OCR Psychology: AS Core Studies and Research Methods [Paperback]

"The book captures the important sense of wonder about psychology…. It manages to emphasize the importance of skepticism and science while all the while keeping an eye on the bigger picture. This book makes a significant contribution to the standing of psychology by reaching out in a very appealing way to a wide audience." - Elizabeth F. Loftus, distinguished Professor, University of California, Irvine

"It is an excellent resource and one that many students and teachers will return to again and again." - Pia Lee-Wilson, University of East London

"This book is a truly excellent resource which will be invaluable to anyone taking OCR AS Psychology. It is well written, well organised, comprehensive, and easy to read. I just wish it had been available when I was a student! In short, a must-have and a must-read." - Professor Mark Griffiths, Psychology Division, Nottingham Trent University.

"This thoroughly engaging book provides the student with a comprehensive guide to AS-Level Psychology. Accurate, accessible, and even challenging, this visually stunning textbook will suit all types of learners and enable them to succeed in their exams. Rarely does a textbook tick so many boxes. My students will love it." – Mark Holah, Head of Psychology, Wyke Sixth Form College.

'This new edition is an excellent resource for the delivery of the new OCR specification. Its lively and colourful presentation makes it highly accessible to students and its broad background and extension material means it is invaluable to teachers seeking to plan engaging delivery of its Core Studies in a modern context. Exam-style questions with guidance and ‘quickie’ quiz questions help students develop their skills and the varied activities, related research and website suggestions provide useful material for differentiation. An all-round winner!' - Anna Ross, Psychology Course Team Leader, Long Road Sixth Form College

Praise for the first edition:

'This book is visually stunning and will be highly appealing to both teachers and students. It is also designed to aid a reader’s comprehension of the material. The book’s overwhelming visual appeal, logical formatting, accuracy, psychological insight and inspiration should all guarantee its success.' - Beth Black, former senior examiner and teacher, Long Road Sixth Form College

'I think this a fascinating and wonderful book. The students will love it and so will the teachers.' - Diana Dwyer, Head of Psychology, Joseph Whitaker School, Rainworth

As the Editor at Psychology Press, responsible for `OCR Psychology: AS Core studies', I would like to respond to the comments made on this book by Andy B. His main concerns seem to be with regards to the layout of the book and the supposed lack of answers provided to the questions posed throughout.

The layout has been specifically designed to resemble magazine style spreads. Our feedback suggests that students respond really well to this style, as many prefer to read in this way. The course content is made accessible, understandable and teachable in bite-sized chunks. The presentation of the core study material is very clearly laid out, splitting the study into abstract, aims and procedure, results etc and the level of detail is just right for students preparing for the OCR examination.

This layout also includes a number of features designed to help students understand the material such as:

• `Connections' icons (based on London tube map) which facilitate and underline connections between the core studies.


• Starters and Afters to provide interesting detail to place the studies in context, by making links to real-life situations so the studies come alive.


• Summaries of the core studies which are given as flow charts at the end of each chapter to provide students with helpful revision cues.

We are publishing a new edition of this book in July 2008 which will be designed in full-colour, whilst maintaining the same layout and strong visual
appeal.This information provides students with a thorough indication of how to answer all questions, but as the answers are not given in the book, they are encouraged to think for themselves first rather than being spoon-fed the answers. Evaluation skills are a key part of the OCR specification and this book allows students to develop these skills by use of searching questions related to key issues.

We do, however, provide student answers complete with examiner comments to all the exam questions at the end of each chapter in the book. These are designed to help students with exam preparation as we appreciate that there is a lot to cram in to term-time teaching so it helps to focus specifically on the exam requirements as well. The examiners' marks and comments really give readers insight and working knowledge of how to target their responses.

In conclusion, in our view this is an excellent book and a key element of our successful A-Level programme. We believe that the market agrees as sales have exceeded our expectations and we had to reprint twice in quick succession after just over a year.