PSY-20054 - Module Specification
School of Psychology
Faculty of Natural Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2024/25

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2024/25

Why do people behave the way that they do around their health? How can we help people manage their health better? Can we reduce the health inequalities in society? How do we study the psychological aspects of health?
These are just some of of the important questions that the field of Health Psychology tries to address. The 'Foundations in Health Psychology' module will introduce you to the field of Health Psychology and give you a solid base from which to develop your understanding in the future.
During this module, you will learn about key theories and models from health psychology that help us to understand the psychological aspects of health, the main methodological approaches we use to study health psychology, and how we can develop health interventions to promote aspects of health. You will also learn more about the inequalities in health that exist in society, and what we might be able to do to tackle them.
As part of the final assessment, you will choose an existing health intervention or campaign that has been developed based on the principles of Health Psychology that you have learnt throughout the module. You will then apply your learning from the module and write a critical commentary of your chosen health intervention.

The `Foundations in Health Psychology¿ module aims to provide students with a solid foundational understanding of the broad discipline of Health psychology that can be used as a base from which to build more advanced learning. The module will introduce common theories from the field of Health Psychology as well as a foundational understanding of research methods used in Health psychology. Finally, the module aims to provide knowledge of how Health Psychology can be used to inform the development of interventions to address health-related issues.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Describe and evaluate key theories used in Health Psychology: 1
Describe under-represented groups and the determinants of health inequalities: 1
Evaluate key methodological approaches used in Health Psychology: 1
Apply Health Psychology to describe and critically evaluate an existing health intervention: 1

Study hours

6 x 2 hour sessions at the start of the module to deep dive into core topics (with in session group activities and complimentary asynchronous material - roughly 50% teaching, 50% activity)
6 x 1 hour in-situ teaching sessions taking an asset-based approach with structured guidance from Sway and pre-recorded micro lectures
32 hours guided independent study
100 hours background reading, research, and assessment preparation

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment