Psychology MSc
1 Year Full-Time | September Start

Academic skills when studying away from your home country can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Presenting your ideas
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Developing self-reflection skills.
• Discussing ethical issues in research, and analysing results.
• Describing bias and limitations of research.

On this module you will have the opportunity to independently conceptualise, plan and undertake a novel piece of research that contributes to psychological knowledge and understanding. You will critically evaluate current theories and evidence in order to generate your own research question. You will engage with the relevant ethical guidelines to design a feasible project plan. You will develop your independent research skills during this module as well as identifying points of collaboration with supervisors, research staff and other potential stakeholders. You will use a variety of relevant skills, techniques and research methods in order to implement your study and finally you will have the opportunity to disseminate your findings in written form.

You will learn how knowledge in psychology is developed through research. You will learn how to design and carry out research studies using a range of quantitative methodologies. The skills in writing reports in line with current conventions in the psychological literature will be developed through practice and detailed formative and summative feedback. The importance of ethical considerations will be constant theme throughout the module and the completion of documentation required for ethical research will be covered in depth.
In parallel, you will acquire an understanding of the following basic principles in statistics: levels of measurement; standardised effect size measures; sample distributions, standard errors and confidence intervals; meta-analysis; statistical significance testing, publication bias, and the problems they cause. From this knowledge base, you will independently read advanced literature on statistics to further your understanding. You will also learn when and how to use a range of frequently used data analysis techniques (e.g. estimation of standardised effect sizes; meta-analysis; ANOVA and ANCOVA; multiple regression; and chi2 to analyse proportions) in order to inform your critical judgement about your own research and that of others. Finally, you will learn about the limitations of statistical inference in some important real-world settings.

You will have the opportunity to learn about the historical development of psychology as a discipline and to gain experience in understanding the methodology and analyses of qualitative research in Psychology.

Historical Psychology: You will be introduced to a series of ‘classic’ studies and asked to evaluate and debate the way that psychological knowledge, methods and ethical approaches may have changed since that original study. Each classic study represents a pathway in the discipline of psychology, embracing diverse areas such as social, developmental, cognitive and health psychology. For each pathway, you will be asked to reflect critically on the original epistemological and methodological assumptions made within the discipline and consider the major changes in the development of the discipline.
Qualitative Research Methods: In this component you will be able to consider a range of qualitative methodologies, thematic analysis, Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), grounded theory, the use of focus groups, and discourse analysis. A session will be dedicated to examining issues on quality and rigour in qualitative review and providing you with experience of critically reviewing a selection of research papers You will also have the opportunity to collect data and choose an appropriate analysis approach in order to interrogate the data.

You will learn about three key domains within the discipline of psychology, biological systems and processes, cognitive processes and developmental processes, and how they provide an understanding to human behaviour.

Biological Psychology: This component will cover the fundamentals of biological psychology and demonstrate the importance of biological systems in human behaviour. This will include knowledge of the biological systems of the body (the brain and nervous and endocrine systems) and communication between these systems via neurons, and hormones; the techniques used to assess brain structure and function; individual differences in their functioning and nutritional and pharmacological interventions that can affect the functioning of these systems. Several health behaviours (feeding, stress, sleep) will also be examined in depth from a biological perspective.

Developmental: This component will cover the historical foundations of child development and fundamental aspects of social and cognitive development in young children and adolescents. Topics may include research methods and ethics, cognitive development, theoretical perspectives including Piaget and Vygotsky, emotional development, attachment theory and developmental disorders, Some of these issues will be considered in depth.

Cognitive; This component will familiarise students with the core areas of cognitive psychology and will demonstrate the importance and relevance of cognitive processes when trying to understand human behaviour within both theoretical and applied contexts. Topics will be drawn from; perception; attention; memory; problem solving; decision making and language. As in the Developmental component there will be an initial emphasis, where relevant, of the historical development of the constructs discussed.
Additionally, in all three components, learners will have the opportunity to develop psychological research skills.

You will learn about three key domains within the discipline of psychology, individual differences, psychometrics, and social psychology processes, and how they provide an understanding to human behaviour.
The Individual Differences sessions will examine a range of topics, e.g. historical approaches to intelligence with an emphasis upon contemporary cognitive approaches such as working memory, intelligence and cognitive interventions, and individual differences in cognition such as lifespan differences. Personality sessions will consider the construct of personality, factors in personality, and applications.
The Psychometric sessions of the module will consider topics such as test classification and development, standardisation, reliability, validity, interpretation and applications.
The Social Psychology component will provide you with an understanding of the human as a social being. Topics may include some of the most renowned studies in psychology regarding issues of conformity, aggression, prejudice and interpersonal relationships. Methodological and ethical issues related to the studies that inform social psychology will also be explored.
Thus, in all topics you will have the opportunity to critically consider applications of the constructs.