RISK AND CHOICE - 2025/6

Module Overview

The aim of this module is to enable students to draw upon psychological research to improve risk and choice in applied settings. This involves acquiring knowledge about risk and choice, communicating this knowledge to influence wider audiences, and developing interventions to improve risk and choice in practical settings.
The module introduces relevant theories and research in risk and choice and examples of their application. The module will enable students to explore methods to communicate theories and research in risk and choice to the general public in an engaging manner. It will introduce techniques to analyse how risk and choices are made in practical settings and develop interventions to influence and improve them in a domain of the students’ choosing.

Module provider

Psychology

Module Leader

BANKS Adrian (Psychology)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 6

Module cap (Maximum number of students): 40

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

N/A

Module content

Indicative content includes:

• Introduction – major theories on risk and choice


• Debiasing thinking


• TED talk preparation – presentation advice; background research on TED topics


• Group & organizational decision making


• TED talks


• Consultancy cycle: Developing interventions to improve risk and choice


• Risk & visualisation for decision support


• Applications: Medical decision making


• Career decision making and improving personal decision making

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

Group TED talk : Individuals to record presentation at an appropriate time.

Assessment Strategy

The summative assessment for this module consists of:

Assessment 1: TED talk Presentation.

Students will have the opportunity to present a timely research topic as a group in the form of a TED talk. Students will be provided with a marking scheme and the criteria used to assess the presentations.

Assessment 2: 5 page report.

Students will have the opportunity to identify a real-world problem, apply theories of risk and choice to understand the cause of the problem, develop an intervention to solve the problem, and present this work in the form of a technical report.

Formative assessment

Students will have the opportunity to discuss and debate on the main topics of the modules in class. They will receive formative evaluations on their contributions to in-class activities

Feedback

Students will receive both verbal and written feedback during and after the lectures and assignments. They will receive peer feedback on their report prior to submission.

Module aims

• Provide students with knowledge of psychological research on risk and choice and their application to improve risk and choice
• Introduce methods for developing interventions to improve risk and choice in applied settings
• Equip students to communicate research on risk and choice to the general public in an engaging style

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

• Enable students to develop a deep understanding of theory and research in risk and choice
   


• Enable students to apply of theory and research in risk and choice to practical settings
   


• Enable students to communicate theory and research in risk and choice

 

The learning and teaching methods include:

The contact hours will be comprised of two-hour sessions. The majority of the sessions will be seminars in which relevant material is introduced and then discussed during the class.

One session will be dedicated to presentation preparation.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: PSY3125

Other information

The School of Psychology is committed to developing graduates with strengths in Employability, Digital Capabilities, Global and Cultural Capabilities, Sustainability, and Resourcefulness and Resilience. This module is designed to allow students to develop knowledge, skills and capabilities in the following areas:

 

Employability: This module provides students with knowledge and skills for the application of psychology within organisations. The TED talk presentation develops the skills necessary for engaging communication of scientifically grounded psychological concepts to a general audience. For the technical report, students apply a consultancy process to identify and solve a real-world organizational problem by analysing it using appropriate psychological frameworks and evidence and making recommendations that are also supported by psychological frameworks and evidence.

Resourcefulness and Resilience: This module requires students to identify a real-world organizational problem that they would like to solve themselves, research the issue, and create solutions. This develops resourcefulness as they work independently to seek out information they need to solve the problem that they have chosen to work on.

Global and Cultural Capabilities: This module introduces research from diverse country contexts and cultures to expose students to diverse practices, perspectives, and contexts.

Students who take temporary suspension partway through this module may not be able to complete the remaining classes for this module on their return if it is not running in the following academic year. Such students will have the choice to take a replacement module, or, if they have already completed an assessment for the original module, to attend classes from a new optional module within the same stream (area of psychology) and complete an alternative assessment based on this content that meets the learning outcomes of the original module. The specific alternative assessment will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2025/6 academic year.