Program Requirements:
The guiding principle underlying the minimum course requirements for the Cognitive Psychology Program is that there needs to be a balance between the need to provide students with a broad, common background in the field and the need to provide students with opportunities for the development of expertise in their more narrowly defined interest areas. A central value of the program is the preservation of maximum time to conduct independent research and develop specific expertise in one or more research domains. Thus, the requirements delineated in this document are to be regarded as a common minimum core. It is expected that students will take a variety of courses not specified in this document in order to create the special competencies they desire. Students may also be required to sign up for additional course hours in order to satisfy university requirements for full-time enrollment while being supported on fellowships and assistantships. Full time enrollment is defined as 9 hours for those eligible for a matriculation fee waiver. Twelve hours are required for students receiving fellowships or those who are ineligible for a matriculation fee waiver. Eligibility for a waiver is based on receiving a departmental, research, or teaching assistantship of at least 10 hours per week. Underload permits may be obtained from the Graduate Training Office (209 PSY) if the student is not eligible for a tuition waiver. Other requirements, which apply to the Psychology Department as a whole, are contained in the document titled "Guidelines for the Operation of the Graduate Program".
Required courses are identified in three areas, the psychology content core, the research/experiential core, and the statistics/methodology core. A specific number of courses must be taken from each of these areas.
No distinction is made here between requirements for Master's and Ph.D. The only specific requirements for a Master's degree are those listed as departmental or college requirements. It should be noted that the requirement for the Master's involves thirty semester hours (18 of which must be those in which a letter grade is assigned).
Psychology Content Core
Students in the cognitive program are required to take two departmental core courses. One of these courses will be EXP 5508 (Cognition and Perception). Beyond this, students will select one course from the following list:
- DEP 5165 Developmental Psychology
- SOP 5053 Social Psychology
- EXP 5056 Biological Psychology
- EXP 6406 Conditioning and Learning
- PPE 5055 Personality Theory
During their first year, students will register for EXP 6920 Current Issues in Cognitive/Behavioral Science (total of two hours, one in the Fall and one in the Spring). The purpose of this course is to acquaint students with work of the faculty, to accomplish specific skills instruction that is outside of other course content, and to create unity in the first year class.
Students are also required to accumulate 8 course-units worth of advanced courses. These course units can be accumulated through two types of courses offered in the department. First, students may take full-semester seminars relevant to the field of cognitive psychology (excluding the courses listed above as counting for the departmental core). The following list provides examples of courses of this sort that have been offered in the past, and should not be taken to be exhaustive. Generally speaking, any seminar offered by faculty in the cognitive psychology program will count toward this requirement. Occasionally, seminars offered outside of the cognitive program will be appropriate for cognitive students. These courses can count toward this requirement, provided they are approved by the students' major professor. Each seminar will count for 2 course-units.
- EXP-5642 Psychology of Language
- EXP 6609 Verbal reports and Protocol Analysis
- EXP-6919 Memory
- PSY 6919 Introduction to Expertise and Skill Acquisition
- EXP-5916 Visual Information Processing and Eye Movement Control
In addition to taking seminars, students may also satisfy this component of the course requirements by taking half-semester course modules. These modules will offer concise tutorials on a range of topics in the field (examples listed below). Each module will count as 1 course-unit.
- Judgment and decision making
- Language acquisition
- Language comprehension
- Visual attention
- Metacognition
Students may use any combination of seminars and modular courses to accumulate the required 8 course-units.
Research/Experiential Core
- PSY 5917r Supervised Research - 2 hours
- PSY 5973r Master's Thesis - 6 hours minimum, and no maximum
- PSY 6656r Preliminary Examination Preparation - Minimum 3 hours, maximum 9 hours
- PSY 6980r Dissertation - Minimum 24 hours
In addition to these required courses, students may wish to gain additional hours of supervised research/experience by signing up for PSY 5908r (Directed Individual Study), which may be repeated for a maximum of 16 hours.
