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Sport & Exercise Psychology BSc (Hons)

UCAS code: C813

How do you create a champion? Unravel the importance of psychological wellbeing and understand the fundamentals of performance and sport engagement. Our accredited sport and exercise psychology degree helps you bring out the best in athletes and promote physical activity.

Overview

Course length: 3 years full-time
Start dates: September 2024
September 2025
Location: Edge Hill University
Example offers: BBC-BBB (A Level) or DMM (BTEC) View full entry criteria
Subject(s): PsychologySport and Physical Activity
Faculty: Arts and Sciences
Department: Psychology
Students take their seats in a Harvard-style lecture theatre in the Law and Psychology building.

Psychology is becoming an important area for athletes who want to get the edge over their competition. During this degree you’ll look at the power our minds can have over performance and motivation.

Our Psychology and Sport and Physical Activity departments have partnered up to develop this course. It’s accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) as conferring eligibility for the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC), which is the first step towards becoming a chartered psychologist or sports psychologist.

With this degree you’ll benefit from hands on learning. And you’ll be able to pinpoint the mental barriers preventing people from being active. You’ll be conducting interviews and observations to create case studies and complete research.

We’ll look at the influence of exercise on psychological wellbeing and equip you with an understanding of the principles of psychology that will act as a foundation for your future career.

British Psychological Society logo

Course features

  • International students can apply

  • Professional accreditation

  • Sandwich year option available

  • Studying abroad option available

What you'll study

Your first year will cover the relationship between brain and behaviour. You’ll study personality and individual differences, before studying data analysis and research methods that underpin psychological science. We’ll also give you the chance to develop your academic and interpersonal skills to help with employability and your future career aspirations. Finally, two sports-centric modules will introduce sport and exercise psychology.

Compulsory modules:

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Essential Skills in Applied Psychology
Fundamentals of Sport & Exercise Psychology
Fundamentals of Sport & Exercise Physiology & Nutrition
Introduction to Cognitive & Biological Psychology
Introduction to Personality, Social & Developmental Psychology
Investigating Methods in Psychology

You’ll develop your critical thinking in Year 2 of your sport and exercise psychology degree, covering four main areas of psychology; social, developmental, biological and cognitive. We’ll delve deeper into human behaviour with an investigation into social skills and you’ll embark on a group research project. In our sports module, we’ll check out sports skills and performance, plus exercise participation and its benefits for mental health.

Compulsory modules:

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Biological Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Developmental Psychology
Research Methods & Data Analysis
Social Psychology
Sport & Exercise Psychology

Apply your psychology and sports know-how to real-world challenges in Year 3. Three sports modules will shape your understanding of movement performance, training and the ways you can support professional athletes. We’ll also dissect how physical activity and exercise behaviours can be changed and maintained. Plus, you’ll choose an area of interest then research and submit a dissertation using all of the skills you’ve gained over our sport and exercise psychology degree.

Compulsory modules:

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Applied Exercise Psychology
Applied Skill Acquisition in Sport
Applied Sports Psychology
Dissertation
Personality and Individual Differences
Reflections & Future Directions

How you'll study

Two thirds of this degree will be spent in the Department of Psychology, with one third being spent in the Department of Sport and Physical Activity. Teaching methods include lectures, tutorials, seminars and workshops. Our dedicated sport and exercise science laboratories allow hands-on exploration of human movement and performance in sport and exercise through class activities and student-directed research projects. There is a wide range of IT facilities, including experiment generation and statistical packages.

Timetables for your first week are normally available at the end of August prior to enrolment in September. You can expect to receive your timetable for the rest of the academic year during your first week. Please note that while we make every effort to ensure that timetables are as student-friendly as possible, scheduled teaching can take place on any day of the week. Wednesday afternoons are normally reserved for sports and cultural activities.

How you'll be assessed

Most modules are assessed through a mixture of examination and coursework, although some are assessed solely by coursework. Assignments may be traditional essays and literature reviews, research project reports, case studies and oral presentations. In Year 3, you will complete your dissertation project.

Who will be teaching you

You will be taught by highly experienced and enthusiastic tutors with a real commitment to teaching, research and consultancy in sport and exercise settings. The team is made up of British Psychological Society (BPS) Chartered Psychologists and Chartered Sport and Exercise Psychologists, as well as accredited British Association of Sport and Exercise Sciences (BASES) psychology practitioners. As a team we are dynamic, friendly and supportive of your needs.

The Department of Psychology operates a research internship scheme where you may have the opportunity to volunteer to assist with staff research across a range of exciting projects. Previous projects have focused on subjects including eye movements and memory, alcohol and inhibition, autistic traits, attentional bias to pictures and words, personality and offending behaviour, behaviour change and food awareness, multiple perspective taking, the neural underpinnings of action simulation, and the question of whether emojis reveal true emotions.

