Program Qualifications
Program Overview
The Department of Psychology aims at producing theoretical and applied research, scholarship, and teaching at a quality that meets and even exceeds the national and international academic standards and at addressing issues that are relevant to national and human development. The Department seeks active participation of the students in such research projects, to help them gain first-hand experience in conducting research and to familiarize them with issues that are of concern to human development.
The department expects the students to gain knowledge in almost all fields of psychology and to be aware of different approaches to psychology. The interests of the faculty include a wide range of areas such as cognitive, social, social-cognitive, cross-cultural, organizational, developmental, clinical psychology, and psychology of language. Students get a chance to actively participate in national and international research projects that are conducted by our faculty. The department also regularly invites leading national and international scholars in psychology to introduce students to the field at large.
Psychology Graduate Program offers the four research tracks in the following areas:
- Clinical Psychological Science
- Cognitive Psychology
- Developmental Psychology
- Social I/O Psychology
Program Outcomes:
- To master the basic concepts of psychology, to have the ability to apply these concepts to professional practices.
- To learn objective methods to study human behaviour, feelings and thoughts, to conduct scientific studies applying these methods.
- To develop awareness of the social psychological problems, and an ability to formulate knowledge and solutions to such problems.
- To develop skills in critical and analytical thinking.
- Developing effective written and spoken communication skills and working effectively both individually and in a team.
- To know the professional limits, competencies and professional responsibilities, to apply the rules of professional ethics and values in their studies.
- Identify and analyse current problems in psychology and in related fields
- Knowing the psychological approaches and methods used in chosen field of study, preparing unique scientific work and publishing original articles on psychological disorders according to the field of expertise.
- To understand the relationship of psychology with other disciplines.
Occupational Profiles of Graduates
Graduates of Koç University Psychology graduate programs can continue their academic careers in Türkiye and abroad. And they also will be previliged to work in hospitals, rest homes and rehabilitation centers, schools, courses, prisons and human resources departments.
Courses
| PSYC 501 / RESEARCH METHODS I | Review of descriptive statistics and basic research methodology. Experimental methods and research design including one-way analyses, factorial designs, repeated measures, analysis of covariance, and the analyses of main effects, simple effects and interaction comparisons. Research and publication ethics. |
| PSYC 502 / RESEARCH METHODS II | Building on the content of PSYC 501, further advanced research methods are presented. These include problems in multivariate regression analysis, multivariate analysis of nominal and ordinal data, structural equation models, and methods for analyzing longitudinal data. In addition, students learn how to choose appropriate methodology for a variety of research problems. |
| PSYC 503 / CURRENT TOPICS IN PSYCHOLOGY | Discussion of recent research by faculty and other invited speakers, and cross-fertilization of ideas, research topics as well as methodological approaches are emphasized. |
| PSYC 504 / TESTING AND MEASUREMENT | A review of basics of psychological measurement; all steps of the process of assessment development; different methods of psychological assessment such as observational, self-administered, and interview techniques; and, ways of integrating information from multiple assessment methods are discussed. Students work with applications and discuss greater cultural, ethical, and societal context of psychological measurement. |
| PSYC 508 / HUMAN MEMORY | Theories of memory, methods of studying memory processes, the relationship between memory and other processes and contemporary research in memory. |
| PSYC 511 / COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE | A broad overview of the neural bases of cognition. Basic neuroanatomy, a description of the neuroscience methods, and a survey of fundamental topics such as neural basis of vision, executive function, learning and memory, attention, emotion, thinking and problem solving, and social cognition. |
| PSYC 513 / ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR | Human behavior and interpersonal relations as they occur in organizational context, particularly work teams. |
| PSYC 521 / COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT | This course will review current research and theoretical issues about cognitive development. Major research areas that will be covered are theory of mind, joint attention, language, memory, numerical cognition, social cognition, and implications of atypical cognitive development. Interfaces with socioemotional development will also be emphasized. |
| PSYC 526 / COGNITIVE MODELS AND THEORIES | History of cognitive psychology, models and theories about basic cognitive processes and the relationship of these theoretical approaches to attention, memory, knowledge representation, information processing, and problem solving, different approaches and methods to conceptualization of human mind. |
| PSYC 527 / CONDITIONING AND LEARNING | A detailed study of major theories in the area of conditioning and learning. Topics covered include habituation, sensitization, classical conditioning, instrumental conditioning, stimulus control, aversive control, extinction, and motivation. In addition, the neural basis of these behavioral processes and the experimental paradigms are described in detail. |
| PSYC 590 / SEMINAR | A series of presentations by faculty, outside speakers and students. |
| PSYC 595 / THESIS |
Course & Program Outcomes Matrix
| Courses | L1 | L2 | L3 | L4 | L5 | L6 | L7 | L8 | L9 |
| PSYC 501 / RESEARCH METHODS I | x | x | x | x | |||||
| PSYC 502 / RESEARCH METHODS II | x | x | x | x | |||||
| PSYC 503 / CURRENT TOPICS IN PSYCHOLOGY | x | x | x | x | x | x | |||
| PSYC 504 / TESTING AND MEASUREMENT | x | x | x | x | x | ||||
| PSYC 508 / HUMAN MEMORY | x | x | x | x | |||||
| PSYC 511 / COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE | x | x | x | x | x | ||||
| PSYC 513 / ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR | x | x | x | x | x | x | |||
| PSYC 521 / COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT | x | x | x | x | |||||
| PSYC 526 / COGNITIVE MODELS AND THEORIES | x | x | x | x | x | x | |||
| PSYC 527 / CONDITIONING AND LEARNING | x | x | x | x | |||||
| PSYC 590 / SEMINAR | x | x | x | x | x | ||||
| PSYC 595 / THESIS | x | x | x | x | x | x |