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lower level of learning, to see if that helps. Remember that social learning is also helpful, so talk to your tutor, or to your peers, and see if you can identify what it is that has not made sense. Peers can be especially helpful because they have only recently learned the topic themselves; they are likely to be working within your zone of proximal development, and to be able to remember how they learned, which will help them to scaffold your learning. Difficult topics are exactly that – difficult! – so remember the importance of adopting a growth mindset. You will need to be persistent, and possibly try several different approaches, before you identify the problem and work out its solution. Psychological literacy itself could in some ways be considered to be a threshold concept. If you have only been taught psychology from a traditional academic perspective, and have not understood that you can apply it to solve problems in everyday life, it may never occur to you to even think about doing so. Hopefully, as you are reading this chapter, your thinking about psychology is changing, and you are learning how to ‘think like a psychologist’, enabling you to solve novel problems and to make a real difference to the world around you. Conclusions This chapter has considered some of the ways in which psychology can be applied to learning, and to helping you to learn effectively. We learned first about motivational theory, and reflected on how you might understand and improve your own motivation for learning. We explored different approaches to learning, thinking about deep and surface approaches to learning, and how they are useful in different contexts: deep learning when it is necessary to understand meaning and to think critically, as is often the case at university, and surface learning when we only need to be able to recall facts. We then looked at different psychological perspectives on learning, including behaviourism, cognitive psychology, social and developmental psychology, and a critical approach to individual differences. Finally, we have learned that difficulty in learning about particular topics may result from a lack of knowledge about threshold concepts. Throughout the chapter, some key messages have been presented consistently. Firstly, learning works best when we are active, rather than passive; we need to be curious, questioning, and engaging with meanings. Learning is also effective when it is social, because we receive feedback on our learning, and support, when we learn with others. Finally, learning is not always easy, and it is important to persist. As psychologically literate individuals, as defined by McGovern et al. (2010), we can use our knowledge of psychology and develop our scientific thinking as part of the learning process, reflecting on our own learning behaviours and cognitive processes, to overcome challenges and improve our learning at university, and beyond, as we move into employment.

Activity

You have now reached the end of Chapter 3, and this final activity contains questions designed to encourage you to reflect on your understanding of the chapter. If you can, try to talk through your answers with a friend or a tutor.

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