Psychology (MSc) - 2012 entry

Course content

The MSc Psychology is an intensive programme, including both theoretical and practical elements and covering the main research methods used in psychology. The course provides grounding in the core areas of psychology. It places emphasis on research methods and research skills, including literature search and review, designing and planning experiments, questionnaires and observational methods, recording and presenting data, statistical analysis and interpretation of data as well as qualitative analysis, and presentation of work in standard publication format. Students will also be expected to complete a research-based dissertation, which is an extended and supervised piece of work reporting new empirical data.

Developmental Psychology I (20 M-level CATS credits) provides you with a socio-cultural view of development and how education impacts on development and cognition. Topics covered include paradigms for analysing cognitive developmental theory, reasoning, memory and executive function; culture and cognition, socialisation, and identity; children in schools; gender roles in development; and language development in relation to reading and writing.

Social Psychology (20 M-level CATS credits) considers the major themes in social psychology and how these influence society and social interaction. Discussion will focus on key articles in the literature. Themes include group dynamics, social identification, social influences, attraction, altruism, leadership role, prejudice and attitudes.

Introduction to Cognitive Neuroscience (20 M-level CATS credits) explores the functional organisation of the brain from a cognitive perspective. The module examines our current understanding and recent advances in a number of key cognitive processes and their underlying biological substrates. Topics cover basic neuroanatomy as well as issues such as perception, attention, memory, language, reading and writing skills, and emotional processing.

Experimental Method and Statistics for Psychology (20 M-level CATS credits) advances students' knowledge of statistical concepts and techniques of analysis, building on students' knowledge of statistics acquired during their previous experience of research methods and statistics. It covers standard and advanced statistical theory and methods, providing an opportunity to consolidate and extend statistical expertise in descriptive and inferential statistics. This module also provides an introduction to multinomial and multivariate analysis, and analysis of data using a statistical computer package (SPSS).

Theory and Research Methods in Psychology I (20 M-level CATS credits) advances student knowledge of qualitative and quantitative research methods in psychology, with particular reference to cognition, intelligence and individual differences. The syllabus covers qualitative methods, ethnography and case studies in psychological research; the interview as a method of data collection; theoretical and methodological approaches in the analysis of interviews; intelligence and psychological testing; the use of computational models of cognitive processes and psychometric methods; and critical analysis of research papers and methods.

Theory and Research Methods in Psychology II (20 M-level CATS credits) advances student knowledge of theory and research methods in psychology with particular reference to personality, individual differences and psychological disorders. The syllabus covers approaches to personality research and the methods used to measure personality; theory and methods used in emotional processing and in research focusing on psychological disorders; cultural variations in behaviour and experience and issues of gender and ethnicity.

Research Design Skills (10 M-level CATS credits) provides a structured framework within which students will identify their dissertation topic, critically review relevant previous research, and develop a workable design for their empirical project. The module ensures that students carry out the theoretical and methodological groundwork for their research-based dissertation and provides milestones for project development and an opportunity to gain tutor and peer feedback.

Research-based Dissertation (50 M-level CATS credits) is 10,000 words long. It is an extended and supervised piece of work reporting new empirical data. It is always grounded in a thorough review of the relevant scientific literature and normally requires experimental data collection. The aim of the dissertation is to allow you to develop your own ideas in a specific domain of psychology and to provide you with experience in research design, data collection, analysis and interpretation. You will also have the opportunity to work alongside an experienced academic from the Psychology Department. The content consists of individual tutorials with project supervisors and individual work.

Awards

The Programme has been designed to allow exit qualification at Postgraduate Certificate level (60 M-level CATS credits), Postgraduate Diploma level (120 M-level CATS credits) as well as at master's level (180 M-level CATS credits).

Please note: Only the award of MSc Psychology confers eligibility for GBC at the BPS.

Faculty

Faculty of Health and Life Sciences

Department

Department of Psychology

Course length

Full-time: MSc: 12 months; PGDip/PGCert: 8 months
Part-time: MSc: 24 months; for PGDip/PGCert, please contact us.

Teaching location

Headington Campus, Gipsy Lane

Start date

September 2012
September

UKPASS code

045760

Entry requirements

You must normally possess the following qualifications:

• An upper second-class or first-class honours degree awarded by a recognised institution of higher education in the UK or overseas

• 60 CATS (Credit Accumulative Transfer Scheme) credits in Psychology (including statistics and research methods). You must normally have achieved an average of 60% in these 60 credits. Credits can either be gained through the Qualifying Certificate in Psychology at Oxford Brookes or from a recognised institution of higher education in the UK.

The motivations that might lead students to select this course are many and diverse. Some will be drawn by the fascination of the subject matter, or the general benefits to personal and professional development arising from studying at master's level. Others will be seeking to provide a platform for further study through research. Yet others may be seeking to enhance their academic and skills profile with a view to applying for professional training at postgraduate level.

