What are some Prerequisites to a Master’s in Organizational Psychology Program?

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Updated August 4, 2020

The general prerequisites for admission into a Master's in Organizational Psychology program may include an accredited baccalaureate degree, GRE/GMAT scores, personal statement and a few references and letters of recommendation. Most graduate-level Organizational Psychology programs will expect incoming students to have already taken the following prerequisite courses.

Resource: 19 Most Affordable Master's in Organizational Psychology Online

Psychology Statistics

This course explains how and why psychologists organize, summarize, and interpret data. Students study the applications of statistical methods in field research and psychological practice. The goal is to develop a conceptual understanding of statistics to be able to read and conduct basic research. Students may learn about statistical decisions, software, journals and common interpretation fallacies. Assignments may touch on sampling theory, scales of measurement, confidence intervals, and chi-square tests.

Research Methods

This prerequisite teaches students about the strengths and weaknesses of survey, validity, reliability, correlation, observational, case-history and correlation, and regression methods. Research method topics may cover ANOVA, multiple regression, hypothesis testing and linear modeling. Research design content may overview conceptual and practical ways of testing hypothesis, variables and controlled, comparison and experimental groups. This class will prepare students for data coding, entry, collection, and processing.

Introduction to Psychology

This course introduces students to the scientific study of human behavior and cognitive processes. This will include a progressive overview of the history, methods, and development of psychology as both a science and profession. Major theorists and key figures, such as Freud, Rogers and Skinner, and all the major branches of psychology will be explored. This class usually covers the ethical and legal issues in psychology.

Social Psychology

Social psychology is the fascinating study of how an individual's thoughts, feelings and behaviors are affected by others. From another perspective, it is the scientific study of the social, personal, and situational variables that impact how an individual behaves towards other people. Some of the most popular issues discussed include obedience, prejudice, conformity, attraction, altruism, and violence. Students will learn about social psychology giants, such as Philip Zimbardo and Stanley Milgram, and their provocative and insightful social experiments.

English or Writing

A graduate-level Organizational Psychology degree program will likely expect students to have completed advanced English and writing courses. For example, this could be a technical writing course that focuses on creating documents of a scientific and medical nature. This will help students write theses, proposals, literature reviews, and feasibility studies. A business communication class will train students how to create proper reports, email, requests, and correspondence.

Specialized Psychology Courses

The field of psychology is rich with unique approaches to understanding the human mind from different perspectives. For example, personality psychology presents contemporary approaches to understanding personality through the lenses of cognitive, humanistic, behaviorist and biological science. Cognitive neuroscience surveys the structural and functional organization of the nervous system and how it impacts mental processes and behavior. Cross-culture psychology examines the theories and applications of indigenous, cultural, ethnic, and anthropological psychology.

Some degree programs may expect students to have stronger business acumen, so taking classes in law, marketing, management, communications, human resources, and business administration will be beneficial. The prerequisites of Master's in Organizational Psychology are extremely useful for helping the student to understand their advanced coursework and successfully graduate.

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