Entry criteria

Entry requirements

Typical offer 112-120 UCAS Tariff points, for which no specific subjects are required, plus GCSE English and GCSE Mathematics at Grade C or Grade 4 or above (or equivalent).

Please note, for the purposes of studying psychology, level 2 literacy and numeracy qualifications are not considered as equivalent to GCSE Grade C or Grade 4 in English Language and Mathematics.

Example offers

Qualification Requirement
A Level BBC-BBB.
BTEC Extended Diploma (or combination of BTEC QCF qualifications) Distinction, Merit, Merit (DMM).
T Level Overall grade of Merit.
International Baccalaureate (IB) We are happy to accept IB qualifications which achieve the required number of UCAS Tariff points.
Access to Higher Education Diploma 45 credits at Level 3, for example 15 credits at Distinction and 30 credits at Merit or 24 credits at Distinction and 21 credits at Merit. The required total can be attained from various credit combinations.

Please note, the above examples may differ from actual offers made. A combination of A Level and BTEC awards may also be accepted.

If you have a minimum of two A Levels (or equivalent), there is no maximum number of qualifications that we will accept UCAS points from. This includes additional qualifications such as Extended Project Qualification (EPQ), AS Levels that haven't been continued to A Level, and General Studies AS or A Level awards.

English language requirements

International students require IELTS 6.0, with a score no lower than 5.5 in each individual component, or an equivalent English language qualification.

If your current level of English is half a band, one band, or one-and-a-half bands lower, either overall or in one or two elements, you may want to consider our Pre-Sessional English course.

How to apply

Apply full-time

Apply online through UCAS

Read our guide to applying through UCAS to find out more about the application process.

International

Apply as an international student

Please see our international student pages for further information about how to apply as a prospective international student.

Should you accept an offer of a place to study with us and formally enrol as a student, you will be subject to the provisions of the regulations, rules, codes, conditions and policies which apply to our students. These are available at www.edgehill.ac.uk/studentterms.

Did you know?

If you join a full time undergraduate degree at Edge Hill University, we will guarantee you the offer of a room in our halls of residence for the first year of your course.

Discover our accommodation

Facilities

Law and Psychology buildingThe £6million Law and Psychology building provides contemporary teaching and learning facilities for students in the Department of Psychology and the School of Law, Criminology and Policing.

The three-storey building includes a 250-seat lecture theatre, seminar and tutorial rooms, and social learning areas which encourage a more informal and interactive style of learning. There are also specially designed laboratory and experimental facilities for psychological research.

Where you'll study

Law and Psychology

Learning resources

Psychology resources include state-of-the-art eye trackers, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) methods, and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for examining cognitive functioning and brain activity. Other specialist laboratories include a group testing laboratory, bi-directional observation rooms, a ‘bar simulation laboratory’ (for alcohol research), audio-visual suites and dedicated IT facilities equipped with subject specific software installed to support experimental work.

Finance

Tuition fees

UK Full-Time

£9,250

a year

International

£16,500

a year

The University may administer a small inflationary rise in tuition fees, in line with Government policy, in subsequent academic years as you progress through the course.

EU/EEA and Swiss students who have settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme, as well as Irish nationals, may be eligible for the UK tuition fee rate.

Financial support

Subject to eligibility, UK students joining this course can apply for a Tuition Fee Loan from the Government to cover the full cost of tuition fees. UK students enrolling on the course may also be eligible to apply for additional funding to help with living costs.

Please view the relevant Money Matters guide for comprehensive information about the financial support available to eligible UK students.

EU/EEA and Swiss students who have settled or pre-settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme may be eligible to apply for financial support. Irish nationals can ordinarily apply to Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI). If you are an EU student who does not have settled or pre-settled status, or are an international student from a non-EU country, please see our international student finance pages.

Your future career

The study of psychology offers the skills needed to find your feet in the sports, health and fitness industry – although you may need to commit to further training depending on your chosen career path.

Our sport and exercise psychology degree is the first step to becoming a chartered sports psychologist or psychologist, so if you’d like to specialise in this area, you’ll need to complete postgraduate studies.

Some students find themselves transferring to other industries such as advertising, healthcare and education using the transferrable skills developed at Edge Hill.

After graduation some of our sports students have gone on to secure rewarding roles at Blackpool FC, London Broncos Rugby League and Leeds Teaching Hospital.

You could find yourself working in areas such as:

  • performance analysis
  • coaching
  • Teaching PE at secondary or further education settings through postgraduate teacher training
  • clinical psychology
  • educational psychology
  • health psychology
  • physical activity and mental health promotion

research and development

Course changes

Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of this information, however our courses are subject to ongoing review and development. Changing circumstances may necessitate alteration to, or the cancellation of, courses.

Changes may be necessary to comply with the requirements of professional bodies, revisions to subject benchmarks statements, to keep courses updated and contemporary, or as a result of student feedback. We reserve the right to make variations if we consider such action to be necessary or in the best interests of students.

Track changes to this course

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