SACE BOARD CURRICULUM OUTLINE
Key Ideas
Knowledge and understanding should be relevant to the following key ideas:
· Our level of awareness is constantly changing.
· Arousal can have both beneficial and deleterious effects.
· There are many effective ways to improve coping with stress.
Areas of Learning
· Circadian rhythms; sleep deprivation and sleep needs; stages of sleep; common sleep disorders; psychological and physiological arousal; the relationship between arousal and task performance; stress and its effect on health.
· Psychological principles concerning altered states of awareness in everyday experiences and events, including shift work, and in psychological interventions, including psychological therapies for insomnia and for coping with stress.
· Application of these psychological principles to social issues (e.g. the road toll, workplace accidents, the influence of shift work on health, the influence of jet lag on sporting performance) and personal growth (e.g. improving one’s own stress management, ‘sleep hygiene’).
· Investigation designs and methods of assessing psychological responses used to study altered states of awareness.
· Ethical issues associated with research and applications in the area of altered states of awareness.
Links to Topics
Circadian rhythms, Sleep and Sleep Deprivation
Stages of Sleep & Sleep Disorders
Research Methods and Ethical Issues
PowerPoint Teaching Resource -
Acknowledgement given to Geoff Slater.
Video Resources
Discovering Psychology Series
You-Tube: Short Informative Excerpt from 30 Minute Documentary 'Help! I Can't Sleep: A Practical Guide to Overcome Insomnia'
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