Edexcel A Level Psychology (9PS0) Past Papers 2026

Foundations in Psychology (9PS0/01)

Duration: 2h 15m

Applications of Psychology (9PS0/02)

Duration: 2h 15m

Psychological Skills (9PS0/03)

Duration: 2h

Behaviour shaping — unfamiliar to many candidates

'Candidates found this question difficult. Many were unfamiliar with the concept behaviour shaping and would use token economies or principles of classical conditioning to try to answer the question.' This led to zero marks on a 4-mark application question.

Paper 1

Socially sensitive research — confused with ethics debates

'Candidates found this essay challenging, having issues with distinguishing SSR from those of ethics debates as such. They could often demonstrate knowledge of a range of relevant research studies but were unable to explain in what way these relate to social sensitivity.'

Paper 1

AO1 in agency theory — superficial beyond the basic agentic/autonomous state summary

'Most candidates could give a basic summary of agency theory in terms of autonomous, agentic states and moral strain, but beyond this there was limited knowledge and understanding.' Limited AO1 then directly limits the quality of AO3.

Paper 1

UCS/CS/UCR distinctions in classical conditioning acquisition of phobias

'some candidates confused the classical conditioning explanation with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) and conditioned stimulus (CS) when explaining the acquisition of the phobia'

Paper 1

Pavlov's original study — mistaking the process for the specific procedure

'Often, responses were descriptions of the classical conditioning process rather than the procedure of the research study. Therefore, candidates found it difficult to demonstrate good knowledge and understanding about the specific procedure and results of Pavlov's research.'

Paper 1

Chi-squared test selection — confusing test of difference with correlation

'Some answers did not gain the mark because they wrote that it was ordinal data, or that they were looking for a relationship.' Chi-squared is used for nominal data in tests of difference with independent groups — not for correlations or ordinal data.

Paper 2

Scientific features of psychology — limited understanding of falsification, reductionism and paradigms

'some candidates showed limited understanding of the features of science… The very best responses were able confidently to use falsification, reductionism and some even introduced ideas of paradigms and the hypothetico-deductive model.'

Paper 3

Stratified sampling — frequently confused with other techniques

'In general, candidates found this difficult, with those not gaining credit due to lack of understanding of stratified sampling. Weaker responses typically used a different sampling technique or some gave a generic response.'

Paper 3