Availabilities:

Location Domestic International
Coffs Harbour Session 1 Session 1
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

Unit aim

Introduces areas of psychology and sociology relevant to health practitioners. 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: What is health psychology and health sociology?
Topic 2: Doing research in health psychology and sociology
Topic 3: How to enhance learning and behaviour change
Topic 4: The role of personality In an individual’s health
Topic 5: Motivation and individual behaviour
Topic 6: Stress and coping
Topic 7: How Class is relevant to health
Topic 8: How gender is relevant to health
Topic 9: How age is relevant to health
Topic 10: The role of culture and ethnicity in health
Topic 11: Indigenous health in Australia
Topic 12: Mental illness and society

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 aspects of gender, age, class, culture and ethnicity as relevant to wellbeing, health and illness
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 aspects of gender, age, class, culture and ethnicity as relevant to wellbeing, health and illness
    • GA4:
    • GA5:
  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:

Prescribed texts

  • Germov, J (Ed), 2013, Second Opinion: An introduction to health sociology, 5th edn, Oxford University Press, Melbourne. ISBN: 9780195588330.
  • Griggs, RA, 2014, Psychology: a Concise Introduction, 4th edn, Worth Publishers. ISBN: 9781429298902.
Prescribed texts may change in future teaching periods.