Psychology MSc; PGDip
About this course
Psychology is the systematic study of behaviour and experience. As a discipline, it is wide-ranging and spans the divide between biological and social sciences. On this degree – which is accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS) – you’ll get to explore psychology from all angles, from cognitive and biological, to social and developmental, and focus on specialist areas of your choice to tailor your MSc to your chosen career path.
This course attracts a large and diverse body of students and is open to all applicants who have completed an undergraduate degree in any discipline – or those who have relevant work experience and are looking to develop their knowledge and skills in psychology and gain BPS accreditation. Take a look at the entry requirements section for more information about what we expect from you.
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Putting skills into practice
Put your skills into practice with your independent research project, focusing on a topic of your choice.
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Tailor your learning experience
Tailor your MSc to your chosen career pathway through a choice of Contemporary Psychology optional modules.
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Set days in university each week
With 3 set days in university each week (2 for part-time students), balance your studies around your other commitments such as part-time work.
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Benefit from excellent support
from our academic team to enhance your learning.
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(out of 1,049 evaluated institutions)
What you’ll study
In addition to focusing on cognitive, biological, social and developmental psychology, we’ll also delve into individual differences and conceptual issues, alongside developing your statistics skills, and building your expertise in experimental, qualitative and psychometric research methods.
As an NTU Psychology student, you will undertake an independent research project where you’ll demonstrate the skills you’ve learned with us, which includes devising, conducting, analysing and presenting an empirical research study at postgraduate level. You will have an individual supervisor to support your project work who you will meet every two weeks in terms two and three.
If you choose the MSc route, you’ll also undertake contemporary psychology, and applied research module. Alongside your research project, you can use these modules to tailor your MSc and focus on topics that might be particularly relevant for your subsequent career path.
Core modules
Cognitive and Biological Psychology
This module introduces cognitive and biological approaches to understanding behaviour and mental processes. You will explore the study of cognition (ie: mental processes such as memory, attention, language, problem solving and perception) from the viewpoint that we need to examine both normal, abnormal, and real world application.
Social and Developmental Psychology
The module is concerned with key topics within social and developmental psychology. You will examine the value of social psychology in understanding how social contexts influence human behaviours (e.g., the social self, social cognition, obedience and conformity, and pro-social behaviour). This will be complimented by developmental psychology where you will consider the way in which innate mechanism (nature) and life experience (nurture) interact and how they impact on our development.
Individual Differences and Conceptual Issues
This module provides you with the opportunity to comprehensively explore psychology as the study of humans. You will focus upon key topics such as the development of people’s personality, intelligence, health and emotional wellbeing. In addition to this, you will be provided a guide to the main ideas, people and approaches that have shaped the discipline of psychology throughout its history and how the discipline of Psychology aims to understand humans.
Research Methods
Divided into three areas; experimental research, qualitative research and survey methods / psychometrics, you will be guided through the process of research design, data collection, analysis and report writing. You will be taught important theoretical issues such as ethics, sampling, randomisation and other aspects of research design, but the module is primarily focused on giving you the opportunity to learn by actually doing research.
Statistics
The module will provide theoretical and practical knowledge of a range of statistical techniques and the skills that are taught will support the Research Methods module. While some mathematical competence is beneficial, we attempt to minimise the mathematical content of the module by teaching you the underlying assumptions and rationale behind the statistical techniques rather than their complex mathematics.
Psychology Research Project
Your project is an independent piece of work that is supervised by a research active member of staff who will guide and support you as you work towards producing a final report for assessment. This will be the main opportunity for you to carry out an extensive piece of independent research of your own choosing and for you to demonstrate that you have the skills to devise, conduct, analyse, present and report an empirical study to postgraduate level.
Support is provided through small group individualised teaching in tutorials and individual supervision of the Research Project.
Applied Research in Psychology (MSc only)
This module has a focus on the development of skills to enhance employability. The main aim of the module will be to ensure that you are capable of researching applied psychological topics relevant to careers within psychology and that you are able to present the results of that research in a variety of media for both professional and non-professional audiences.
