MSc Psychology (Conversion)

Overview

Course Length:	1 Year Full-Time, 2-3 Years Part-Time
Start Dates:	September 2022, September 2023
Subjects:	Psychology
Location:	Edge Hill University

The MSc in Psychology is a conversion programme and as such provides graduates in disciplines other than psychology with the opportunity to obtain the Graduate Basis for Chartered membership (GBC) with the British Psychological Society (BPS).

GBC allows you to pursue postgraduate training in applied areas of psychology associated with the Societies’ Divisions (such as educational and clinical psychology). GBC is the first step toward gaining status as a Chartered Psychologist.

In Depth

What will I study?

You will cover all the core areas of psychology as specified and required by the British Psychological Society for the accreditation of conversion courses.

You will examine the nature of personality and individual differences, including intelligence, developmental patterns and changes in social and cognitive abilities, interpersonal behaviour and the impact of social contexts on behaviour.

Exploring Cognitive Language and Biological Psychology, you will gain an understanding of the role of biology in underpinning behaviour and the nature of attention, perception, language and memory.

A research methods module will equip you with the ability to organise, analyse, interpret and report findings of research involving quantitative (numerical) data before you are introduced to approaches to qualitative research and analysis.

The programme concludes with a Masters dissertation in an area of psychology of particular interest to you. This will be supervised by a member of academic staff in the department.

How will I study?

Teaching methods follow a variety of formats from traditional style lectures to tutorials, seminars and workshops.

How will I be assessed?

Most modules are assessed by a mixture of examination and coursework though some are assessed solely by coursework.

Coursework assignments might be essays, research project reports, group presentations or the critical analysis of research papers.

Who will be teaching me?

Psychology is a rapidly growing department at Edge Hill University, currently with eighteen members of staff. The programme team are all research active, particularly in the areas of thinking and reasoning, work psychology, psychological aspects of substance abuse, counselling, close relationships and the functioning of working memory.

Members of the team have been published in major national and international peer reviewed journals such as The British Journal of Psychology, The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, The Journal of Experimental Psychology and Learning, Memory and Cognition, Cognitive Neuropsychology, Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, Psychological Review, and Human Perception and Performance.

The Department of Psychology operates a research internship scheme where you may have the opportunity to volunteer to assist with staff research across a range of exciting projects. Previous projects have focused on subjects including eye movements and memory, alcohol and inhibition, autistic traits, attentional bias to pictures and words, personality and offending behaviour, behaviour change and food awareness, multiple perspective taking, the neural underpinnings of action simulation, and the question of whether emojis reveal true emotions.

Facilities

The £6million Law and Psychology building provides contemporary teaching and learning facilities for students in the Department of Psychology and the Department of Law and Criminology.

The three-storey building includes a 250-seat lecture theatre, seminar and tutorial rooms, and social learning areas which encourage a more informal and interactive style of learning. There are also specially designed experimental facilities for psychological research.

Learning Resources

Psychology resources include state-of-the-art eye trackers, transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) methods, and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) for examining cognitive functioning and brain activity. Other specialist laboratories include a group testing laboratory, two bi-directional observation rooms, a ‘bar simulation laboratory’ (for alcohol research), audio-visual suites and dedicated IT facilities equipped with subject specific software installed to support experimental work.

Timetables

You can expect to receive your timetable at enrolment. Please note that while we make every effort to ensure that timetables are as student-friendly as possible, scheduled teaching can take place on any day or evening of the week.

Disclaimer

Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of our published course information, however our programmes are subject to ongoing review and development. Changing circumstances may necessitate alteration to, or the cancellation of, courses.

Changes may be necessary to comply with the requirements of accrediting bodies, revisions to subject benchmarks statements, to keep courses updated and contemporary, or as a result of student feedback. We reserve the right to make variations if we consider such action to be necessary or in the best interests of students.

Modules

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Compulsory modules:

PSY4111Biological Psychology (20 credits)

Biological Psychology studies the human nervous system, including its structure and functioning. There will be a particular focus upon the brain. You will learn in detail about the processes by which messages are passed through the system, and the interaction with the hormones of the endocrine system in order to preserve life. The methods by which the brain is commonly researched will also be explored in order to provide a basis for understanding much current research and theorising in psychology.

Assessment: Written Exam(s): 100 (Time-Limited Assessment).

PSY4311Cognitive Psychology (20 credits)

Cognitive Psychology is a branch of Psychology that investigates internal mental processes such as perception, memory, problem solving, and language production. Research in this area examines issues such as how we recognise (and forget) the faces of people we know, how we remember (and why we forget) where we left our house keys, how we are able to solve (or sometimes fail to solve) crossword puzzles, and how we learn new languages. The module explores both classic and contemporary research that has led to the development of theories explaining how such mental processes function.