Are you a psychology graduate who wants to develop your knowledge even further or is particularly interested in a career in psychology? The MSc Psychology will allow you to progress into more advanced study or to graduate level roles in professional areas of psychology requiring further study at doctoral level.

Key information

Award:

MSc

Mode of Study:

Part-time

Duration:

30 months

Location:

The University of Bolton

Start date:

25/01/2021, 20/09/2021

Course Details

The University of Bolton was one of the first to establish a degree course in the subject of psychology and the Department has a well-respected, vibrant learning and research culture. This course offers you the opportunity to build on the knowledge and understanding gained from your undergraduate studies, develop your intellectual and thinking skills to a very high standard and enhance your independent research abilities.

You’ll be guided and taught by highly skilled and experienced staff focused on maximising your potential. They will encourage you to develop an advanced critical appreciation of contemporary methods, theories and issues in psychology highlighting the links between your research and clinical practice. You’ll apply your research and analysis skills to a substantial piece of independent research, demonstrating your understanding of appropriate ethical issues in context.

The course is also designed to enhance your practice, providing you with employment and career progression opportunities for a diverse range of careers, including psychology and therapy, the helping or health professions, social work, education, private practice, human resources and retail management.

Highlights

You’ll have the opportunity to develop and master a high level of complex specialist knowledge and skills in the field of psychology. You’ll also have the chance to employ these skills to conduct research or advanced technical and professional activity.
The department operates an effective academic personal tuition system providing encouragement and support to students at all levels to ensure they achieve their highest potential. Graduates are welcome to attend the research seminar programme and become active postgraduates within the University.
Tutors may also introduce techniques which they view as especially suitable in aiding learning in their specialist area. Areas of study are regularly updated to reflect the research activity within the department. The department employs a clinical psychologist and a forensic psychologist offering you the opportunity to work with practising psychologists as well as academics.
Your working environment will include an observation laboratory that contains two ceiling mounted video cameras, and boundary microphones, controlled by video editing hardware and software that can be used for student dissertation data collection. There is also a Psychophysiology laboratory for work of an experimental nature that contains a Bio-pac system, a Neuroscan and Stim3.
With a breadth of multimedia e-learning resources available, all the modules you’ll study have a presence on Moodle (our Virtual Learning Environment) and all the lecture materials as well as additional resources are available to you here.

Key Features

Teaching staff on this course hold postgraduate qualifications in research and have experience of publishing in peer reviewed journals. We prefer to keep teaching groups fairly small to encourage interaction and in-depth discussion of ideas and specialist knowledge. Some academic supervision is one-to-one, ensuring there is close contact between tutor and student.
The degree is very flexible with options for independent study to meet your needs; for example, in regard to your interests, career development or personal circumstances. You can study any module offered independently or study in an area of personal interest; for instance, in a job related field.
You’ll be encouraged to develop your intellectual and thinking skills to a very high academic standard, which will be reflected in your studies, in particular your dissertation. The course can also support the development of your personal and transferable skills commensurate with postgraduate study, a practitioner doctorate or an academic career.
A number of past students have successfully gained places on clinical and educational psychology programmes or remained at the University to pursue MPhil and PhD research. At the MSc stage, you’ll have the option of developing your research as part of a research team within the department.
This course is suitable for a variety of career development requirements in psychology and therapy, research and teaching, the helping or health professions, social work, education, private practice and management roles where working with people is the prime focus.

Professional recognition

You should have an Upper Second Class (2.1) Honours degree (or higher) in Psychology, which is accredited by the British Psychology Society for Graduate Basis for Registration (GBR) of the British Psychological Society (BPS).
If you have a Lower Second Class (2:2) Honours degree in Psychology, then you may be accepted on to the programme following a successful interview. We may also ask you to provide a portfolio of your work, as part of the application process.
Relevant work experience can also provide an advantage.
We'll consider applications where appropriate work experience can be demonstrated in lieu of, or in addition to, the published academic qualifications in line with the University’s Recognition of Prior Experiential Learning (RPEL) procedures.
This course does not confer Graduate Basis for Registration (GBR) with the British Psychological Society (BPS) – if you're seeking to achieve GBR, please consider applying for our MSc Psychology (Conversion) programme.
If English isn’t your first language you’ll also need IELTS 6.0 with no less than 5.5 in any band (or equivalent). We also accept a range of other English language qualifications – please visit our English Language Requirements web page for more details.

Want some reassurance or advice? Speak to one of our advisors. Email us at admissions@bolton.ac.uk or call us on +44 (0)1204 903 394.

Where changes are made to material information contained in this course description or a decision is taken to suspend a course between the offer of admissions and enrolment, we will inform applicants at the earliest possible opportunity and will outline the various options available to the applicant.

The MSc Psychology is for psychology graduates who wish to develop their knowledge to an advanced level or are particularly interested in enhancing their skill set in preparation for a career in psychology. By studying on this course you can develop an advanced critical appreciation of contemporary methods, theories and issues in psychology, and build upon and enhance the skills you acquired from your undergraduate studies.

