Psychology III Scientific Fields in Psychology

The course comprises three modules. Module 1 - Research Areas in Psychology (4.5 credits) This module focuses on the historical development of the study of psychology, as well as its various perspectives relating to the history of ideas, the theory of science, and to psychological theory and method. Students survey current international research in the field, and practise making systematic searches for relevant data in international databases, and communicating research results orally or in writing. Module 2 - Method (10.5 credits) This module focuses on methodological aspects of psychological research with special emphasis on scientific approach, design, data collection, and data processing of qualitative and quantitative data. Students practise operationalising psychological questions and hypotheses in order to collect and process qualitative data in accordance with thematic analysis, and quantitative data in accordance with relevant non-parametric and parametric statistical methods and with the help of the statistical software programme SPSS. Module 3 - Empirical Study (15 credits) In this module, students translate a relevant research question or hypothesis into an actual small-scale scientific study. The study should be clearly linked to relevant fields in the research area of international psychology. At the end of the module there is an open seminar in which students present and defend their reports and act as a peer reviewer of another student's report. The module includes two mandatory components: active participation in group supervision seminars and in at least two final seminars, in which the student neither presents nor serve as a peer reviewer. Supervision is only offered to students while the course is in progress. Students who reregister for the course in a later term will be offered additional supervision to the extent made possible by available resources.