If you find yourself with a passion for better understanding human behaviour but didn't take a degree in Psychology, this course is for you. Now is your time to convert with our online MSc Psychology Conversion course. On successful completion, move onto one of our specialist MSc courses, fast-tracking you into your dream Psychology career.
Develop a scientific understanding of the mind, brain, behaviour and experience, and how they interact with the complex environments in which they are situated. By taking modules in Social, Brain and Cognition, Development, and Mental Health, you'll be supported in, and inspired to take on your own research in an area that interests you.
This course is designed to be delivered entirely online, including lectures, seminars, project work, tests and presentations.
This course is accredited by The British Psychological Society (BPS).
All applications are considered on an individual basis and additional qualifications, professional qualifications and relevant experience may also be taken into account when considering applications.
All applicants are considered on an individual basis and additional qualifications, professional qualifications and relevant experience may also be taken into account when considering applications.
Please see our International Student website for entry requirements by country and other relevant information. Due to visa restrictions, students who require a student visa to study cannot study part-time unless undertaking a distance or blended-learning programme with no on-campus provision.
This course requires a Good level of English language, equivalent to B2 on CEFR.
Details on how to meet this requirement can be found on our English Language requirements webpage.
Examples:
IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component
PTE Academic 63 with a minimum of 59 in each sub-test
A degree from a UK university
A degree from a Majority English Speaking Country
Please note that if you are required to meet an English language condition, we offer a number of pre-sessional courses in English for Academic Purposes through Kent International Pathways.
We’ve created the most progressive approach to higher education, developing and modernising our curriculum. For 2025 our courses will be designed with you at their heart to deliver a top-class student experience and career outcomes.
The following modules are what students will typically study, but this may change year to year in response to new developments and innovations.
How do our early experiences shape us into the people we are today? Are we simply a product of our genetics or does the environment we grow up in impact the way we think and behave? In studying Developmental Psychology, you will begin to answer these questions and more. This module will help you understand the crucial factors that influence us from before birth, through infancy and childhood, and into adolescence. Through engaging with key theories and methods you will gain an in-depth understanding of how biological and cultural factors impact every child’s development, alongside developing key skills for a career in Psychology or further afield.
In this module, you will learn about the different types of data and research methods that inform Psychological Science. Drawing on your diverse academic backgrounds, you will apply your critical and analytical skills to the design and interpretation of research. This will be achieved by giving you several opportunities to work with both qualitative and quantitative data from its collection to its analyses, and how these data can be used to answer fundamental questions about human behaviour. From these learning experiences you will also develop key skills in communicating research findings, their limitations, and their real-world implications.
How do we study the brain and how it relates to cognition and behaviour? This module gives you grounding in methods, techniques and issues in cognitive neuroscience. It will focus on the biological bases of human behaviour (neural development and plasticity; anatomy and physiology of the nervous system), and on key cognitive processes such as perception, memory and higher levels of cognition with a particular focus on how these processes are instantiated in the brain. You will learn about the methods used to study and modulate these processes, such as the recording of physiological signals, brain-imaging, brain stimulation and psychopharmacology. With the seminars you will gain familiarity with key contemporary research topics and methods in Cognitive and Biological Psychology and will develop fundamental critical reflection skills through the discussion of scientific research articles. The seminars will also provide opportunities for students to train in verbal presentation, a core skill to learn not only in academia but in almost all graduate careers.
What does it mean to be mentally healthy? What are the origins of common mental illnesses and how can they be treated? What professional and social assumptions are baked into our understanding of psychological wellbeing? This module explores these and other key questions in the field of mental health. By covering advanced material on some of the most common mental health conditions, focusing on their social, cognitive, and biological underpinnings, you will understand the interconnections between behaviour, mood and behaviours. This module will empower you to critically evaluate different approaches to assessment and intervention, and to ask fundamental questions about the meaning of normality.
How do we come to be who we are? Why do we show such a sheer variety in the ways we relate to ourselves, each other, and the social world? And why does this matter in everyday life? By introducing you to the major scientific discoveries in personality and social psychology, you’ll learn what personality is, why it differs between people, and how social situations and intergroup dynamics can bring out the best and worst in people. Using fascinating real-life examples, the module introduces you to classic concepts and research as well as emerging areas in personality and social psychology. You will learn about their relevance to everyday life, and inevitably, you will learn something about yourself.
