Welcome to the third editions of AQA Psychology for A Level

The revised AQA A-level Psychology specification for first teaching 2025 has given us a great opportunity to review and update our Year 1 and Year 2 AS and A-level Student Books, Revision Guides and Digital teaching and learning resources. 

As I write this, I am still deeply immersed in editing the new textbooks (currently working hard on the Year 2 Student Book, Revision Guide and Digital resources). But the Year 1 books and resources are now published and selling really really well.  

On a quick flick-through, I realise that it may not initially look like we have made many changes in the new Year 1 book, but we have. I can liken what we have done to a thorough spring clean – we have taken all the furniture out of the house, given it a thorough clean and then put the items back (furniture, pictures) that were well-loved and still useful, while replacing some with newer and/or useful items. 

So, what were our aims? 

Clearly the number one aim was to align the books with the specification changes. That has meant removing some spreads and revising other spreads (and checking any knock-on effects throughout the book). 

Second, we felt that many people would be justifiably annoyed about buying a whole new book if all we had done was remove material that was no longer needed. So, we decided to change one evaluation point on every spread. That wasn’t easy because we thought our evaluation points were quite good! But the authors searched for something more recent and/or more useful. 

The third major activity has been that thorough spring clean – at least four people have read each book entirely from cover to cover, checking the content for diversity, equity and inclusion and also checking for accuracy and clarity. In a number of places we entirely rewrote some spreads (e.g. content analysis) because we knew they were areas that students struggled with. We wanted to make the content simpler and better aligned with the exam mark schemes. 

I can understand that it is frustrating to have to spend so much money on new books at a time when money is tight. To be honest, you don’t have to – buy one copy of the book and photocopy the spreads where there are specification changes! However, you would be missing out on a lot of small as well as some quite substantial revisions on other spreads. 

Finally, it may be worth emphasising the unique features that make us proud of our continuing brilliant textbooks: 

Key principle 1: Keep it simple 

Studying psychology is not all about the exam so the more we can reduce the necessary content (and use the space to improve our explanations), the more time you and your students have to enjoy other aspects of psychology. I think our books are the most popular A level books because of the clarity of our explanations. We have worked hard to improve that aspect of the books in the current revision. 

Key principle 2: Depth not breadth 

The secret to doing well is to ensure that any point (description or evaluation) you make is then well-explained. To do this, we try to follow the three-point rule: state it, explain it and summarise. This especially applies to writing good evaluation (one well-elaborated evaluation point is worth more than a list of four strengths/limitations with no explanation).  

Key principle 3: Do research methods all the time 

Here’s a rather amazing fact: in general, a student could pass the A level if they only answered research methods questions! This is because at least 25% of the final exam mark comes from research methods questions and last year 22% was the boundary for a Grade E (Grade D was 34%). In comparison, the other 10 topics are each worth 8.33% of the final A level mark. 

We have research methods application questions on every spread of the book, and, at the end of each chapter, there are two detailed suggestions for practical activities (many have been updated to fit the new specification). The research methods chapter across the Year 1 and 2 books is also about three times longer than any other individual topic, reflecting the content of research methods. 

Finally, I would like to say that we are not perfect. We really do welcome any comments or questions from students and teachers which will help us improve the content of our books. 

All the resources available for the revised AQA A-level Psychology specification can be found on our green-and-pink-hair series page.

And don’t forget we also have the following titles available for AQA A-level Psychology: Your guide to exam success and Practicals Workbook. 

Look out for future blogs on AQA A-level Psychology over the coming weeks.