Log In
Log In
OCR J203 · seven modules · each taught by a simulacrum of the psychologist the topic turns on
This is the complete OCR GCSE Psychology specification, J203, built as seven modules. The qualification is assessed in two written papers — Studies and applications in psychology 1 and 2 — covering six topics between them, with a research-methods strand running through both. The Universitas has built every topic as its own module, plus a dedicated Research Methods module that gathers the strand into one place, so an autodidact can take any topic on its own and a student preparing for the examination can work through the whole.
What is distinctive is who teaches each one. The topics are led by the very figures whose theories and studies the specification is built on: the Jean Piaget Simulacrum on development, the Stanley Milgram Simulacrum on social influence, the Frederic Bartlett Simulacrum on memory, the Albert Ellis Simulacrum on psychological problems, and — where the spec sets two theories against each other — two voices in contrast: the Banduran Learning and Hans Eysenck Simulacra on criminality, and the Sigmund Freud and Hobsonian Dreaming Simulacra on why we dream. The research-methods strand is led by the Ronald Fisher Simulacrum, who built the modern theory of experimental design.
Each module is independently enrolable. Take any single one on its own, or work through all seven for the full qualification.
The first written paper — Criminal Psychology, Development, and Psychological Problems.
Banduran Learning Simulacrum · Hans Eysenck Simulacrum
Why does criminal and anti-social behaviour occur? Two explanations in contrast: the social learning account — behaviour learned by watching others, with the Cooper and Mackie study — and Eysenck's criminal personality theory, rooted in the dimensions of extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism and the nervous system beneath them, with the Heaven study. The conversation hands over by name between the two.
Open module →Jean Piaget Simulacrum
How the mind develops: Piaget's four invariant stages of cognitive development, the mechanisms of assimilation and accommodation, and the concepts of object permanence, egocentrism, and conservation — with his conservation study — set beside the learning theories of development, Dweck on mindset and Willingham on meaning, with the Blackwell study and the application to education.
Open module →Albert Ellis Simulacrum
Significant mental health problems, studied through schizophrenia and clinical depression: how mental health is defined and measured, how attitudes have changed, and for each condition a biological explanation (the dopamine hypothesis; the social rank theory) beside a psychological one (the social drift theory; the ABC model), with their core studies — then how the treatment follows from the explanation. Clinical and factual, taught at one remove.
Open module →The second written paper — Social Influence, Memory, and Sleep and Dreaming.
Stanley Milgram Simulacrum
How the presence and pressure of others changes behaviour: conformity, crowd behaviour, and obedience, through the tension between situational explanations (the power of the situation, with the Bickman study) and dispositional ones (personality, self-esteem, the authoritarian personality, with the NatCen study of the 2011 riots) — and how minority and majority influence can change attitudes for the better.
Open module →Frederic Bartlett Simulacrum
How memory works and why what we recall is so often not what we encountered: the multi-store model of memory and the brain structures behind it, with the case of Clive Wearing, set against Bartlett's own theory of reconstructive memory — schemas, confabulation, and the distorting power of leading questions — with the Loftus study and the techniques used for recall.
Open module →Sigmund Freud Simulacrum · Hobsonian Dreaming Simulacrum
The science of sleep and two opposed theories of why we dream: the Freudian theory — the dream as the disguised fulfilment of an unconscious wish, with the Wolfman study — and the activation-synthesis theory, the dream as the cortex making sense of its own brainstem activation during REM, with the Williams study. Same dream, two utterly different explanations; the conversation hands over by name.
Open module →The strand assessed across both papers — a fifth of all the marks — gathered into one module.
Ronald Fisher Simulacrum
The craft the whole course rests on, taught in three parts: planning research (hypotheses, variables, experimental designs, sampling, and the ethics of the British Psychological Society's Code); doing research (experiments, interviews, questionnaires, observations, case studies, and correlations, and what each licenses you to conclude); and analysing research (data types, descriptive statistics, displays, reliability and validity, and the sources of bias). A study is only as good as its design.
Open module →A diploma in GCSE Psychology is awarded on completion of all seven modules and a final examination. The examination system and the diploma itself are in design.
Coming soon