Psychologically Literate by Design: Four Case Study Undergraduate Modules that Centre Psychological Literacy

Abstract

Psychological literacy is an approach to teaching which encourages students to consider their subject knowledge in ‘real world’ applied contexts (i.e. in student’s lives beyond university), which may be professional, personal, or societal. ‘Real world’ here refers to the application of psychological knowledge and skills to students’ personal, student-role, work, and community contexts. Psychological literacy is typically integrated into psychology programmes through classroom activities, extra-curricular activities, and opportunities outside of the core curriculum. However, for the goals of psychological literacy to be fully realised, it should be intentionally and thoughtfully embedded at the module and programme level. One way to achieve this is to develop and evaluate modules (i.e. standalone units or courses) that embed psychological literacy explicitly by design. In this paper, we provide overviews, brief evaluations, and reflections on four undergraduate modules within a UK Psychology (BSc) degree that integrate the principles of psychological literacy. These include a first-year compulsory module (‘Biological Approaches to Human and Non-Human Behaviour’), a second-year compulsory module (‘Neuroscience’) and two final-year elective optional modules (‘Face Perception’ and ‘Feminist Social Psychology’). We offer reflections on the process of designing these modules as educators who are interested in developing students’ psychological literacy and also provide student evaluations.