Psychology (H.Dip.) - Psychology Conversion Course

Overview

Course Overview

The Psychology Conversion Course is designed to provide a pre-professional qualification equivalent to a Bachelor degree in Psychology. The course is accredited by the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI) and allows students proceed to postgraduate education, including higher degrees by research, and to specialise in an area of professional psychology. It is a two year full-time course based on lectures, tutorials, laboratory classes and research projects.

As graduates, you have most of the academic skills you need to succeed on the Psychology Conversion Course. Our main objective is to facilitate your entry into the profession of psychology and to train you in the discourse of a new academic discipline via active learning and discussion. To facilitate this, much of your learning will take place in small groups where you are encouraged to be active and collaborative learners.

The course aims to provide an understanding of the nature of psychology as a profession, the psychologist’s professional responsibilities, standards of performance and ethical issues; to enable students to acquire advanced knowledge in relevant areas within psychology, to extend skills in formulating research problems, gathering and analysing data, interpreting and communicating research findings; and to help students explore their own interests and capacities in the field and to prepare them for further training.

Is This Course For Me?

This conversion course welcomes students with a primary degree in any discipline and an interest in and passion for psychology. If you are looking to change careers and pursue psychology professionally, this course is for you.

Career Opportunities

This course provides a rigorous and comprehensive primary training to prepare students to take the next step towards a career in or using psychology.

Course Structure

While some of your classes will be taken with other psychology students, we are the only psychology course still providing very small group academic tutorials to our students. Throughout your two years you will meet with an academic staff member every fortnight in groups of two or three. This module is intended to complement the core programme and to assist you in your introduction to the academic discipline of psychology as a whole.

Our aim is to train our students to be critical consumers and active producers of psychological knowledge. To that end, all teaching in the School of Psychology is research-led and delivered by active researchers. You will be encouraged from the outset to get involved with the many research groupings in the School, whether you want to just sit in on research meetings and talks to experience the diversity of psychological research being conducted or to participate more actively as a research assistant.

Course Content

Students will cover the following areas of psychology, as required by the professional accreditation body, the Psychological Society of Ireland: Biological basis of behaviour; Cognitive psychology; Research design, quantitative & qualitative methods; Developmental and lifespan psychology; Social psychology; Personality and individual differences.

Students attend a range of foundation and advanced modules during the two years of the course.

Foundation Modules include: Foundations of Psychological Thought; Cognition; Fundamentals of Neuroscience and Behaviour; Developmental Psychology; Perception; Social Psychology; Psychological Disorder; Personality and Individual Differences.

A range of advanced modules is offered each year and over the two years of the course, students must take at least one module from each required area (biological, cognitive, social, development, personality and individual differences).

In addition, in both Years 1 and 2, students are required to take modules in practicals, methodology and statistics and in academic skills tutorials. Students in Year 2 are required to carry out an empirical investigation of a psychological topic or question under the supervision of a member of the academic staff in the School.

Students are evaluated by course work assessment throughout the year, by written examination papers at the end of each year of the course, and by the research project in the second year.