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Location Domestic International
Gold Coast Session 1 Session 1
Lismore Session 1 Session 1

Unit Summary

Unit type

UG Coursework Unit

Credit points

12

AQF level

7

Level of learning

Introductory

Former School/College

Former School of Health and Human Sciences

Unit aim

Introduces areas of psychology and sociology relevant to health and wellbeing. Provides the theoretical underpinning required to achieve understanding of the dynamics of human behaviour and the structure of the social world. Major paradigms and methodological approaches will be presented in order to encourage an awareness of how these disciplines apply theory and research methodology.

Unit content

Topic 1: The evolution of psychology and sociology 
Topic 2: Research methods in psychology and sociology 
Topic 3: The biological bases of behaviour 
Topic 4: Learning and behaviour change 
Topic 5: Personality and motivation 
Topic 6: Stress, coping and health 
Topic 7: Class and health 
Topic 8: Gender and health 
Topic 9: Age and health 
Topic 10: Culture, ethnicity and health 
Topic 11: Indigenous health 
Topic 12: Mental health

Learning outcomes

Unit Learning Outcomes express learning achievement in terms of what a student should know, understand and be able to do on completion of a unit. These outcomes are aligned with the graduate attributes. The unit learning outcomes and graduate attributes are also the basis of evaluating prior learning.

GA1: , GA2: , GA3: , GA4: , GA5: , GA6: , GA7:
On completion of this unit, students should be able to: GA1 GA2 GA3 GA4 GA5 GA6 GA7
1 identify the theoretical basis of psychology and the relevance of this to wellbeing, health and illness
2 identify the theoretical basis of sociology and the relevance of this to wellbeing, health and illness
3 identify and describe key social determinants of health including class, age, gender, culture and ethnicity
4 identify and describe basic concepts of human learning, personality, motivation and biological basis of behaviour as relate to health and wellbeing
5 develop the academic skills of library-based research, critical thinking, writing and oral presentation.

On completion of this unit, students should be able to:

  1. identify the theoretical basis of psychology and the relevance of this to wellbeing, health and illness
    • GA1:
    • GA4:
  2. identify the theoretical basis of sociology and the relevance of this to wellbeing, health and illness
    • GA1:
    • GA4:
  3. identify and describe key social determinants of health including class, age, gender, culture and ethnicity
    • GA4:
    • GA5:
    • GA7:
  4. identify and describe basic concepts of human learning, personality, motivation and biological basis of behaviour as relate to health and wellbeing
    • GA4:
    • GA5:
  5. develop the academic skills of library-based research, critical thinking, writing and oral presentation.
    • GA1:
    • GA3:

Prescribed texts

  • Refer to MySCU for details: ., ..
Prescribed texts may change in future teaching periods.