Animal Behaviour and Psychology
Entry requirements
A level
The Department requires one of the following subjects as essential for entry: GCE A Level: Biology or Applied Science
Access to HE (Science) Diploma, to include 45 credits at level 3, 30 of which must be at Merit.
International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme
including 5 in HL Biology
Leaving Certificate - Higher Level (Ireland) (first awarded in 2017)
including H3 in Biology
Pearson BTEC Level 3 National Extended Diploma (first teaching from September 2016)
Animal Care/Management or Applied Science
Scottish Higher
including Biology
T Level
T Level must be in Science
UCAS Tariff
About this course
A Combined Honours degree at Chester gives you the opportunity to study two subjects. You will spend a fairly even amount of time studying each subject area, with possible opportunities to declare a major – minor towards the end of your studies.
**Animal Behaviour**
Explore the fascinating science of animal behaviour, focusing on animals in their natural habitats, including ecological, conservation and welfare contexts.
Develop vital employer-desired skills while studying the ever-interesting field of animal behaviour. With an emphasis on free-living wild animals, you will follow a scientifically driven course that develops your fundamental skills and knowledge and then uses them in cutting-edge applied contexts such as conservation and welfare sciences.
Whilst the emphasis is mainly on wild animals, you can study behaviour in more managed environments: e.g. determining best husbandry and conservation breeding for endangered animals in zoos; best practice pet welfare; and farm animal management. Our staff have real enthusiasm for their subject and bring great expertise from their research fields.
This course is firmly rooted in the biological sciences and adopts a rigorous scientific approach to the study of the behaviour of animals. As well as exploring the behaviour of charismatic animals, we embrace a wide taxonomic range of species and have a good focus on some of the groups less emphasised elsewhere, such as amphibians and invertebrates. These groups have really interesting behaviour in their own right, but are also a crucial part of temperate and tropical ecosystems – understanding their behaviour is vital for wider habitat conservation.
**Psychology**
Delve deep into the mind and discover more about how people think, behave and feel on our BPS-accredited Psychology degree.
The School of Psychology at Chester offers degrees accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS). The course structure allows you to study a wide range of areas of psychology through optional modules at all levels, alongside the core modules required for BPS accreditation.
If you’re interested in a professional career in psychology, there are specialist routes through the course where you can take relevant elective modules at each level. This degree will also equip you with a variety of employability skills, including literacy, numeracy, critical appraisal, data handling, communication and logical problem-solving skills.
We also offer an optional further year of study abroad that you take between your second and third years of study. As this is an additional year, this means you can use this as an opportunity to pursue areas of study of your choice, whilst exploring another country and culture.
Modules
For the latest example of curriculum availability on this degree programme please refer to the University of Chester's Website.
Assessment methods
For Animal Behaviour, assessment is very varied. Over the course of the degree it is split approximately 50/50 in terms of coursework and examinations. Coursework tasks include essays, lab reports, field trip reports, posters and presentations. Examinations will make use of multi-choice and essay style questions
For Psychology, assessment methods for each module vary, but usually include coursework and examinations. The coursework may involve a traditional essay or, more commonly, a workshop task, presentation, or a case study. Assessments are designed to develop your employability skills as well as allowing you to show your understanding of psychology.
Tuition fees
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What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Psychology (non-specific)
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
Animal science
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Psychology (non-specific)
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
20 years ago, this was a specialist degree for would-be psychologists but now it is the model of a modern, flexible degree subject. One of the UK's fastest-growing subject at degree level, and the second most popular subject overall (it recently overtook business studies), one in 23 of all graduates last year had psychology degrees. As you'd expect with figures like that, jobs in psychology itself are incredibly competitive, so to stand a chance of securing one, you need to get a postgraduate qualification (probably a doctorate in most fields, especially clinical psychology) and some relevant work experience. But even though there are so many psychology graduates — far more than there are jobs in psychology, and over 13,800 in total last year — this degree has a lower unemployment rate than average because its grads are so flexible and well-regarded by business and other industries across the economy. Everywhere there are good jobs in the UK economy, you'll find psychology graduates - and it's hardly surprising as the course helps you gain a mix of good people skills and excellent number and data handling skills. A psychology degree ticks most employers' boxes — but we'd suggest you don't drop your maths modules.
Animal science
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
These stats refer to the prospects for graduates from both general animal studies courses and those for particular animals (such as equine science). Graduates don't generally get jobs as vets when they graduate; much the most common jobs tend to be roles caring for animals, such as veterinary nurses. Some of these jobs are not currently classified as professional level occupations, but in reality, you need a degree to get these jobs (and probably always have done), and graduates in them report that they got the jobs that they wanted. So the stats you see might not completely represent just how useful these degrees are for getting into animal care careers.
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Psychology (non-specific)
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£18k
£21k
£23k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Animal science
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£16k
£18k
£19k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Explore these similar courses...
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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.
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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
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Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
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Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
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