 11

Ferrero Rocher

12

Original post by BradfordCityJoss

What is scientific about conjecture and mysticism?

Psychology is a scientific study of human mind. You clearly have no idea what are you talking about. We don't study hypnosis or how to interpret your dreams, if that's what you are getting at. Psychologists use scientific methods to test their theories same as biology.

Reply 12

Nymthae

16

Original post by goodboy4444

History??

Eh? If you're referring to the subject and that it is considered a strong subject then from what i'm aware most of the marks aren't from recall. Certainly the summer exams are based on using given sources etc. and no credit is given for using own/previously gained knowledge. I think one of the first AS exams (not sure what board) is quite heavily based on recalling of facts and dates but i'm not sure if there's anything after that. I may be wrong though, this is just what i've gathered from friends.

Reply 13

lilyrawstorne

9

Original post by justiceisjust

Why?

I want to know what makes people think that Psychology is a soft subject?

Candidates are required to memorise a lot of relevant information and be able to apply the criteria correctly. Candidates are required to learn many Psychological studies, which sometimes include great amounts of details and have to learn criticisms for each topic. How is this easy? There is quite a lot of content to have to memorise which by itself can be perceived as challenging

A2 Psychology - is quite challenging. You have to outline large essays, include many studies and criticisms usually consisting of 3 or more pages all in 25 minutes.
You have to do this for three essays.

The PSYA3 results which came out were not the best set of results nationally. If Psychology was hard shouldn't most people be scoring grade A's and B's?

No trolling. Simply a debate!

I do psycholgy AS and yes you do have to remember the information but thats kind of it! It's common sense really and compared with the other subjects I do it's piss easy

Reply 14

Noodlzzz

21

Original post by BradfordCityJoss

What is scientific about conjecture and mysticism?

Nothing of that is to do with psychology. Go read about what it actually is before you criticise it.

In fact, go read about the origins of consciousness in the cerebral cortex where it's possibly derived from modalities within the visual and olfactory system and the binding of information through neural oscillations of synaptic threshold in action potential localising within the cerebral cortex. Then tell me if a) you even understand and b) psychology is not a science.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 15

vedderfan94

16

Because all the people who scraped Cs and Ds at GCSE and who do subjects like Media and Health and Social picked Psychology at my sixth form.

Reply 16

im so academic

15

Original post by justiceisjust

Candidates are required to memorise a lot of relevant information and be able to apply the criteria correctly.

Lots of memorisation =/= "hard" A-level

Candidates are required to learn many Psychological studies, which sometimes include great amounts of details and have to learn criticisms for each topic. How is this easy? There is quite a lot of content to have to memorise which by itself can be perceived as challenging

Again:

Lots of memorisation =/= "hard" A-level

A2 Psychology - is quite challenging. You have to outline large essays, include many studies and criticisms usually consisting of 3 or more pages all in 25 minutes.
You have to do this for three essays.

Basically write a coherent essay including studies and criticisms? Not that bad.

And 3+ pages in 25 minutes? I write faster than that.

The PSYA3 results which came out were not the best set of results nationally. If Psychology was hard shouldn't most people be scoring grade A's and B's?

Many reasons for this:

*People couldn't be bothered to revise
*Chances are people who do Psychology are those of a "lower academic nature". [That's not to say those who are doing Psychology are not academic, but are more likely to contain "those type of people" compared with subjects such as Further Maths]
*Fundamental flaw - there has to be a proportion that receives each grade. They skew grade boundaries to allow only a certain percentage to have the top grade (or something to that effect - don't quote me on this).

OP: You presented Psychology A-level as basically writing a few essays in the allocated time and just heaps of memorisation. You're not helping the matter.

Reply 17

connor ellis

5

Scientists take it as a joke.
It is usually taken at A-level by people who can't do proper science.
It is not a very hard A-level.

Reply 18

Zottula

16

I think it is quite possibly considered "soft" not necessarily because it is an easy A level, but because it is not a traditional subject and the stuff you learn is not as useful to many degree courses as more core/traditional subjects. It also requires memorising stuff, rather than learning about concepts, being able to apply them, analyses them etc.

Having done A level Psychology, I did find it pretty bad. I think Psychology itself is a good, interesting and demanding subject, but the A level is rubbish.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 19

Peterborough Lad

I reckon it depends on the person. I do three sciences and find phyiscs quite challenging but some people who don't do it tell me its easy and just basic common sense. How they've come to that conclusion I've no idea.

Plus psychology is a relatively new subject so might not attract the respect that some of the older more traditional subjects get. This, in my opinion, is things like media studies problem.

At the end of the day, if you enjoy it then who cares what others think! :smile:

For those who believe Psychology is a "soft subject"

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you