Course Fees | Psychology Conversion MSc

You can take this module if you intend to finish the course at Diploma stage, and don’t wish to gain the full Masters.

Supported by a ‘supervisor’, you will undertake advanced independent research in an area of your choice. The content of the module is largely defined by the scope and nature of your research question and its investigation. The module team helps students explore and discuss candidate topics prior to final project decisions being made.  You will be asked to:

• formulate meaningful research questions that relate to existing psychological theory and research
• review the relevant literature
• plan and design a feasible and ethical empirical study
• produce a scholarly scientific report of the work.

On successful completion of this module, you will be able to effectively use psychological theory and research to design and conduct an ethical empirical study based on contemporary psychological literature; demonstrate a deep and critical understanding of the implications of their empirical research findings and write up your research findings in a way that is consistent with the standards of presentation and clarity expected of a professional research article, within the discipline of Psychology.

To complete your full MSc, you must take this module.

The Masters Research Project is also widely known as a ‘dissertation’. This module asks you to identify a research issue, review existing literature on the topic, formulate novel research questions, and test these questions through the use of appropriate psychological methodologies and data-analytic procedures. You will be supported by a tutor, known as your research ‘supervisor’. You will be required to develop your awareness of the ethical context of research, as well as its purely scientific aspects. Upon completion of this module, you will have demonstrated mastery of research in a chosen specialist area.  You will be able to:

• Critically review literature on psychological theories and research to formulate novel psychological research question(s)
• Design, plan and conduct a feasible and ethical empirical study to address novel research question(s)
• Analyse and interpret the findings of the study to form coherent conclusions about the research question(s)
• Present a scientific report of the research consistent with prescribed professional and academic standards that demonstrates mastery of a chosen specialist area.

The content of the module is largely defined by the scope and nature of your research question and its investigation. Your online tutor will help you to explore and discuss potential topics.

This resarch project is a triple module and accounts for 60 credits. 

This module covers research design; ethical practice in research and qualitative and quantitative approaches to research.  You will evaluate research and develop the ability to conduct appropriate analyses to address research questions about human behaviour.  The content of this module is essential preparation for the independent research project that is required to complete the Masters’ programme.

By completing this module you will be able to demonstrate an ability to design and critically evaluate research studies into human behaviour; demonstrate the ability to critically discuss qualitative research and be able to select, perform, interpret and report analyses appropriate to the research question being investigated.

Topics covered may include:

• Philosophical Background to research and investigation.
• Generating and exploring hypotheses and research questions
• Qualitative Approaches - for example: interviews and focus groups, dealing with qualitative data, transcription and analysis, approaches to qualitative methods
• Quantitative Approaches - for example: Assumptions and basics, descriptive stats and exploring your data, testing for effects, testing for differences (t-tests, ANOVA), testing for relationships (e.g., regression and correlation), non-parametric analysis (Chi Square and non-parametric ANOVA).
• Planning and Designing Your Study - for example: experimental design, questionnaire studies, and observational methods
• Presenting and evaluating research findings
• Practical, theoretical and ethical issues associated with researching human behaviour.

This module will provide you with a critical understanding relating to the theoretical knowledge of individual differences, personality and intelligence. It has been developed to meet the requirements of the British Psychological Society (BPS) Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) curriculum, as approved by the BPS Membership & Qualifications Board. Students will critically examine the process of identifying particular traits and characteristics within individuals alongside the application of these in explaining and predicting behaviour.   

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to critically evaluate psychological theories relevant to individual differences and their ability to explain and predict behaviour; demonstrate a deep and critical understanding of contemporary debates, research and applications of research into individual differences and develop a deep understanding of research planning and design in the psychology of individual differences.

Topics covered may include: 

• Approaches to personality, e.g., Traits, cognitive, humanistic and biological
• Psychometric testing, e.g. validity, reliability, ethics and consequences of testing in applied settings
• Theoretical approaches to individual differences, e.g. intelligence, cognitive style, emotion, motivation, mood
• Contemporary debates in individual differences, e.g. idiographic-nomothetic debate
• A range of other topics in individual differences, e.g. mental health, gender, culture and ethnicity.