Contemporary Psychology (MSc only)
MSc Psychology students will also chose an option module during the second term. These modules are sourced from the BSc (Hons) Psychology final year options and generally focus on more applied fields of psychology and will reflect the research interests of staff within the Department.
Optional choices
We try to provide a range of option choices for you, so that you are able to tailor your choice to tie in with career plans and specific interests. Examples of modules are provided below, although these vary from year to year.
The number of places available on some optional modules may be limited. These will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. Students who are unable to select their first choice will be offered an alternative from the remaining optional modules.
- Clinical Neuropsychology
- Language and Literacy in Infants and Children
- Social Development in Children and Adolescents
- Psychology of Sex Offending
- Addictive Behaviours
- Psychopathology and Offending Behaviour
- Psychology of Trauma
- Sport and Exercise Psychology
- Fashion Psychology
MSc Psychology students often focus their option choices, research project and Applied Research in Psychology assessment in the same area of psychology with a view to future employment possibilities. It's a good way to target your CV.
We regularly review and update our course content based on student and employer feedback, ensuring that all of our courses remain current and relevant. This may result in changes to module content or module availability in future years.
Don’t just take our word for it, hear from our students themselves
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How you're taught
This course starts in mid-September. A dedicated induction day is provided for all students which introduces you to your course, to your teaching teams and to the university facilities.
The course is completed in one year of full-time study (your final piece of coursework is submitted in July) or two years part-time. The contact teaching for full-time students is delivered over three days per week in term 1. Teaching days in term 2 will vary according to option choice taken. For part-time students, contact time is generally two days per week.
Study and support
All of the core modules on these courses are taught exclusively to MSc and PGDip Psychology students by experienced staff used to working with students from a wide variety of backgrounds and with varying skills and experiences.
The course will be delivered through a combination of lectures, seminars, tutorials, and lab classes. Further support is provided through a dedicated tutorial system. You will meet with your personal tutor on a weekly basis throughout terms one and two. Tutorials provide an opportunity to discuss the course content, studying methods and assessments in small groups in additional to pastoral support, advice and guidance provided by your tutor.
Support is also provided from the NTU Employability through specialist tutorial sessions. In addition, you will be asked to write a detailed career plan for one of your assessments which will support you with your next steps after you complete the course. You will also make full use of the facilities provided by the University's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
During the course you'll be assessed in a variety of ways and on a modular basis; through examination (both seen and unseen exams are used), coursework (including essays, laboratory reports and literature reviews), oral presentation and via your research project.
The Psychology department is large, with over 160 academic staff covering all areas of the discipline, and therefore you are able to take options from, and do research projects in areas of particular interest to you. This can be very helpful in preparation for related work or further study after graduation.
Assessment methods
During the course you'll be assessed in a variety of ways and on a modular basis; through examination (both seen and unseen exams are used), coursework (including essays, portfolios and research reports) and via your research project.
An active research environment
Throughout the course you'll benefit from research-informed teaching. Find out more about our psychology research, including the Centre for Research in Applied Cognition and Neuroscience.
World-leading research
- In the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021, 100% of NTU's research environment in Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience was assessed to be world-leading or internationally excellent in terms of quality.
In-sessional English language support
In-sessional English language support classes are available to all international (non-EU) students studying on degree courses at NTU. There is no extra charge for these classes.
Careers and employability
Your future career in Psychology
With the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) with the BPS secured, you will be eligible upon graduation to undertake further training as a professional psychologist (in areas such as clinical, forensic, educational, occupational, counselling, or sport psychology).
Alternatively, you might choose to pursue an academic and / or research career in various areas of psychology (by working as a research assistant or associate or by completing a further specialist masters course , such as a Research Methods Masters or studying for a PhD), or you may choose to exploit the transferable skills you have learned on the course to pursue a career outside of psychology.
Psychology qualifications tend to be very popular with all employers because you have to be able to write essays and reports, you have to have some basic mastery of research and data analysis, and because they assume you know quite a lot about people!
Our previous graduates have gone on to work in:
- the NHS
- private healthcare providers
- IT and software
- media and publishing
- digital marketing
- charities and the third sector
- police forces
- His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service
- local authorities and local government
- real estate
- primary and secondary education
- higher education, including teaching or research
Careers and job application advice is available to all our postgraduate students and is provided by a subject specialist within the Department, supported by the university-wide careers service. We're very proud of our conversion record and look forward to helping you achieve a successful career in psychology.
