A-level Psychology Year 13 · OCR
OCR A-level Psychology Year 13 revision
Every topic of the OCR A-level Psychology (H567) specification (Year 13) in order, with notes and practice questions. Subtopics marked free have their notes and questions on this site.
Topic 1: Issues in mental health
It builds on what you learned at AS in Areas, perspectives, issues and debates, and takes it further.
There are 16 parts: we start with mental health in historical context, and finish with prevention and management of mental health problems.
- 1.1Mental health in historical context: asylums, deinstitutionalisation and care in the communityFree 26 questions
- 1.2Conceptualising mental health: definitions of abnormality, the medical model and its critics60 questions
- 1.3Classification and diagnosis: DSM-5 and ICD-11; reliability, validity, comorbidity, culture and gender bias44 questions
- 1.4Clinical characteristics of unipolar depressionFree 30 questions
- 1.5Clinical characteristics of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)36 questions
- 1.6Schizophrenia17 questions
- 1.7Schizophrenia: classification, symptoms, reliability and validity of diagnosis36 questions
- 1.8Biological explanations of depression and OCD: genetic, neural and biochemical27 questions
- 1.9Biological explanations for schizophrenia: genetics, dopamine and neural correlates21 questions
- 1.10Psychological explanations of depression and OCD: cognitive, behavioural and psychodynamic36 questions
- 1.11Psychological explanations for schizophrenia: family dysfunction and cognitive explanations28 questions
- 1.12Biological treatments: drug therapies, ECT and deep brain stimulation29 questions
- 1.13Psychological treatments: CBT, systematic desensitisation, exposure and response prevention, psychoanalytic therapy36 questions
- 1.14Anti-psychiatry, stigma, and cultural and gender differences in mental health28 questions
- 1.15Mental health in the 21st century: legislation, policy and community care32 questions
- 1.16Prevention and management of mental health problems: the role of professionals and public mental health38 questions
Topic 2: Option: Child psychology
It builds on what you learned at AS in Developmental area: core studies, and takes it further.
There are 8 parts: we start with theories of attachment, and finish with atypical development.
- 2.1Theories of attachment: Bowlby's monotropic theory and learning theoryFree 43 questions
- 2.2Attachment types and cultural variations: Ainsworth's Strange Situation and cross-cultural research63 questions
- 2.3Effects of early experience: deprivation, privation and institutionalisation32 questions
- 2.4Day care, peer relationships and social development31 questions
- 2.5Parenting styles and influences of family on child development27 questions
- 2.6Moral and prosocial development in children30 questions
- 2.7Atypical development: autism spectrum disorder - characteristics, explanations and interventions29 questions
- 2.8Atypical development: ADHD - characteristics, explanations and treatments38 questions
Topic 3: Option: Criminal psychology
It builds on what you learned at AS in Social area: core studies, and takes it further.
There are 15 parts: we start with defining and measuring crime, and finish with restorative justice programmes.
- 3.1Defining and measuring crime: official statistics, victim surveys and the dark figureFree 62 questions
- 3.2Social and developmental influences on offending: peers, family, poverty and social learning29 questions
- 3.3Biological explanations of offending: atavistic form, genetics and neural explanations21 questions
- 3.4Psychological explanations: Eysenck's theory and cognitive distortions (hostile attribution, minimalisation)35 questions
- 3.5Differential association theory and psychodynamic explanations of offending23 questions
- 3.6Mental disorder, psychopathy and offending31 questions
- 3.7Offender profiling: top-down approach and the FBI typologiesFree 24 questions
- 3.8Offender profiling: bottom-up approach, investigative psychology and geographical profiling28 questions
- 3.9Eyewitness testimony in the criminal justice system and the cognitive interview30 questions
- 3.10Police interviewing, interrogation techniques and false confessions26 questions
- 3.11Courtroom psychology: jury decision-making, expert witnesses and the credibility of evidence30 questions
- 3.12Rehabilitation and crime prevention: offender treatment programmes, probation and evaluating effectiveness39 questions
- 3.13Dealing with offending: aims of custody, effects of imprisonment and recidivism34 questions
- 3.14Behaviour modification in custody (token economy) and anger management programmes31 questions
- 3.15Restorative justice programmes27 questions
Topic 4: Option: Environmental psychology
There are 6 parts: we start with environmental stressors, and finish with pro-environmental behaviour and sustainability.
- 4.1Environmental stressors: noise and temperatureFree 26 questions
- 4.2Crowding: density, perceived control and effects on behaviour31 questions
- 4.3Personal space and territoriality34 questions
- 4.4Environmental design: architecture, defensible space and the ambient environment28 questions
- 4.5Environmental cognition: cognitive maps and wayfinding23 questions
- 4.6Pro-environmental behaviour and sustainability: attitudes, values and barriers26 questions
Topic 5: Option: Sport and exercise psychology
There are 8 parts: we start with motivation in sport, and finish with exercise psychology.
- 5.1Motivation in sport: intrinsic and extrinsic, achievement goals and self-efficacyFree 32 questions
- 5.2Arousal, anxiety and performance: drive theory, inverted-U, catastrophe theory and IZOF33 questions
- 5.3Social facilitation, audience effects and home advantage28 questions
- 5.4Group dynamics in sport: team cohesion, Tuckman's stages, Steiner's model and social loafing70 questions
- 5.5Leadership in sport: Fiedler's contingency model and Chelladurai's multidimensional model70 questions
- 5.6Personality, mental toughness and aggression in sport39 questions
- 5.7Psychological skills training: imagery, goal setting, self-talk and relaxation77 questions
- 5.8Exercise psychology: adherence, mental health benefits and exercise addiction34 questions
Topic 6: Research methods and skills
It builds on what you learned at AS in Research methods and Research methods: data handling and analysis, and takes it further.
There are 13 parts: we start with planning and designing investigations, and finish with significance levels, critical values, one- and two-tailed tests and Type I/II errors.
- 6.1Planning and designing investigations: aims, hypotheses, variables, designs, controls and pilot studiesFree 35 questions
- 6.2Sampling, reliability, validity and generalisability32 questions
- 6.3Ethics: BPS code of conduct, practical issues and socially sensitive research27 questions
- 6.4Qualitative data and analysis: thematic analysis, content analysis and case studies74 questions
- 6.5Descriptive statistics and data presentation: central tendency, dispersion, graphs and distributions66 questions
- 6.6Maths skills for psychology: ratios, percentages, decimals, standard form, significant figures and estimation64 questions
- 6.7Conducting a practical investigation: data collection, analysis and report writing67 questions
- 6.8Evaluating and applying research: peer review, evaluating unseen studies and synoptic extended writing25 questions
- 6.9Inferential statistics and science48 questions
- 6.10Choosing and justifying statistical tests (level of data, design, parametric assumptions)76 questions
- 6.11Calculating non-parametric tests: sign test, Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney, chi-square, Spearman's rho68 questions
- 6.12Calculating parametric tests: related and unrelated t-tests and Pearson's r24 questions
- 6.13Significance levels, critical values, one- and two-tailed tests and Type I/II errors63 questions
Topic 7: Issues and debates
It builds on what you learned at AS in Areas, perspectives, issues and debates, and takes it further.
There are 7 parts: we start with issues and debates, and finish with ethical implications of research.
- 7.1Issues and debatesFree 15 questions
- 7.2Gender bias in psychology23 questions
- 7.3Culture bias in psychology25 questions
- 7.4Free will and determinism24 questions
- 7.5The nature–nurture debate28 questions
- 7.6Holism and reductionism; idiographic and nomothetic approaches26 questions
- 7.7Ethical implications of research: socially sensitive research23 questions