Program Requirements
General Program Requirements:
Number of Credits Required Beyond the Baccalaureate: 30
Required Courses:
| Year 1 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Fall | Credit Hours | |
| PSY 5791 | Master's Directed Research I | 3 |
| Credit Hours | 3 | |
| Spring | ||
| PSY 5003 | Advanced Statistics | 3 |
| PSY 5891 | Master's Directed Research II | 3 |
| Credit Hours | 6 | |
| Year 2 | ||
| Fall | ||
| PSY 8017 | Professional Issues for Psychology Careers | 1 |
| PSY 9991 | Research | 4 |
| 8000-level Statistics or Methodology course | 3 | |
| Credit Hours | 8 | |
| Spring | ||
| PSY 5104 | Ethics and Ethical Conflicts in Psychological Science | 3 |
| PSY 9991 | Research | 4 |
| Topical Seminar in Psychology or Neuroscience | 3 | |
| Elective 1 | 3 | |
| Credit Hours | 13 | |
| Total Credit Hours | 30 | |
- 1
The elective must be a graduate course at the 5000 to 8000 level, but may be taken from any school or college.
Other Requirement: MS students are exposed to a broad range of current research by attending the department’s Colloquium and TILES lecture series to hear talks by distinguished researchers from other universities. They are also required to participate in lab meetings and journal clubs, and to attend regular advising meetings to select and apply to appropriate doctoral programs. Students who postpone application to doctoral programs receive guidance for a master’s-level job search and applications.
Culminating Event:
Master's Project:
A four-course sequence of directed research immerses the student in carefully planned and executed research, culminating in a publishable paper. Throughout the sequence, students are expected to participate in and contribute to the advisor’s program of research. Activities include data analyses, literature reviews, programming experiments and/or recruitment.
- During the first term, students work with their advisors to develop a research proposal and analysis plan for the master’s project. A protocol is submitted to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for approval. Students become familiar with the methods, measures and apparatus in the advisor’s lab.
- During the second term, students begin data collection for the master’s project and start work on a comprehensive literature review.
- The third term focuses on continued data collection, preliminary analyses, completion of the literature review, and a possible poster submission.
- During the fourth term, data collection, cleaning and analyses are completed, and the results are written up in an APA manuscript.
Students who do not complete the final project requirement by the end of the Spring term of Year 2 may register for additional research credits in the Summer term and submit their master's project no later than July 15 to be eligible for August graduation.