Psychologists may work in settings as diverse as:
- community mental health teams
- prisons
- schools
- large blue chip companies
- research laboratories
- government departments
- the armed services
- hospitals
- premiership football clubs.
Employability team
Our expert Employability team will work closely with you at every stage of your career planning, providing personal support and advice. You can benefit from this service at any time during your studies, and for up to three years after completing your course. Find out more about the service.
Campus and facilities
As a postgraduate Psychology student, you’ll mainly be studying in the Chaucer, Taylor and Newton buildings, at the centre of our vibrant City Campus. As well as a range of classrooms and lecture theatres, you’ll benefit from our dedicated Psychology learning environments.
We have specialist research laboratories including eye-trackers, motion capture labs, virtual reality and driving simulation suites, a mock prison cell, and an £80,000 EEG system. These facilities support your learning alongside staff research in the exciting areas of human cognition, behavioural neuroscience, human interaction and communication, and human development.
NTU’s City Campus has everything you’ll need to stay busy between lectures. As well as the Boots Library and its beautiful roof garden, there’s our stylish Students’ Union building and two-storey, 100-station gym; a whole host of cafés, bars, restaurants and food outlets for every taste; our much-loved Global Lounge; performance and rehearsal spaces for musicians; and much, much more!
Take a few steps off campus and you’ll find yourself in the heart of Nottingham — one of Britain’s top 10 student cities, and one of Europe’s top 25. It’s stuffed with history, culture, and well-kept secrets to discover at your leisure. Enjoy lush green spaces, galleries, hidden cinemas and vintage shopping by day, and an acclaimed food, drink and social scene by night.
Take our virtual tour to get a real feel for the campus.
Entry requirements
UK students
You will need an undergraduate degree (minimum 2.1) or other recognised equivalent qualification. Applicants whose undergraduate degree is a 2.2 or equivalent will also be considered, but will be required to demonstrate relevant experience and knowledge and the ability to study at the required academic level.
Applicants without such qualifications will be considered on an individual basis but will be required to demonstrate how their experiences and knowledge would enable them to study this course at Masters level in their Personal Statement
- MSc Psychology: Entry on to the MSc Psychology does not require any previous study of Psychology.
- Postgraduate Diploma: Applicants must have a minimum 60 credits of Psychology from prior study at degree level. As part of the application process applicants will be asked to indicate precisely how their previous study meets this criteria.
Additional requirements for UK students
Applicants who successfully complete 60 credits of MSc Psychology modules on Nottingham Trent University's Multidisciplinary Masters course may be eligible to APL these credits if you choose to enrol on the full MSc Psychology or Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology course.
International students
Academic entry requirements: You will need an undergraduate degree (minimum 2.1) or other recognised equivalent qualification. Prior study of Psychology is not required. Applicants whose undergraduate degree is a 2.2 or equivalent, or with non-standard entry qualifications and/or relevant experience will be considered on an individual basis. You will be required to demonstrate how your experiences and knowledge would enable you to study this course at Masters-level in your Personal Statement.
For the Postgraduate Diploma, applicants must have a minimum 60 credits of Psychology from prior study at degree level. As part of the application process applicants will be asked to indicate precisely how their previous study meets this criteria.
We accept equivalent qualifications from all over the world. Please check your international entry requirements by country.
English language requirements: See our English language requirements page for requirements for your subject and information on alternative tests and Pre-sessional English.
Additional requirements for international students
Applicants who successfully complete 60 credits of MSc Psychology modules on Nottingham Trent University's Multidisciplinary Masters course may be eligible to APL these credits if you choose to enrol on the full MSc Psychology or Postgraduate Diploma in Psychology course.
If you need help achieving the academic entry requirements, we offer a Pre-Masters course for this degree. The course is offered through our partner Nottingham Trent International College (NTIC) based on our City campus.
Policies
We strive to make our admissions procedures as fair and clear as possible. To find out more about how we make offers, visit our admissions policies page.