Research forms the cornerstone of how we solve psychological problems. You will identify a burning question from a range of psychological sub-disciplines and design a research study that addresses the question using appropriate methodologies. This module will give you the skills to conduct research and communicate research in various forms. You will have the unique opportunity to conduct your research project under the supervision of experts across a range of psychological sub-disciplines. The skills learned in this module will prepare you for the completion of your dissertation and future as psychologists.
Students who have not completed an undergraduate degree in psychology work individually or in groups to identify a gap in the literature, design a study to fill that gap, collect data where appropriate and write up their findings. This work will be an opportunity to use all the research skills they have developed over this programme of study. Students will have an academic member of staff as a Project Supervisor. The area of research students work on will depend on their interests and those of their selected supervisor.
This course is designed to be delivered entirely online, including lectures, seminars, project work, tests and presentations. Assessment through essay work, examinations, presentations, coursework and a research report.
For course aims and learning outcomes please see the course specification.
The School has excellent facilities for both laboratory and field research, including advanced laboratory and teaching facilities. Resources include:
Staff publish regularly and widely in journals, conference proceedings and books. Among others, they have recently contributed to: Journal of Experimental Social Psychology; Journal of Personality and Social Psychology; Child Development; Clinical Psychology Review. Details of recently published books can be found within the staff research interests.
All students registered for a taught Master's programme are eligible to apply for a place on our Global Skills Award Programme. The programme is designed to broaden your understanding of global issues and current affairs as well as to develop personal skills which will enhance your employability.
The School is highly regarded as a leading European centre for postgraduate research, with an international reputation for excellence in social psychology (including group processes and intergroup relations); cognition and neuroscience; developmental psychology; and forensic psychology. We have staff who can supervise research degrees in all of these areas. The research environment is designed to sustain a strong, vibrant research culture, encourage collaboration, and unite staff and students with shared research interests. Our themes ensure critical mass and create a highly energetic and stimulating intellectual climate.
Research activity is supported by:
Forensic Psychology research at Kent and all forensic-related teaching operates through our newly constituted Centre of Research and Education in Forensic Psychology (CORE-FP). Current research is focused on bullying in prisons, prison gang behaviour, jury decision-making, child sexual offending, rape, rape proclivity, female sexual offending, theories of offender rehabilitation, firesetting, sexual harassment, violence, aggression and alcohol, and the infrahumanisation of offenders. Other areas of research include social cognition, social and moral emotion, and group process theory, all of which are applied to the study of offending behaviour or court process issues.
Forensic psychology research at Kent is funded by various national and international sources, which include: The British Academy, Economic and Social Research Council, Home Office, Leverhulme, Ministry of Justice and the Nuffield Foundation.
Research may be carried out with staff or offenders/ex-offenders in a variety of settings, including prisons, youth offender institutions, secure mental health units and probation offices. Alternatively, research may take place with students or members of the community in our newly equipped laboratories.
Much of our social psychology research is co-ordinated through the Centre for the Study of Group Processes (CSGP), the largest research group in this area in Europe. CSGP attracts a stream of major international social psychology researchers, who are officially affiliated to the Centre and visit regularly to work with our staff. The Social Psychology group also includes the co-editor of Group Processes and Intergroup Relations (Abrams).
Social psychology research at Kent is funded by a variety of British and international sources, currently and recently including ESRC, British Academy, Leverhulme, Age Concern, European Commission, European Science Foundation, Home Office, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Nuffield, and Joseph Rowntree Foundation, as well as government departments such as the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Department for Work and Pensions.
The Social Psychology group includes the following themes:
This research is carried out in our social psychology laboratories, at schools and in business organisations. For example, research within this topic focuses on questions such as: how contact between members of different social groups is represented psychologically, how intergroup contact affects prejudice, when outgroups are seen as less human, when and why children show prejudice, and why organisational mergers sometimes fail.
Research on this topic combines theory-driven research and engagement with policy. It is conducted in real-life settings such as the workplace, and involves national and international surveys. For example, the research focuses on the well-being of elderly people in Britain, work participation and motherhood, and discrimination against different groups in society.
Laboratory studies and community-based research are conducted on this topic. For example, research focuses on co-operation in small groups, group decision-making, perception and influence of leaders, social communication and language, subjective group dynamics in adults and children, the dynamics of prison gang activity, and the impact of alcohol on group processes.
Much of this research is carried out in laboratories, through surveys and in clinical or other applied settings. For example, research has examined aggression, the adaptive functions of perfectionism, and consequences of mortality salience.
