932 vol 27 no 12 december 2014 Akhurst, J. (2013). Enhancing psychology students’ employability through international community-based work placements. Higher Education Academy. Retrieved 30 September 2014 from tinyurl.com/pd6bmtg Akhurst, J., Coxon, M. & Hulme, J. (in press). Applying psychology to psychology learning and teaching. York: Higher Education Academy. Barnett, R. (2010). Life-wide education: A new and transformative concept for higher education? In N. Jackson & R. Law (Eds.) Enabling a More Complete Education [Conference proceedings]. University of Surrey. (Available at http://lifewidelearningconference .pbworks.com/E-proceedings) Bernstein, D. (2011). A scientist-educator perspective on psychological literacy. In J. Cranney & D. Dunn (Eds.) The psychologically literate citizen. New York: Oxford University Press. Biggs, J. (1996). Enhancing teaching through constructive alignment. Higher Education, 32(3), 347–364. Boneau, C.A. (1990). Psychological literacy: A first approximation. American Psychologist, 45, 891–900. Bromnick, R. & Horowitz, A. (2013). Reframing employability: Exploring career-related values in psychology undergraduates. Paper presented at the HEA STEM Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, University of Birmingham, April. Retrieved 30 September 2014 from tinyurl.com/mm9xojq CBI/NUS (2011). Working towards your future: Making the most of your time in higher education. London: CBI. Retrieved 22 July 2014 from tinyurl.com/lsqsdwu CIPD (2011). The coaching climate. With psychology’s popularity as a subject showing no signs of abating, a large number of people are gaining some psychological knowledge at some stage in their lives. What impact does this have on those people, and on wider society? P sychology is being studied by a growing number of people. At pre-tertiary level, it is now the fourth most popular subject, with over 56,000 entries for A-level examinations and 101,000 entries for AS-level examinations this year (JCQ, 2014). According to the Quality Assurance Agency Subject Benchmark for Psychology (QAA, 2010), psychology is one of the most popular subjects for undergraduate study in the UK (at the time of the publication of the Subject Benchmark, it was the second most studied subject overall, and the most popular science subject at undergraduate level). There are currently over 91,000 students studying psychology in UK universities, of whom almost 18,000 are postgraduates (see www.hesa.ac.uk/stats). This implies that there must be an enormous number of people in the UK who have studied psychology in some form, at some stage in their lives, and the numbers can only be increasing each year. It is therefore worth asking what impact the study of psychology has on these individuals, and, in turn, what is the wider impact on society as a whole? Insightful and reflective It may be that substantially more students enter psychology courses with a view to becoming a professional psychologist than actually achieve this goal (Trapp et al., 2011), leading Reddy et al. (2013) to question whether students perceive psychology as a vocational, rather than an academic subject. In fact, between 15 and 20 per cent of psychology graduates will go on to careers in professional psychology (QAA, 2010), and for these individuals, an appropriate psychology qualification provides the necessary credentials to enter those careers. However, this leaves a sizeable majority of 80 to 85 per cent of graduates who will take alternative routes. In addition, recent letters to The Psychologist (including Harkness, 2013) suggest that there may be considerable numbers of psychology graduates striving over several years to gain sufficient experience to enter training programmes. For those who do not achieve training places, there may be a sense of rejection and failure, the feeling of giving up a dream, or of having to follow a less desirable career that may not keep them in touch with psychological knowledge. Consider those who gain their qualifications and head out into a non- psychological career or continued education. Can they now forget everything they learned about research methods, social psychology, cognition and the brain? As more people experience psychology education, it is appropriate for us to question to what extent their exposure to the discipline will benefit them, their employers and their communities in ways beyond simply participating in academic study and achieving an academic qualification. Where the particular discipline of study is of little relevance to the career destination of the student, can it still be of help? This is where the concept of psychological literacy comes in. The term was first coined by Boneau (1990), to describe the core knowledge and skill set acquired through the study of psychology. More recently, the concept of psychological literacy has evolved to become less prescriptive in terms of content, and more applied in nature. McGovern et al. (2010, p.11) define psychological literacy as ‘being insightful and reflective about one’s own and others’ behaviour and mental processes’ and having the ability to apply ‘psychological references resources questions Cranney, J. & Dunn, D. (2011). The psychologically literate citizen. New York: Oxford University Press. www.psychologicalliteracy.com www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/ subjects/psychology/psychological- education-literacy Does psychology education provide students with skills, knowledge and attributes that are useful in everyday life? How can psychology educators and students maximise the value of psychology education for living and working in the real world? ARTICLE Psychological literacy – from classroom to real world Julie Hulme considers the implications of the continued popularity of the subject