Developmental Psychology

Contents

Course length

Full-time: 12 months
Part-time: 24 months

The course aims to develop your:

* ability to critically evaluate evidence and current issues in child development
* ability to plan, design and carry out research in the domain of developmental psychology
* knowledge and experience of different research methods in the study of children's psychological development
* knowledge of theories about children's cognitive, affective, social and cultural development
* own ideas and interests in the domain of child development
* capacity to communicate and collaborate in the construction of knowledge about children's development.

The course is offered as a master's in research (MRes), which carries 180 master's-level credit accumulation and transfer system (CATS) credits.

The MRes in Developmental Psychology is based on the completion of all modules, including the module Research Design Skills and a 10,000-word research-based dissertation.

Modules

Theory and Research Methods in Psychology (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 the use of psychometric methods; and critical analysis of research papers and methods.

Research Methods in Developmental Psychology (20 M-level CATS credits) - focuses on conceptual, design, and analytic issues in research on child development. Topics include the nature of child development, central questions in developmental psychology, research paradigms and research designs. The module also provides hands-on experience of a range of analytical techniques and tools in developmental psychology research, including the analysis of observational, cross-sectional, longitudinal, interview and psychometric data.

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 SPSS.

Developmental Psychology I (20 M-level CATS credits) and Developmental Psychology II (20 M-level CATS credits) - provide 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.

Atypical Development (20 M-level CATS credits) enables you to develop a critical understanding of key aspects of cognition, their biological basis and their development. Topics covered include developmental cognitive neuropsychology, disorders of language and motor development, literacy, sleep problems and autism.

Research Design Skills (10 M-level CATS credits) - provides a structured framework within which you identify your thesis topic, critically review relevant previous research, and develop a workable design for your empirical project. The module ensures that you carry out the theoretical and methodological groundwork for your 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 developmental 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 developmental psychology research group in the Psychology Department. The content consists of individual tutorials with project supervisors and individual work.

The MRes programme may be taken on either a full-time or part-time basis. Full-time students take all modules in one year split over the two semesters as indicated above. Part-time students split the work over two years with the research-based dissertation being done in the second year of study.

A Postgraduate Diploma (PGDip) in Developmental Psychology is also available which involves successful completion of all modules except for Research Design Skills and the Research-based dissertation. A Postgraduate Certificate (PGCert) in Developmental Psychology can also be gained upon successful completion of the modules Atypical Development and Developmental Psychology I.

NB As courses are reviewed regularly, the module list for this course may vary from that shown here.