April 2025 Psychology subject update
Welcome to your Pearson Edexcel Psychology April 2025 subject update.
Hello colleagues,
This update contains links to examiner vacancies, a reminder of the free guides on our qualification web pages which contain useful details of key studies and theories, free resources for psychology teachers from the BPS and answers to some Frequently Asked Questions from psychology teachers which relate to exam preparation.
I have also shared links to recordings of our recent 'preparing for our exams' training for GCSE and A Level psychology.
As ever please don't hesitate to get in touch by email or book a video call with me using the links below if there's anything I can help with.
Best wishes,
Tim Lawrence
Psychology Subject Advisor
If you have any questions, then please do contact me:
☎ Call: 0344 463 2535
✉ Email: teachingpsychology@pearson.com
💻 Book a Teams meeting with me: https://bit.ly/4bBZjpB
This update includes:
- Key dates and Ofqual student guide: late entry fees and results days, and Ofqual’s guidance for candidates regarding their exams.
- Become an examiner: links to examiner vacancy information for A Level, IAL and GCSE psychology.
- BPS Teachers' Toolkit and Research Digest: new free resources from the BPS and news of the first of a new series coming soon from Pearson with exemplar responses and commentaries for Edexcel A Level.
- Free topic guides: resources which clarify key details of theories and studies which can be assessed by exam questions.
- Frequently Asked Questions: raised by psychology teachers recently.
- A Level Psychology: recording available for our recent 'preparing for our exams' training.
- GCSE Psychology: recording available for our recent 'preparing for our exams' training.
| 22 April | 'Late fees' (double fees) for May/June 2025 exam entries become 'higher late fees' (triple fees). |
| 14 August | UK A Level and IAL results to candidates. |
| 21 August | GCSE results to candidates. |
The Joint Council for Qualifications has published their key dates document for the June 2025 exam cycle. Two dates have been set aside as contingency in the event of national or significant local disruption to exams in the UK:
11 June – afternoon session
25 June – full day
Ofqual have provided information for students about arrangements for regulated qualifications. This explains what your students need to know before, during and after exams and assessments.
We still have some vacancies for examiner roles for GCSE, A Level and International A Level psychology for the June 2025 exam series - see the links below for more details and to complete an online application.
These roles are designed to be carried out by full-time teachers and you can work flexibly around your other commitments. There are opportunities for teachers at all stages in their careers, and full training provided. In addition to the pay, teachers can gain a great deal of understanding of the demands of exam questions through this work and many find it extremely useful in informing their teaching.
The British Psychological Society's excellent Teacher Toolkit has some new free resources for teachers to use in the classroom. These cover descriptive statistics, content analysis, hypothesis writing, reliability and validity, and split-brain studies.
We have completed work on a new type of free resource for A Level psychology teachers in collaboration with the BPS - a set of practice exam questions with exemplar answers and examiner commentaries, based on an article from the Research Digest blog. Our first resource, on a brain imaging study into neural differences in schizophrenia, is ready for publication on our qualification web page at the time of writing and will be uploaded early in April.
See links below for the Teachers' Toolkit, Research Digest and A Level Psychology Teaching and Learning Materials.
For our A Level and International A Level we have free 'component guides' and 'summary of studies' booklets available in the 'teaching and learning materials' section of the qualification website. For GCSE psychology the equivalent documents are called 'topic guides'. See links below to download them.
These have been written by senior examiners, are designed for use by teachers (rather than students) and they clarify details of theories and studies which examiners will refer to when writing questions and mark schemes.
It's worth noting that examiners do not refer to textbooks when writing questions and mark schemes. While textbooks, especially those written specifically for the course, are extremely useful they are not therefore a definitive guide to the knowledge which will be assessed. These free resources are therefore highly recommended, especially when it comes to covering named studies in detail.
For GCSE, A Level and IAL extended response questions which assess AO3 – for example those with ‘assess’ or ‘evaluate’ as the command word – judgements or conclusions are required for the higher mark bands. However this does not mean that a separate ‘conclusion paragraph’ at the end of the response is needed.
In fact, writing a conclusion which simply repeats ideas or arguments which have previously been presented will not gain any credit, and is therefore a waste of time. Good evaluative writing will naturally contain ‘mini-conclusions’ or judgements at the end of each argument made, and this is what the mark scheme is referring to.
Our recent ‘preparing for our exams’ training for GCSE psychology advised that candidates finish their essays with a conclusion, beginning it with the words “In conclusion…”. This is good advice, although it does not mean that such a paragraph is necessary. It ensures that a conclusion or judgement is given in case this has not already been done in the course of previous AO3 paragraphs, but candidates should be advised that such a paragraph should offer ‘something new’. This doesn’t mean it needs to make a ‘new AO3 point’ – rather it should offer some new judgement, for example suggesting that on balance the strengths which have been outlined outweigh the weaknesses and overall the theory is a good one.
Yes, although synoptic questions will not assume knowledge of any specific option topic, as long as the content is relevant to the question candidates may make use of their knowledge of the option topics when responding to synoptic questions, such as ‘issues and debates’ questions.
In their response to the scenario, candidates need to use ideas from two different topics. This means that if they were to use conformity and obedience as the two explanations their mark would be limited, as these are both from Topic 5: social influence. Instead they should use, for example, one explanation from this topic, and one from Topic 4: the brain and neuropsychology.
Mark schemes for extended response (essay) questions show bullet-pointed ‘indicative content’ – examples of creditworthy material that could form part of an answer. The number of bullet points always matches the number of marks available, but this does not mean that a mark is awarded for each valid point made.
The mark awarded for an essay, for A Level, IAL and GCSE psychology, is decided upon using the Levels Based Mark Scheme. There is no ‘right’ number of points / arguments / pieces of evidence for an answer of a particular length. Rather, what is important is how well a candidate has developed ‘lines of argument’ and often it is better to use fewer points / pieces of evidence than shown in the mark scheme, but to develop these with commentary and counter arguments.
No, mark schemes show ‘indicative content’ and alternative ideas and evidence will be accepted as long as it is relevant to the question. The specification is the guide to what content needs to be covered because a question can be asked directly on it. However additional research evidence to spport or contradict theories will be needed for effective evaluation. This does not necessarily need to be the same as the studies listed in past mark schemes and teachers are free to use alternative studies to these in their teaching.
Typically, examiners view 'features' of a mental health issue related to the incidence and prevalence of the disorder and how it affects society. For example, statistics regarding how common it is, who is more likely to be affected by it, when is the typical onset of the mental health issue would all be examples of acceptable features. This is the reason for the specimen mark scheme contents.
However, with Q10 on 1PS0/01 for 2023 which was ‘State two features of addiction. (2)’, examiners had to consider the ICD in terms of what it classifies as 'features' as the 1PS0 specification requests candidates need to know the features of addiction according to the ICD (specification 3.1.1). As such, they also accepted responses which included this information.
For example, in the ICD-11 it states that there are ‘essential (required) features’ such as ‘Increasing priority given to the behaviour to the extent that it takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities’, so examiners were instructed to accept these responses.
The recording for free online training session, delivered in March, is now available on YouTube, and you can download the delegate pack using the link below the video:
The recording for free online training session, delivered in March, is now available on YouTube, and you can download the delegate pack using the link below the video once it has been uploaded to the qualification website:
Subject advisor
Tim Lawrence
Psychology and international Science
