1. Educational Objectives:
General requirements: The psychology major aims to train students to possess high-level psychological knowledge and technology, and to be morally, intellectually and physically mature and healthy social citizens.
The requirement details are as follows:
Students should fully understand the basic theories in psychology, master systematic and specialized knowledge in psychology and practical skills in certain subfield of psychology. Students should know well about world history, current political situations and the trends of social development. Students should qualify themselves to work as scientific researchers in psychology or professional teachers in psychology.
2. Research areas
1. General psychology
(1) Brain and Cognition
In recent years, brain and cognitive science mainly do research on perception and attention, language and creative thinking, cognitive development as well as social cognition. The research direction requires systematic training of experimental methods and skills, including programming techniques of psychological experiments, experimental designs, methods for data analyses, eye movement techniques, ERP techniques, fMRI techniques and so on.
(2)Personality and Social Psychology
Personality psychology focuses on investigating human cognitions, motives, emotions, will and behaviors from a holistic prospective, which systematically explores human nature. Personality psychology emphasizes on individuals and their differences using trait theories, biological theories, psychoanalysis, behaviorism, humanism and cognitive theories. It studies specific personality variables by using empirical methods to reveal any causal or correlational relationships.
Social psychology studies social and cultural behaviors of human beings, which attempts to develop different theoretical research and practical fields. Based on the essential theories, the history and the methods of social psychology, social psychology explores fields including social cognition, socialization, social motive, social attitude, social emotion, social behavior, international relationship, social belief, social value, group behavior, social pathological psychology and behavior, the relation of personality and culture, social development, applied social psychology, research method of social behavior and so on.
2. Developmental and Educational Psychology
(1) Socialization and personality development area:
Socialization and personality development area is an important research area in developmental psychology. It mainly studies on socialization and personality development theories and its role in individual and organizational performances. Specifically, it investigates children and adolescent socialization, peer relationship, creativity development, children and adolescent psychological counseling, family education and personality development, children development guidance, college student development and advice, aging problems, etc..
(2) Cognitive Development
This area is the basic research area in developmental psychology, which mainly focuses on the basic cognitive development of children’s and adolescent’s object cognition, social cognition, conceptulization, problem solving, and memory, investigates general questions. research issues, and cognitive developmental strategies.
(3)Learning and Teaching Psychology
This area pays attention to learning psychology under traditional and computer-based learning environments, including the relationship among motives, emotions, cognition, and self-regulated learning, how individual and environmental factors play a role in children’s learning (including family, teaching, teacher, peer factors), capabilities in problem solving and promotions in self-regulated learning. It also pays close attention to the influence of modern technologies on children’s learning, for example, children’s learning characteristics under multi-media learning, hypermedia learning and internet learning conditions.
(4)School Counseling
This area closely relates to psychological health education and practice, and introduces role functions of western school psychologists to current teaching. This area is practice oriented, and emphasizes students’ psychological and educational assessment, highlights psychological counseling practice abilities. This area includes trainings as school psychological health education scheduling, psychological course designs and drills, psychological file establishments, psychological education assessments, “researcher-practioner” training mode, school psychological counseling in specific fields.
3. Applied Psychology
Following the principle of ‘researcher-practitioner’ training mode, applied psychology aims to cultivate high-level applied and compound professionals in fields of managerial psychology, human resource management, talent evaluation, career guidance and counseling. Managerial psychology assesses individuals and groups in organizations. It researches on individuals, groups, organizations and the interaction among them by qualitative and quantitative methods, so as to promote individual and organization performances. Students should master diverse theories and techniques of staff recruitment, talents selection, performance management, salary management, psychological assistance of staff, potential development of staff and staff training.
3. Basic length of schooling and total credits
The master students are expected to stay in the program for 2 or 3 years, the minimum required credits should be 20 credits (12-16 academic hour/academic credit). Course learning will take 1 year, which includes course learning, practice and preparation of their thesis). The time for thesis is no less than 1 years. If master students have completed all required credits, finished their thesis and stayed in the programme for over 2 years, the Master students are allowed to graduate in advance.
If master students need to extend their learning time, they should not stay longer than 4 years.
4. Course Design
The courses are design and scheduled in 1-year standard, including compulsory and optional courses, see “course design tables for international Master students” for details.
5. Practice stage
1. Master students should conduct research on the basis on their course theses and degree dissertation, should take part in their adviser’s research projects or teaching projects.