We’ll support you as you further develop your skills in research and analysis and apply them to a substantial piece of independent research. On successful completion of the course you’ll have enhanced academic skills, the ability to develop arguments supported by relevant evidence, along with greater problem solving, interpersonal awareness, communication, team work, and IT and data handling skills.

What can I do with this qualification?

A postgraduate qualification in psychology can enhance your skills for a diverse range of careers, including human resources, retail management, marketing and professions associated with medicine.

Careers directly related to psychology such as clinical psychology, educational psychology and occupational psychology, require postgraduate study on accredited higher degrees and professional doctorates.

Psychology graduates can also progress to graduate schemes which are long term employment contracts usually with a large corporate company offering advanced training packages.

Alternative career options

Although some psychology graduates become professional psychologists, many others go on work in related fields. Graduates can use the qualification to enter a range of other careers, and for some of these roles, both relevant experience and/or postgraduate study may be required. Some of these careers include:

Teaching and education
Careers guidance
Human resources
Probation services
Prison services
Social work
Counselling
Family mediation and support
Nursing
Police
Media and advertising
Communications
Sport and recreation
Brand consultancy
Advertising
Child protection
Sales
Youth work

Course fees

The fees for a student’s course of study will be set for the normal duration of that course subject only to inflationary increases – measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) recorded in March each year to take effect for subsequent start dates.

The university is currently awaiting government guidelines as to EU fee charges for students commencing study in 2021-2022.

Bursaries

Click here for more information on our 2020 Master's Bursaries.

For details of how to apply for this course, please choose your status from the options below:

You may apply directly to the University using the University's online application form. Please select your chosen start date from the list below:

You should have to hand:

Details of the educational establishments you attended and dates
Your certificates for the qualifications you are using to gain entry to the course – you will need to enter the completion date and upload copies
Details of any employment history including name, address, dates and role
Personal statement – this can be either input into the relevant field or uploaded separately
Details including e-mail addresses of two referees, at least one of which should be someone who can provide an academic reference

Please make sure any documents you wish to upload in support of your application are in pdf or jpeg format. Personal statements may be word documents.

Please ensure your data is correct at each stage of the application before you proceed to the next page. If you use the back button at any time during the application, you should check the validity of the data you have already input.

If you experience difficulties during the application process, contact the Admissions Team on 01204 903394 or admissions@bolton.ac.uk

Apply online: University of Bolton MSc Psychology - 25 January 2021
Apply online: University of Bolton MSc Psychology - 20 September 2021

International applications are not possible for this course

As an international student you are not allowed to study this course because of the restrictions on your visa.

We offer a wide range of full-time courses in lots of different subjects, many of our courses start in September and January. If you would like to see what courses are available please visit our Course Search.

The overall teaching and learning strategy for Psychology is student-centred. We use a blended approach to teaching and learning involving face-to-face sessions, sometimes one-to-one, and online learning. Active learning is promoted using workshops, seminars and tutorials, self-directed and guided study, lectures, IT sessions and video viewing and analysis. The University’s e-learning portal Moodle will support your online learning.

You’ll be expected to conduct considerable independent learning, including independent literature searching, reading, completing work for seminars, preparing for workshops, presentations or group discussions. In addition to the taught components, some modules will have on-line resources and activities to complete.

Assessment serves several functions with the obvious and primary function being to evaluate your achievement of the stated learning outcomes. However, assessment also serves to help you organise and develop your learning. Feedback from assessment can help you develop your skills and understanding of your own strengths and weaknesses. You may be asked to complete reports, essays, presentations, literature reviews, reviews of journal articles, write up of laboratory tasks, completion of short question and answers (related to statistical analysis), reflective journals and case studies.

Modules

The modules listed below may be a mixture of compulsory and optional. You may not have the opportunity to study all the modules shown as part of the course.

Psychological and Social Research: Review, Evaluation and Design
Quantitative Inquiry 1
Qualitative Inquiry
Quantitative Inquiry 2
Advanced Social and Cognitive Neuroscience
Social Neuroscience Techniques
Social Neuroscience Laboratory Practical
Foundations of Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology in Practice
Critical Positive Psychology
Current Topics in Developmental Psychology
Psychology Dissertation

Assessment methods

Level	Assesment method
Level one	Coursework 100%

Learning activities

Level	Learning activity
Level one	Guided independent study 85%, Scheduled learning and teaching activities 15%

Disclaimer

The university will use all reasonable endeavours to deliver your course as described in its published material and the programme specification for the academic year in which you begin your course. The university considers changes to courses very carefully and the university will minimise any changes. Please be aware that our courses are subject to review on an ongoing basis and changes may be necessary due to legitimate staffing, financial, regulatory and academic reasons. The content of course modules and mode of associated assessments may be updated on an annual basis. This is to ensure that all modules are up-to-date and responsive to employment and sector needs. The published course material and the programme specification contain indicative ‘optional modules’ that may be subject to change due to circumstances outside of our control. For this reason, we cannot guarantee to run any specific optional module.