Child Psychology BSc (Hons)

Course summary

Your degree in Child Psychology will develop your knowledge and understanding of children from a psychological, cultural, educational and counselling perspective.

You’ll be focusing on why babies, children and adolescents behave the way they do. You’ll also design and carry out studies to explore the factors that go on to influence adult behaviour.

The aim is to learn how psychologists can use their knowledge to understand individuals and help them to make a positive difference to their life’s development.

You’ll be studying in one of the largest – and friendliest – Schools of Psychology in the country, with a huge range of expertise available to you on the campus across a range of subjects.

What you'll learn

Our course combines a wide range of elements to provide you with a strong academic grounding.

We’ll also introduce you to related areas of study, linking them to how you can apply your knowledge to working with children.

The course includes all the core material you’ll need for accreditation by the British Psychological Society through modules shared with our other BSc Psychology courses.

There is a particular focus on developmental psychology - the study of how thinking and behaviour changes through life.

We’ll introduce you to theories and their applications for counselling children, young people and adults through a module shared with the BSc (Hons) Counselling programme.

Career

Your degree in Child Psychology will be your first stage in becoming a professional psychologist, whether in the field of educational, counselling, clinical, health, forensic or occupational psychology.

If you choose to specialise in these areas, your next step will be to do postgraduate training at master’s or PhD level.

We’ll provide you with a clear potential route into professional psychology. But this degree – with its strong, practical elements – will also strengthen your profile if you decide to pursue a career in a range of related areas of work.

These areas will be those involving children, babies or adolescents.

This opens up a wide variety of careers to you such as teaching, counselling work with young people or families, social work, youth work, nursery management, speech and language therapy or other careers in the field of education.

As well as covering specific areas of psychology, counselling and early childhood studies, the BSc (Hons) Child Psychology degree provides training in data collection and analysis, communication skills and report writing, ICT skills and interpersonal awareness.

It therefore offers you an excellent basis for developing a career in areas not directly related to psychology.