Graduate Diploma in Psychology (Advanced)

This subject provides an introduction to multivariate data analysis in the behavioural and social sciences, including the nature, rationale and application of a number of widely used multivariate data analysis models. For each model, issues covered include the nature of the model and its assumptions; situations in which the model might be applied; diagnostics for model adequacy; estimation and inference; interpretation; the use of the software package SPSS for model-fitting. Models will be selected from multiple regression; logistic regression; an introduction to path analysis and structural equation modelling; multivariate analysis of variance and discriminant analysis; multilevel models; principal components analysis and factor analysis; models for multivariate categorical data; cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling.

The first two lectures/tutorials of the subject will be taught on one day (six hours) in Orientation Week, thereby allowing students time to work on assessment tasks at the beginning of the semester.

In this subject, students develop the knowledge and skills to prepare them for professional practice in psychology, focusing on ethical and evidence-based practice grounded in the scientist-practitioner model.

Students will learn about the ethical codes that govern psychological research and practice, and apply these in varied contexts and scenarios, incorporating relevant legal frameworks relating to privacy and human rights.  Students will also be given the opportunity to learn and practice foundational interviewing and behaviour change skills used in varied contexts, and will observe and practice pre-professional skills in the implementation and interpretation of some of the most commonly used tests of cognition and personality.

Evidence-based practice is emphasised as  a core ethical issue in psychological practice. Framed within the 'scientist-practitioner' model, it provides a means of evaluating the efficacy of psychological interventions. Students will gain an understanding of the theoretical and empirical bases of psychological assessment and intervention, and will learn to critically analyse the assumptions underlying different approaches to psychological research and evidence-based practice, including assumptions relating to the applicability of psychological interventions and tests across cultures. Special consideration is given to developing sensitivity to working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

This subject runs over two semesters (25 credit points per semester). There are no scheduled classes for this subject. Instead students meet regularly with their supervisor and undertake a research project to obtain experience in all aspects of conducting and reporting an empirical research project. The thesis project will be submitted as two documents. The first comprises a draft introduction to the research report submitted as a hurdle requirement for formative feedback from the supervisor at the beginning of Semester 2. The second comprises a 9000 word research report submitted at the end of Semester 2, worth 100% of the marks for the subject.

The subject aims to provide students with the ability to critically review advances in developmental psychological research by analysing answers to questions about how best to conceptualise the impact of genetic, biological, neurological, cognitive, affective, interpersonal, social and cultural factors on the developing child.

Five themes/questions reoccur in the subject:

• What is the correspondence between developmental models and the research methods used to evaluate those models?
• What are the social and policy implications of contemporary research findings?
• What are typical and/or atypical developmental trajectories within and across cultures?
• How should the impact of the interaction between social and more biologically-based factors be characterised?
• What is the validity and/or reliability of developmental assessment procedures?

This subject is designed to cover recent theoretical and empirical developments in social and personality psychology, to provide students with an opportunity to examine up-to-date research critically, and to develop new research ideas. Topics will be selected from social cognition, attitudes, self and identity, personality and individual differences, emotion, interpersonal and group processes, and applications of social and personality psychology.

Behavioural and Cognitive Neuroscience brings together the experimental and modelling techniques of cognitive psychology with the measurement and imaging methods of neuroscience to explain how mental processes such as perceptions, memories, and thoughts are implemented in the living, functioning brain.

 This subject comprises a series of seminars exploring the mind-brain as a system that can be investigated and explained at different scales and levels of complexity, from single-cell recordings of firing neurons, to the modular systems involved in visual, spatial and auditory cognition, to the networks of neural circuits that link regions of the brain and underpin complex cognitive processes involved in attention, learning, memory, language, decision-making, and consciousness. The seminars may also explore the ways in which neuroscience informs our understanding of how behaviour, cognition and neurobiology are influenced by internal and external factors such as emotions and personality traits, pharmacological substances, sleep states of consciousness, and psychopathology.

 Students will gain an appreciation of the integrative nature of cognitive and behavioural neurosciences, and of the range of methods used within the field, including methods for stimulating and recording from living neurons, methods for imaging brain structure and functioning, and techniques for modelling cognitive processes and mapping these to the underlying neural circuitry. Students will learn to evaluate the strengths and limitations of the various methods, and to assess their applicability for addressing particular research questions.

This subject is designed to introduce students to the development and testing of models for psychological data, with a focus on models of human cognition. Quantitative data is a feature of all areas of psychology and can only be interpreted by use of an appropriate model. Modelling in psychology has two aims. The first is to find a quantitative description that accurately captures the data. The second is to test competing hypotheses about the psychological processes that generated the data. The methods of psychological modelling will be introduced and illustrated in selected areas of cognitive psychology.

The subject comprises a series of nine two-hour seminars covering the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological issues involved in developing and evaluating quantitative models of human cognitive performance. The seminars are complemented by nine two-hour laboratory classes in which students will learn how to use the modelling language Matlab to fit, visualise, and evaluate models of data from specific cognitive domains, such as attention, categorisation, and decision making.