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AQA GCSE Psychology revision

These activities are mapped to AQA GCSE Psychology 8182. Seventeen of them, fifteen to twenty-four minutes each, across all eight topic areas on both papers. **The part worth pointing at is research methods.** Three of the seventeen are about doing psychology rather than knowing it: hypotheses, variables and sampling; experimental designs; and data handling with descriptive statistics. That last one is the only activity anywhere on this site outside maths and science where a student plots a graph, and it carries three typed-number questions. AQA examines research methods across both papers and requires a proportion of the marks to be mathematical, and it is reliably the strand a class arrives at in April having not revised.

This page lists what we actually have for AQA GCSE Psychology 8182. It is built from the live activities, so it is accurate on the day you read it.

The strand most revision leaves out

Psychology is an attractive GCSE option partly because students think it is about people, and a proportion of them are surprised to find it is also about sampling frames, standard deviations and the difference between a repeated measures and an independent groups design.

AQA examines research methods on both papers, embedded in the topics rather than quarantined in a unit, and requires a share of the marks to be mathematical. Revision resources tend to skip it, because it is harder to write than a set of study summaries and less fun to read.

Three of these seventeen activities are about method rather than content.

Hypotheses, variables and sampling covers the difference between an aim and a hypothesis, how to operationalise a variable, and why a sample chosen from your own class is not random. Experimental designs and methods covers the designs, their weaknesses and the situations each suits. Data handling and descriptive statistics, at twenty-four minutes, covers mean, median, mode and range, tables and graphs.

That last one is the only activity on this site outside maths and science where a student plots a graph rather than reading about one, and it is the reason to look at this set even if you have other resources for the content.

The content, topic by topic

Paper 1 is cognition and behaviour: memory, perception, development and research methods. Paper 2 is social context and behaviour: social influence, language thought and communication, brain and neuropsychology, and psychological problems.

All eight are covered. The strongest run is the neuropsychology pair: the nervous system and neurons, and brain structure, localisation of function and scanning techniques, which includes a hotspot activity on the brain itself rather than a list of lobes to memorise.

Social influence is well served by conformity and obedience, which takes Milgram's agency theory as the spine, and by prosocial and crowd behaviour beside it.

Memory, perception and development are covered more briefly, one or two activities each, and the multi-store model activity at fifteen minutes is the shortest thing here.

Studies live inside topics, not in a list

A decision worth naming, because it affects how you would use these.

The named studies AQA requires are taught inside the topic they belong to rather than gathered into a studies activity. Milgram appears inside conformity and obedience. Piaget has a stage theory activity. Gunderson and the mindset work sits with learning theory.

That follows how the specification examines them: questions ask what a study shows or how it was criticised, not for a roll call. If your department revises by study rather than by topic, these will feel organised the wrong way round, and a sprint built from three or four of them is the way to reorder them for a class.

The other board's specification is covered at Edexcel GCSE Psychology, which is built around named studies far more explicitly.

Using them

The three activities embedded further down are playable here without an account.

The lists below group by classroom use, worked out from what each activity contains. For how each is meant to be run, see ready-to-run revision activities. Everything else, by subject and board, is on the revision pages.

What this page does not do

It does not rehearse the longest written answers. The writing tasks here run thirty to a hundred and fifty words, and AQA's longest questions want more than that.

It does not teach inferential statistics, which is not on this specification, so that is a limit of the course rather than of the page.

It is not a scheme of work. For a shape to drop these into, see how to structure a GCSE revision programme.

It does not track anything, so there is no completion list to check.

Every live Psychology activity for AQA

17 activities, all mapped to AQA GCSE Psychology (8182).

Good for starter (1)

See all 17, by topic

Try it with your class

AQA Psychology 24 minutes

Data Handling and Descriptive Statistics

16 steps, 11 interactive, 9 activity types.

Best used for
Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

A researcher records how many words each participant recalled, and also writes down what each said about how they tried to remember. Which describes the two sets of data?

AQA Psychology 22 minutes

Conformity and Milgram's Agency Theory of Obedience

15 steps, 10 interactive, 11 activity types.

Best used for
Intervention Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Intervention: Mostly questions, so it finds the gap quickly.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

Someone says: "He obeyed because he has always been the sort of person who respects authority." What kind of explanation is that?

AQA Psychology 24 minutes

Brain Structure, Localisation of Function and Scanning Techniques

14 steps, 9 interactive, 10 activity types.

Best used for
Independent study Mock preparation Cover lesson
  • Independent study: Explains before it asks, so a student can work alone.
  • Mock preparation: Asks students to build an answer, not just recognise one.
  • Cover lesson: Teaches and tests in one go, so a non-specialist can run it.

Try one question

A person has a stroke affecting a region at the back of the brain. Which effect would a psychologist expect, and why?

Common questions

Is research methods covered?

Three activities, which is nearly a fifth of the set: hypotheses, variables and sampling; experimental designs and methods; and data handling with descriptive statistics. Research methods is examined on both papers here and it is the part students most often leave until last.

What about the maths?

The statistics activity is the only one on this site outside maths and science where a student plots a graph, and it carries three typed-number questions. Mean, median, mode, range, tables and graphs are all in it.

How much is here in total?

Seventeen activities, fifteen to twenty-four minutes each, across all eight topic areas on both papers.

Which are the strongest?

The seven at twenty-two minutes and above: conformity and obedience, prosocial and crowd behaviour, the language and thought debate, non-verbal communication, the nervous system and neurons, brain structure and localisation, and data handling.

Do they cover the named studies?

The ones the specification requires, in the topics they belong to. Milgram sits inside the conformity and obedience activity rather than in a study list of its own, because AQA examines what a study shows rather than its bibliography.

Will I see who has completed them?

No. Following a shared link records nothing about who followed it, which is a deliberate choice about children's data.

Put one in front of a class

Tell us the subject and how long you have. You get a link to hand out, and it marks itself.

Create a free teacher account

Written by David Wright, Co-Founder, DoRevision.

David builds DoRevision with his son Noah (15). David has spent his career building EdTech products, and Noah has grown up watching lines of code being written. As a student at an important stage of his education, together they are building the revision platform that Noah is using to help revise for his GCSE exams and hopes his friends will find useful too.

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