With the demise of coursework, teachers up and down the county are having to rethink how they can engage the imaginations of budding psychologists. The Extended Project (EP) could provide that important opportunity to study a psychological topic in-depth using methods and study skills students may not otherwise use before university. The EP is a stand-alone qualification offered alongside A Levels (although a compulsory part of the diploma) and is offered by OCR, AQA, Edexcel and WJEC. Worth the same as an AS level, it carries the same number of UCAS points and could be the sort of talking point at an admissions interview that discriminates one candidate for an oversubscribed course from another.

Students can choose any topic – findings from the QCA pilot suggest that they achieve best when they have this flexibility. The final project can take the form of a product, performance, field study, design, investigation or dissertation. It gives students a good chance to flex skills like self-directed learning, source selection, evaluation and planning. Without coursework or other opportunities for independent study, there is a risk that such skills will be underdeveloped.

But consider the implications before students rush out eagerly clutching their questionnaires on shopping habits or grabbing volunteers for audience effect tasks.

Who will mange the qualification? What if students want to study topics outside of your comfort zone of the Stroop Effect? Where are the ethical constraints? Who will be the most suitable (this does not have to equate with most the academic!) students to take on the project? How can it slot into, around, on top of other taught subjects? With what will you fill the 30 or so hours of guided learning hours? Will you put in entries in Year 12 or Year 13? And most importantly- where can you find the answers to these questions?

Each Awarding Body is building a bank of resources and teacher support that can direct your choices and much of it is freely available on-line. Here at OCR we are working with centres to develop learning aids such as PowerPoint presentation and materials that can be photocopied, as well as assessing different models of delivery and offering free training events for teachers.

Schools and colleges are already having to cope with the changes to A Levels, GCSEs and the introduction of Diplomas, so the thought of another new qualification nmay be too much to bear but consider the benefits: There are real opportunities for cross curricular links as staff expertise is shared. Universities are sitting up and taking notice as EP focuses on the process not the outcome so students don’t have to narrow their thinking to rigid examination criteria. And for those students who would leap at the chance to collect data for their very own chisquare? All they have to do is choose their hypothesis…

Sally Morris has taught Psychology for over a decade and is a former Head of Department working as a Seconded Teacher in the Customer Support Division of OCR If you or your centre would like to discuss the extended project, support materials or share your own developed materials please contact her on sally.morris@ocr.org.uk.

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=2622868 TES article: Harvard professor critical of A levels praises the “paradigm shift” offered by the EP

http://www.qca.org.uk/qca_15297.aspx fact sheet regarding EP from QCA

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2008_0173 Schools’ minister Jim Knight praises the extended project#

http://www.ocr.org.uk/qualifications/projects/extended_project/ link to the OCR website