AQA GCSE Psychology - Hypotheses and variables (Research Methods Lesson 1)

This is the first lesson in the topic of Research Methods in the AQA GCSE Psychology 8182 course.

I don’t deliver this topic all in one go, I interleave the lessons throughout the other topics. If you are teaching the whole topic in one go, I have tried to make the whole series of lessons about the same imaginary investigation for some consistency and a continued thread of learning.

The lesson covers formulating an aim, null & alternative hypotheses and independent & dependent variables in psychological studies and investigations.
LO1: Formulate an aim for an investigation.
LO2: Identify independent and dependent variables in investigations.
LO3: Compare alternative hypotheses and null hypotheses.

The activities include taking the students through the beginnings of a plan for an investigation or study. There are lots of worked examples, notes and practice questions.

I designed this as a single lesson (50 mins) but can be extended or shortened as necessary.

My lessons follow the textbook ‘AQA Psychology for GCSE’ from Illuminate Publishing.