Masters study

Our MSc Psychology degree is for candidates who have an undergraduate degree in a non-psychology subject, or who hold an undergraduate psychology degree not accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS).

A one-year conversion degree is an intensive course designed to bring you up to speed with the knowledge and skills needed to flourish in a professional psychology career, including research methods and advanced statistics.

Holding a BPS-accredited degree is also an essential step in the path to many professional psychological careers, such as becoming a Chartered Psychologist.

If you already have a BPS-accredited undergraduate psychology degree then you will be able to apply for our specialist Masters degrees; MSc Research Methods in Psychology, or MSc Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology.

An advanced psychology degree is the ideal next step towards chartered status, which is essential for specialist roles such as forensic or educational psychology. The additional experience and skills gained from completing a Masters course will better equip you to compete for a place on doctorate programmes or in the job market more generally.

A professional psychology career is just one of many paths that postgraduate psychology can equip you for. Many of our graduates go on to careers in management, human resources, education, policy, data analytics, and of course research degrees.

A Master of Science by Dissertation (MSD) is a one-year research degree for students looking to develop their research skills without taking taught modules. With supervision from one of our academic staff you will carry out an independent research project which you will write up as a 30,000 word dissertation and defend in an oral exam called a viva.

If you’re thinking of applying for a PhD then an MSD is an ideal stepping stone. It can help you identify the area of research you wish to specialise in and help improve your research skills. Successful MSDs can be extended into the first year of a PhD in our department in some cases.

As one of our Masters students on any of our courses, you will be able to explore the latest methodological techniques that psychological scientists use to conduct research.

Our range of specialist facilities and labs are primarily housed in our award-winning Centre for Brain Science and include a virtual reality suite, two psychoacoustic hearing labs, cognitive and visual perception labs, EEG, fNIRS, eye-tracking, equipment to measure human physiology, and the latest methods to collect psychological data in an online world.

We provide one of the most immersive and exciting opportunities to study psychology through collaborating with our researchers. Our Research Experience Scheme (RES) is designed to help you become more familiar with the process of academic research by working one-on-one with a psychologist as their research assistant.

Throughout the year, academics advertise for undergraduate and Masters students to get hands-on with a research project, whether it’s helping plan experiments, recruiting and testing participants, or analysing data.

You will gain a deeper insight into how real-world research is conducted from initial ideas and the details of carrying out research, to the conclusions that you might be able to draw about human experience. The research scheme might inspire your Masters project, and help you decide whether to pursue research as a future career.

And even if you know research isn’t for you, then it will help build your experience, skills, and confidence in project management and collaborative working. Your supervisor will also be ideally placed to provide you with a personalised reference when applying for jobs.

Our degrees have a set of “core” modules which are carefully curated to give you the necessary grounding in advanced psychological research and theory.

The MSc Research Methods in Psychology and MSc Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuropsychology also allow you to tailor your studies to suit areas of personal interest with our optional modules.

The optional modules we offer can change each year but have included “critical literature review”, “special topics in social psychology”, “research management”, “special topics in individual differences and developmental psych”, “research methods & statistics in cognitive neuropsychology and neuroscience”, “neurocognition of language”, and “advanced statistics for research”.

A Masters degree will enhance and advance the skills and knowledge you need to flourish on your future career path. This is true if you’re interested in continuing to a PhD, want to specialise in practicing psychology in a specific context (e.g., educational, forensic, business), or simply want a rounded degree that will provide you with core transferable skills that you can demonstrate on your CV and in interviews.

The specialist skills that you can develop during a Masters degree with us include:

• Experimental design and data collection
• Critical (scientific) thinking, reasoning and argument
• Imaging and programming
• Quantitative and qualitative research skills

In addition to scientific skills a Masters degree with us will advance numerous transferable skills such as:

• Written and oral communication skills
• Data analysis and presentation
• Collaboration
• Independent and team working

Our research spans three overlapping themes: Thinking about the world, Interacting with the world, and Experiencing the world. These themes "tie" together to improve our understanding of the world and the people within it.

We are a vibrant research community with many overlapping interests and areas of expertise. We examine a variety of area of human behaviour and life, such as risk, judgement and decision making; relationships, sex and attraction; and action understanding, covering all stages of human life from birth and baby development through to healthy ageing and death. Our research is often interdisciplinary and we run collaborative projects with numerous departments at the University and with community partners such as Essex County Council.

Our academics are experts in their specialist areas of research. Along with teaching, they publish in high-impact journals, present their research at conferences, and supervise and mentor the next generation of psychologists. We are 23rd in UK for psychology research (Grade Point Average, REF 2021), and at the 2022 Celebrating Excellence in Research and Impact Awards, Dr Jordi Asher received an award for Best Research Impact by an Early Career Researcher, Dr Miroslav Sirota was Research Visibility Champion for the Faculty of Science and Health, and Dr Nikhila Mahadevan received The Conversation Award for her article on narcissists.

Our research feeds into our teaching and influences the modules we offer for our Masters degrees. This means that what you discover in your degree is informed by research: you’ll be taught by the very people who are at the forefront of the latest discoveries and innovations in psychological science.