Qualifications Scotland (SQA) Higher Psychology Past Papers 2026

Individual Behaviour + Social Behaviour + Additional Topics (research methods assessed throughout)

Duration: 2 hours

Researched investigation

Duration: Coursework (research report)

Research methods evaluation — validity, reliability, and generalisability

Course reports across all years show that candidates can identify methods but cannot justify them or evaluate them in depth. Justification requires candidates to link a method's strengths explicitly to the research aim — something consistently omitted.

Assignment, Question Paper

Ethical considerations — BPS guidelines in practice

Ethical breaches appeared in all three years, with around 8% of the cohort conducting unethical research in 2025. Repeated breaches included deception via confederates (Asch/Jenness replications), sleep manipulation, invasive questionnaire items on depression, anxiety and medication, and data protection failures on consent forms.

Assignment

Theory application to a specific scenario — vague or repetitive responses

Application questions were noted as differentiating in all three years. Markers explicitly noted that application was often vague and repetitive, with candidates restating theory without anchoring it to the scenario's specific details.

Question Paper

Study evaluation depth — surface-level evaluations without development

Candidates frequently listed evaluation points (e.g. 'small sample', 'lacks ecological validity') without developing them. SQA awards marks only for developed evaluative points that include a statement and a reasoned implication.

Question Paper, Assignment

Terminology precision — 'prove', 'significant', 'relationship' misused in written reports

Course reports from 2023, 2024 and 2025 all explicitly direct centres to address misuse of 'prove', 'statistical significance', and 'relationship'. These terms are only appropriate under specific conditions and using them incorrectly signals a lack of scientific understanding.

Assignment

Contemporary research currency — analysis anchored to supporting evidence

In 2025, it was noted that a few candidates gave supporting evidence for restoration theory but did not explicitly link it to restoration theory and why it supported or refuted the theory. Evidence only earns marks when its relevance to the theory is explicitly stated.

Question Paper

Assignment hypothesis clarity — correlational co-variables vs. experimental variables

Correlational candidates in all three years confused causal and relational hypotheses, and then compounded the error by using experimental measures (means, bar charts) in results instead of correlational measures (scattergrams, raw co-variable data).

Assignment

Statistical interpretation — justifying descriptive statistics and relating results to hypothesis

Course reports highlight that many candidates could choose an appropriate statistic but could not justify why. A further recurring issue was conclusions in the discussion that focused on methodological comparisons with background studies rather than comparing results, which attracted no marks.

Assignment