Statistics/Methodology Core
Students must take one of the following courses:
- PSY 6919 Research Design in Psychology (3)
- EDF 5401 General Linear Model Application (4)
- STA 5126 Statistical procedures for the behavioral sciences (4)
- STA 5206 ANOVA and the Design of Experiments (3)
In addition, students must take two additional courses either from
the list above or from the following list.
- EDF 5402 Advanced Topics in Analysis of Variance (3)
- EDF 5406 Multivariate Analysis (3)
- EDF 5411 Factor Analysis (3)
- PSY 6919r Multivariate Applications: Observable Variables
- PSY 6969r Multivariate Applications: Latent Variables
- PSY 5916 Meta Analysis (3)
- EDF 5410 Nonparametric Analysis (2)
- STA 5857 Applied Time Series Analysis (3)
Note:
none of the statistics/methodology courses can be used to substitute
for an advanced psychology content course.
First Year Project
Students will be required to complete a first year project. This project is an independent research project that is initiated during the student's first year in the program, and subsequently presented to the faculty and students of the cognitive area early in the fall of their second year. The purpose of this project is to get students off to a fast start in developing a research program, and to provide a mechanism through which the faculty of the cognitive area can provide advice and feedback to the student early in their career. The student will assemble a 2-person committee (major professor, and one other faculty member from the cognitive program) to serve in an advisory role on the first year project.
Guidelines for Completion of the Critical Review paper or Comprehensive Exam
The purpose of these guidelines is to clarify the requirement of completing a Critical Review paper or passing a comprehensive exam. Completing a Critical Review paper or passing a comprehensive exam is required for advancement to candidacy and initiation of a doctoral dissertation. The purpose of this requirement is to demonstrate that a student is ready to begin a dissertation. The decision about whether to meet this requirement by completing a Critical Review paper or passing a comprehensive exam should be made jointly by the student and his or her advisor, in consultation with the student's other committee members.
Guidelines for Completing a Critical Review paper
The intent of the Critical Review paper is for the student to demonstrate mastery of an area by writing a critical analysis of a theoretically significant topic. The Critical Review paper is different from a typical Master's Thesis in the extent and quality of analysis required. It is different from a typical dissertation in that reporting of original data is optional. Ideally, but not necessarily, the Critical Review paper serves as preparation for proposing a dissertation topic.
The ultimate goal of completing a Critical Review paper is for it to be published. As such, the Critical Review paper should be a well-written and edited document that is ready to be submitted for possible publication. Although there are no length requirements, the target length is the typical range for manuscripts to be submitted for publication (i.e., 30 to 50 pages). Although the primary objective of a Critical Review paper is critical analysis of a theoretically significant topic and reporting of original data is not required, original data can be reported if it helps achieve the primary objective. In some cases, including empirical data may increase the likelihood that the Critical Review paper will be published by expanding the range of possible publication outlets. The Critical Review paper may also take the form of a metanalysis.
Guidelines for Taking a Comprehensive Exam
The purpose of the comprehensive exam is for the students' committee to verify that the student has mastered his area of specialization by a written and/or oral examination. The first step for a student is to select committee members and submit a written proposal to them defining the area in which the student wishes to claim competency and listing a preliminary set of readings that represents the current knowledge about that area. The committee will meet with the student and make necessary adjustments to the definition of the area and the reading list. The committee can reconvene if the definition needs to be changed or the reading list requires adjustment. Upon the recommendation of the student the committee will determine how the examination will be organized.
Type of examination: oral; written (without reference books); written (with access to reference books); or some combination of written and oral. For a written examination, each committee member will submit one or two questions and the supervisor will select a suitable number of questions and monitor that the questions are appropriate given the definition of the agreed area of specialization and the reading list. The supervising professor will be responsible for the administration and proctoring of the exam. Recommended duration is two days with different questions with an 8-hour time limit for each day.
For an oral exam the supervisor will monitor that the committee members' questions are consistent with the definition of the specialization and reading list. Recommended duration is between two and three hours.
If the student shows general mastery but weakness in some limited areas, the committee can decide to reconvene with renewed questions restricted to those areas within an oral examination format.
