COURSE CURRICULUM

This comprehensive psychology curriculum introduces students to the core scientific foundations, theories, and practical skills essential to understanding human behaviour. The program begins with subjects that highlight key concepts in psychology and emphasise its science-based approach, linking psychological research to evidence-based practice. Students develop independent learning abilities, scientific writing, and foundational research skills while exploring the historical development of psychology, biological bases of behaviour, lifespan development, motivation, emotion, stress, health, personality, states of consciousness, and cultural and Indigenous perspectives. As a prerequisite for advanced study, students examine how individuals perceive, learn, think, and behave within social groups, along with an introduction to psychological disorders, intelligence, memory, cognition, and human relationships. A major component is dedicated to scientific psychology, covering research methods, ethical considerations, reliability, validity, and statistical procedures such as descriptive statistics, sampling, normal distribution, correlation, t-tests, chi-square tests, and experimental design. Students also study theories of personality, individual differences, intelligence measurement, and factors influencing behavioural change. Subjects focused on biological psychology introduce neural, genetic, and endocrine systems, attention, learning mechanisms, conditioning, memory, language, and psychophysiological methods. Additional units provide an overview of perception and cognition, drawing on behavioural and neuropsychological research, while others explore developmental processes from infancy to adulthood, including perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social development, attitudes, prejudice, social cognition, and workplace behaviour. Students gain training in data analysis using SPSS, learning to interpret experimental, correlational, and quasi-experimental results. Further subjects address developmental approaches to mental health, therapeutic models, psychological assessment, intelligence and personality testing, ethical practice, and introductory counselling skills. Advanced units explore the historical and philosophical roots of psychology, contemporary theoretical approaches, cognitive processes such as memory and reasoning, and selected topics in social behaviour. Finally, applied psychology subjects focus on sport, health, well-being, organisational settings, and contemporary child development issues, emphasising evidence-based research that supports children’s growth and potential.