Inequality: Evaluating The Gender Pay Gap
What Is It? The Gender Pay Gap (GPG) represents the difference between the median – or mid-point – earnings of men and women in a workforce in any given year. In basic terms it’s a comparison of the middle hourly earnings of all men and all women in a given workforce, such as Britain or […]
Introducing Research Methods: 3 New Films
This new 3-part series of films is designed to introduce A-level / High School students to research methods in a way that explains their importance to our general understanding of Psychology. 1. Why Study Research Methods? (3 mins) Surveys have shown that research methods is students least favourite topic. So why do we have to […]
Discovering Psychology: Updated Edition
This classic series of short – around 30-minute – psychology films narrated by Philip Zimbardo and aimed at an Introductory College / High School audience originally premiered in 1990 and is now available in an “updated edition” published in 2001. In this latter edition 17 of the 26 films were updated to include more-recent research […]
Re-evaluating the SPE. And its Critics.
It’s probably fair to say that Philip Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (SPE) has, particularly over the last few years, attracted a great deal of critical attention – something that should, on the face of things, make it relatively easy for students to evaluate. The problem, however, is that while the SPE has thrown-up a number […]
Hinge Questions
“Asking questions” is probably one of the most basic and ubiquitous classroom techniques teachers use to check student understanding and there’s a wealth of research to show that, done well, it’s an effective learning tool. There’s also no shortage of advice about how to structure questions effectively, although, this being the Internet, if you were […]
What Method Would You Use?
We’re currently editing a new series of Psychology Research Methods films designed to introduce students to ideas like why we need research methods, the range of different methods available and, most importantly, how to apply our knowledge of methods to resolve different kinds of research problems. As is usual in the editing process stuff that […]
How To Be An Effective Teacher
There has been much (political) debate in recent years in both Britian and America about the difference teachers make to their students in terms of the narrow (but politically primary) measure of outcomes. To put it bluntly, what, if any, difference do teachers make to student test scores? Within this particular scenario and all-things-being-equal (which […]
Ninja Learning: AI Created A Podcast Of Your Paper
Yes it did. Entirely unbidden, I have to say. And while I was at first a little wary of what might be revealed, I decided to embrace the madness and share what is a weirdly-trippy exercise in what, I’m not quite sure. Although the Podcast relates to a book I wrote (it says so at […]
The Social Animal
A broad overview of social psychology constructed around a small group of experiments loosely connected by Forced Conformity Theory – starting with a quick clip of an Asch test in progress. This is followed by an experiment led by Dr. Stanley Schachter that examines the reactions of a small group of students to a student […]
Cognitive Dissonance Theory: An Experiment
Although Festinger’s (1957) concept of cognitive dissonance is well-known in both sociology and psychology, one of his original experiments to demonstrate the phenomenon, carried-out and filmed at Stanford University, is a rather neat way of showing how the concept works, in a couple of ways. Firstly, it shows how cognitive dissonance involves a psychological tension […]
Psychology Transition Work | 2
The belated follow-up to the best-selling Psychology Transition Materials arrives “better late than never” just-in-time to provide students with lots of lovely Summer Work to stop them wasting their time relaxing, watching “That Was Rude” TikTok movies or curating their “Doesn’t Know It Yet” Instagram feeds (as I’m reliably informed the Kids do nowadays when […]
Sociology Summer Transition Work
If you’re looking around for some inspiration for “Transition Work” you can set your prospective students over the coming summer months, look no further. Or rather, start here and then I’ll suggest ways you can look further afield. It seems like every couple of years I get around to thinking about those long, hot, summer […]
Crime in England and Wales: 2025
The latest edition of Crime in England and Wales, hot off the National Statistics press, has arrived with a dull thud on our doorstep and because you’re all probably way-too-busy Tik-Toking (or whatever “the kids” do nowadays in lieu of revision) I thought I’d do my usual Chicken Nuggets review (just the most tasty bits […]
Beyond Zimbardo: The Stanford Prison Experiment
The Stanford Prison Experiment, arguably one of the most controversial experiments of the 20th century, has polarised opinions for over 50 years: To its supporters, the transformation of perfectly decent college students into brutal guards or compliant prisoners demonstrated the power of situations to determine behaviour. To its detractors, the study is a perfect storm […]
Dynamic Learning: Mindmaps
The next in our popular Dynamic Learning series of Study Skills films is Mindmapping, a note-taking technique originally popularised by Tony Buzan in the 1970’s. Despite the huge number of dauntingly complicated and confusing examples splattered across the Internet, it’s a technique that’s actually simple to learn and apply once you understand four simple principles […]