Scholarships and funding

For general sources of financial support, see:

• funding for students from the UK and EU
• funding for students from outside the EU

Why Oxford is a great place to study Psychology (MSc)

Oxford has much to offer students of psychology. In addition to our own excellent libraries and resource centres, our postgraduate students have access to the world-renowned Bodleian Library and the Radcliffe Science Library. Our location amongst Oxford’s world-renowned teaching hospitals offers opportunities for students to gain valuable experience through voluntary work. We also have strong research connections with local schools through the School of Education. Staff in the department are currently undertaking research in conjunction with local car manufacturers, energy companies, and government agencies.

Support for students studying Psychology (MSc)

We make extensive use of our intranet pages to provide you with detailed, relevant information and resources for your course. This will include materials ranging from course handouts through to research ethics guidelines, experiments, statistics packages and student handbooks. We also have an online booking system so you can make appointments to see your personal tutor.

Our psychology student support co-ordinator can give advice on your course, finance, accommodation or personal issues which may be affecting your study and will also regularly update you with information on visiting speakers, careers advice and course announcements. She can also help you to access other support services in the university such as ‘Upgrade’, which offers confidential advice on study skills, and English language support through the international centre.

How Brookes supports postgraduate students

Supporting your learning

From academic advisers and support co-ordinators to specialist subject librarians and other learning support staff, we want to ensure that you get the best out of your studies.

Personal support services

We want your time at Brookes to be as enjoyable and successful as possible. That's why we provide all the facilities you need to be relaxed, happy and healthy throughout your studies.

Departmental research highlights

Dr Kate Wilmut, course leader of the MSc Psychology has been awarded a prestigious ESRC grant of over £160k to conduct research into forward planning of movement in children with and without Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). Recent figures suggest that 2% of children in the UK present with DCD and show difficulties with fine and gross motor skills that persist into adulthood. It is hoped that furthering our understanding of the potentially deficient systems in these children may lead to the development of remedial programmes.

The ESRC has also funded Professor Gert Westermann to investigate how infants learn to combine information from multiple senses and how this helps them to group objects into categories. The project will test approximately 120 infants between the ages of 9 and 15 months of age in the Brookes Babylab.

In addition, the ESRC has recently awarded funding to Professor Angus Gellatly. This funded work has been using psychophysical methods to explore the brain mechanisms associated with conscious perception of an object. The work has used normal observers and has investigated the circumstances in which a presented stimulus can and cannot be consciously perceived. In exploring this question this work has determined some of the factors associated with preattended and attended representations of a stimulus within the brain.

With funding from the Leverhulme Trust, Dr Vince Connelly is leading an interdisciplinary project conducting research into the writing problems of children with language difficulties. Embracing psychology, education and linguistics, this ground-breaking project is aimed at bridging the gaps in current knowledge and will help practitioners to develop literacy strategies to help this already disadvantaged group of children.

The British Academy has given a series of grants to Dr Jim Barnes to fund his ongoing work on visual hallucinations in Parkinson’s patients. This work has been exploring the behavioural and neurophysiological correlates of visual hallucinations and their relationship to normal perceptual processing.

Professor Margaret Harris and Dr Mark Burgess were awarded £640k by the Technology Strategy Board, a public research council that facilitates innovative technological collaboration between businesses and researchers. They are conducting multi-method research into the critical socio-psychological factors that underpin people’s transition from traditional combustion engine cars to ultra low carbon vehicles and are feeding their results back to car manufacturers, energy companies, and the government.

Research excellence

In the 2008 RAE, in which we submitted 85% of our staff, 75% of our research was classed as internationally recognised or excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour.

Research areas and clusters

Developmental Psychology

Our focus is on cognitive, linguistic, social, and motor development, sleep and its disorders and, in particular, developmental disorders such as dyslexia, specific language impairment and Developmental Coordination Disorder. Research in this area has recently been extended with the establishment of the Institute for Research in Child Development. Research students benefit from our interdisciplinary connections and will have the opportunity to work alongside colleagues in Education, Health and the Life Sciences and to connect with researchers at partner institutions.

Students undertaking research in this field benefit from our bespoke doctoral training programme focused on the scientific study of children and young people’s psychological development, education and health from birth to young adulthood. The program fosters knowledge and skills in the application of psychological and social science theory and methodology and will prepare you to analyse and investigate developmental, health and educational questions in a multidisciplinary context.

Cognition and Neuroscience

Adult cognition and neuroscience investigates normal and dysfunctional processes involved in language, thinking, memory, perception and visual cognition. Our particular research interests include: audio-visual speech perception, visual perception, attention and cognition, visual masking, memory and reasoning, neurolinguistics and autism. Recent projects have looked at factors such as prospective memory, emotional factors in temporal order perception, object representations and change blindness, attentional factors in visual masking, processes of conceptual categorisation.

Qualitative Methods

Psychologists specialising in qualitative methods at Oxford Brookes investigate the socio-cultural and subjective nature of psychological phenomena by gaining an understanding of people’s knowledge, experiences and decision making processes. Recent projects have researched attitudes to peace and terrorism, adapting to green technologies and perceptions of personal growth through musical development and performance, as well as research into cultural identity.