2. Master students should actively participate in 16 group academic discussions including an seminar outside of CCNU, give at least 4 academic reports during semesters and give a summary presentation at the end of each semester. The adviser and the corresponding research group should evaluate whether the student is qualified.
6. Scientific Research
The master students should be trained to teach and do research at the same time, with scientific research more emphasized. The master students should be able to do independent research and should actively take part in their adviser’s research projects. The master students should promote their own theoretical and creative capabilities.
The master students are highly encouraged to publish academic papers. The published paper should be affiliated at Central China Normal University.
The opening of master dissertation should be completed by the end of the 2nd semester. The student should give a proposal presentation and pass the evaluation by the adviser board in the corresponding research group.
7. Master Dissertation
Requirements for Master Dissertation:
(1) The topic of the Master dissertation should be pioneering and theoretical or practical.
(2) The Master dissertation should provide a sufficient and appropriate analysis of related studies by previous researchers.
(3) The Master dissertation should provide rich information in the related area that is closely relevant to the dissertation.
(4) The Master dissertation should adopt appropriate research methods to study a subject, which should be described in a logic way and present variables and their relationship with others clearly. The research tool should be reliable, and the conclusion should be reasonable.
(5) The Master dissertation should be creative in either ideas, or conclusions, or methods.
(6) The Master dissertation should be completed independently by the candidate under the advice of his/her adviser.
(7) The students are expected to have an online check about the completeness of the dissertation two months before the formal defense.
(8) The defense of the dissertation should follow the rules of “Principles for Central China Normal University Degree Awarding”.
8. Education Methods
(1). The Master students should be trained under the guidance of their adviser and the area committee.
（2）. The Master students are expected to give reports at Master student academic forum, where they are provided chances to discuss with other Master students, faculty members, or discipline scientists to promote area academic activities.
（3）. The Master students should be trained by visiting other research institute or labs in domestic or international range, and learn by attending academic lectures given by domestic or international experts, broaden their vision in related area and better understand the dynamic research status worldwide.
（4）. The Master students should have opportunities to visit other universities or research institutes to collaborate with other scientists, so that their knowledge structure is promoted and their research ability is improved.
（5）. The Master students should be awarded either scholarship or prizes based on the excellence of their dissertation.
（6）. The Master candidate should be discouraged and asked to withdraw from the program if they fail in many courses or fail to pass the opening of the dissertation twice.
9. Others
1. This training proposal has been discussed and agreed by all the faculty members who are qualified to adviser Master students. It has also been approved by the Degree Assessment Committee and kept in the graduate school records.
2. All the target learning subjects suggested by this proposal should be assessed. The assessment methods and performance appraisals should follow the rules provided by “Temporary Rules of Central China Normal University Assessment and Performance Management for Graduate Students”.
3. Each Master student should propose a study plan within 5 months of their entrance, according to the training proposal in the department, his/her adviser’s suggestions, and his/her own situations. The study plan should be approved by the students’ adviser and area committee, and should be recorded in the department and the graduate school.
4. The completeness of this training proposal for each Master student is used as a standard to assess if the student is allowed to graduate and awarded a degree.
Courses Lectured in English for International MSc students in Psychology
Course Type |
Course Name |
Semester |
Hours |
Credits |
Remark |
Compulsory |
Cross-Cultural Psychology and application |
1 |
42 |
3 |
|
Educational Psychology |
1 |
42 |
3 |
|
Psychological Measurement and testing |
1 |
42 |
3 |
|
Physiological Psychology |
1 |
42 |
3 |
|
Psychological Statistics and SPSS |
2 |
64 |
4 |
|
Research Methods in Experimental Psychology |
2 |
24 |
2 |
|
Academic Writing in Psychology |
1&2 |
48 |
3 |
|
Optional |
Clinical Psychology |
2 |
30 |
3 |
|
Abnormal Psychology |
2 |
24 |
2 |
General Psychology (Part I) |
1 |
45 |
3 |
General Psychology (Part II) |
2 |
45 |
3 |
Developmental Psychology |
2 |
48 |
3 |
Cognitive Psychology |
1 |
48 |
3 |
Experimental Psychology |
1&2 |
56 |
3 |
Practice |
Academic Discussions |
|
|
2 |
|
General Psychology (Optional class @ all)
TIME: Monday 2pm-4.45pm (5th-20th week) Room No.:8 BLDG 205
Thursday 8am-9.40am (6th-20th week, even) Room No.:8 BLDG 205
Lecturer: Professor WANG Fuxing & Professor TANG Yun