Cognition is concerned with the empirical study of mental processes including memory, perception, communication, problem solving and thinking and how these in turn influence human performance in the real world.  You'll be provided with a critical understanding of research methods, theory and empirical findings for key topics in Cognitive Psychology and highlight the impact of these on human performance.  As the module is shared, students will follow common as well as programme specific content in order to satisfy both programme level and professional statutory regulatory body curriculum requirements.

(This is a shared module followed by students on the MSc Ergonomics and the MSc Psychology Conversion course.) 

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to critically discuss and integrate knowledge across several areas of cognitive psychology; demonstrate deep knowledge and understanding of empirical research in cognition and be able to position task performance in a psychological context.

Topics you'll cover may include: 

• Attention
• Visual information processing
• Memory
• Thinking, Reasoning and Decision making
• Skilled Performance
• Human Error
• History, Development and Applications of Cognitive Psychology 
• Speech perception
• Word comprehension
• Sentence comprehension. 

The module aims to develop your critical understanding of psychological concepts, theories, and methods relevant to the study of social and developmental psychology. It has been developed to meet the requirements of the British Psychological Society (BPS) GBC curriculum, as approved by the BPS Membership & Qualifications Board. The module will explore specific topics that constitute the field of social and developmental psychology including: (a) social cognition, (b) inter-group processes, (c) small group processes, (d) social influence (e) attribution, (f) social development, (g) childhood, adolescence and life-span development (h) attachment (i) cognitive and language development. You will develop a deep understanding of the range of research conducted in developmental psychology, and with applications of social psychological theory to real world scenarios.

On successful completion of the module, you'll be able to demonstrate a deep understanding of, and critically evaluate, key issues, concepts and theories in developmental psychology to inform; engage in independent enquiry of a specific aspect of developmental psychology and develop a comprehensive understanding of the core social psychological concepts, models and theories underpinning social psychology by critically applying social psychological theories and methods to explain how individuals and/or groups negotiate real life situations.

Topics covered may include:

• Social cognition: Social Perception, Attitudes, Self Regulation
• Inter-group processes:  Inter-group Conflict and Prejudice, Social Identity Processes, Attribution Processes
• Small group processes:  Groups & Group Norms, Small Group Dynamics & Leadership Styles, Characteristics of Productive & non-Productive Groups
• Social influence in groups: Conformity & Obedience, Majority & Minority Influence, Bystander Effect & Prosocial Behaviour
• Close relationships:  Interpersonal Attraction, Liking & Loving, Role of Culture & Gender
• Crisis in social psychology: Social Constructionism
• Key Themes in Developmental Psychology: Research Methods, Nature & Nurture, Theories of Development
• Cognition in Infancy and Childhood:  Perception, Memory, Language, Theory of Mind, Number, Drawing
• Social Development: Emotion, Self & Identity, Gender
• Classic and Historic perspectives in Developmental Psychology: e.g., Piaget and Vygotsky.

The module aims to provide you with a critical understanding of the relationship between brain function and behaviour. You will critically examine the biological bases of a range of behaviours and will consider how research in biological psychology can contribute to the understanding of cognitive function, health and illness. Module content has been developed to meet the requirements of the British Psychological Society (BPS) GBC curriculum as approved by the BPS Membership & Qualifications Board. You'll be introduced to the following key areas:  1) Biological aspects of behaviour; 2) Psychopharmacology and the brain; 3) Evolutionary, developmental and genetic explanations of behaviour; and 4) From the combined study of these areas, the biological basis of certain psychological abnormalities, as well as issues in human neuropsychology and cognitive neuroscience.     

On successful completion of the module, you will be able to critically discuss key issues in biological psychology; demonstrate a deep and critical understanding of selected psychological phenomena and associated underlying physiological processes; summarise and critically evaluate key research in psychobiology.

Topics covered may include:

• Biological aspects of behaviour, for example, research methods in biological psychology, the biological basis of learning & memory; the neuropsychology of cognitive phenomena.
• Psychopharmacology - for example, drugs and behaviour, addiction and motivation
• Evolution, genetics and behaviour - for example, evolutionary explanations of behaviour, stress & emotion, genes & behaviour, development of the brain
• History and development of Biological Psychology - for example, the impact of physiology and biology in developing our understanding and explaining psychological processes and concepts.