Aspiring Oxford and Cambridge psychology students should prepare for a rigorous interview process. While prior knowledge of psychology is not a strict requirement, having a foundation in the subject can certainly enhance your performance—most of our students will be studying A-Level, IB, or AP Psychology at the time of their application.

For Psychology interviews, there are four main question types to prepare for: personal statement questions, open-ended academic questions, case study questions, and statistical or quantitative questions. 

In this article, I will explore how to tackle the interview question: How do babies learn? 

Open-ended questions like this don’t strictly have a right or wrong answer. One way to approach this question is to examine the major psychological theories, which offer distinct ways of understanding human behaviour and mental processes. You should discuss one (or more) of the following: 

• Cognitive approach: You could use Piaget’s theory of cognitive development to emphasise that Piaget believed that children take an active role in the learning process, like “little scientists” who actively experiment and learn from their interactions with the world. Babies would be in the first of four proposed stages, the sensorimotor stage, learning through sensory experiences and motor actions by exploring their environment.
  
• Behavioural and learning approach: Although we have since evolved past the original “blank slate” (tabula rasa) idea, we know experiences shape behaviour. You could discuss classical conditioning, referencing Pavlov’s theory, where babies learn through associations and are influenced by feedback from rewards and consequences. You could reference the Little Albert experiment as evidence that fear responses can be conditioned in humans.
  
• Social learning approach: This theory proposes that people learn behaviours, attitudes, and emotional reactions primarily through observation, imitation, and modelling, even without physical practice or direct reinforcement. You could cite the series of Bobo doll experiments as a case study to support your argument about how children imitate aggressive behaviour they witness from an adult.
  
• Neurological approach: Learning (and memory) development occurs through the creation of new synaptic connections or the strengthening of existing ones, and different brain regions play roles in different types of learning. You may discuss Broca’s studies of patients with language impairments and associated brain lesions, and explain how Broca’s area would play a critical role in a child’s ability to learn and process language, particularly in acquiring new words and understanding grammatical structures. 

A model answer would be able to consider (and integrate) multiple perspectives, demonstrating that you understand a) psychology is a vast and complex field that requires various theoretical frameworks to explain human learning, b) the strengths and limitations of each approach, and c) the importance of considering them all. 

In my mock interviews, I remind all my students to think out loud so that the interviewer can follow their thought process, which allows interviewers to help them out if they are stuck or guide them if they are going down the wrong path. 

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By Emma Keoy, Admissions Consultant

Published 03-06-2025