Research under this theme has an international reputation in the topic areas of Visual Cognition, Attention and Memory, and Language and Communication.
Research on this topic focuses primarily on the role of vision and visual perception in human performance. The fundamental aim of this work is to identify the cognitive processes and neurological mechanisms underlying various visual tasks. Studies involving neurologically healthy volunteers examine issues such as face recognition and identification, eyewitness testimony, person detection, emotion processing, episodic memory and pattern and motion recognition.
Research in this group examines various aspects of semantic, pragmatic and syntactic understanding. Research questions on healthy populations include the role of executive functions in successful language use and communication, how language influences attentional processes and perspective taking, anomaly detection, and the effect of interruptions on reading. Work on developmental populations examines issues such as how children learn to understand and produce sentences in their own language, and how they learn conversational conventions and self-repair. Research also examines developmental disorders of communication, including autism spectrum disorders and dyslexia.
Much of the research conducted by members of the Developmental Psychology group is conducted with neurotypical infants, children, and adolescents. However, we also take a lifespan approach to the study of development and conduct research with older adults. Moreover, a key focus of our research is on neuro-developmental disorders. Central research topics include:
Developmental group members are particularly interested in the expression and control of ethnic and gender prejudice, social ostracism and inclusion, conversational norms and group identity in children. We also conduct research on social aspects of older adulthood, in particular self-stereotyping and prejudice against elderly people.
Cognitive development is a major focus of many of our developmental psychologists. In particular, members of the Developmental Psychology group actively research topics such as the development of social cognition and theory of mind, language, information and sensory processing, and conversation and pragmatic skills.
Our developmental research also focuses on adolescence, as well as infancy, childhood and older adulthood. In particular, we are interested in the emergence of gang activity and antisocial behaviour during this period of development.
We also conduct cutting-edge research into neuro-developmental disorders, such as autism and language impairment, with a view to understanding the nature and basis of, and best ways to treat, these disorders.
The Centre for the Study of Group Processes (CSGP) was set up in 1990 to consolidate the School’s excellent international reputation for social psychological research into group processes and intergroup relations. CSGP is now a thriving international research community, including 15 full-time academic staff and a large number of research fellows and PhD students. The Centre also attracts a stream of major international group researchers, who are officially affiliated to it and regularly visit to work with our staff. The Centre also edits an international journal, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations.
The main aim of the Centre of Research and Education in Forensic Psychology is to conduct high-impact psychological research to further understand key forensic issues of social significance, and to lead to cutting-edge teaching and research opportunities for postgraduate students. Forensic psychology is an extremely popular and rapidly developing branch of psychology that seeks to understand the psychological processes underlying offending behaviour (including group processes), the reduction and supervision of offending behaviour (ie rehabilitation, treatment and management of community risk), victim responses to offending, the mechanisms underlying the criminal justice system more generally (ie jury decision-making and the courts), and attitudes to offenders and offender reintegration in society.
Our postgraduate students commonly go into the fields of health, teaching or further education. For instance, many of our graduates take up roles as assistant psychologists in the NHS with a view to becoming a professional clinical or forensic psychologist. Upon completing our Master’s courses, graduates have also pursued doctoral study and academic careers at higher education institutions.
The programmes we offer help you to develop general critical, analytic and problem-solving skills that can be applied in a wide range of settings.
All of our taught Master’s (MSc) programmes have been recognised by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) as meeting the nationally recognised criteria for preparation training for PhD research.
The MSc Psychology Conversion course at Kent is accredited by The British Psychological Society.
Please note that only students who gain a mark of 40% or above in every module, with an overall mark of at least 50%, are eligible for accreditation by the British Psychological Society.
The 2025/26 annual tuition fees for this course are:
For details of when and how to pay fees and charges, please see our Student Finance Guide.
Tuition fees may be increased in the second and subsequent years of your course. Detailed information on possible future increases in tuition fees is contained in the Tuition Fees Increase Policy. If you are uncertain about your fee status please contact information@kent.ac.uk.
The University will assess your fee status as part of the application process. If you are uncertain about your fee status you may wish to seek advice from UKCISA before applying.
For details of when and how to pay fees and charges, please see our Student Finance Guide.
Tuition fees may be increased in the second and subsequent years of your course. Detailed information on possible future increases in tuition fees is contained in the Tuition Fees Increase Policy. If you are uncertain about your fee status please contact information@kent.ac.uk.
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Next steps
Learn more about the application process or begin your application by clicking on a link below.
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