Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Postgraduate Studentships - Search for funding opportunities.
Study Details: MSc 1 year full-time
This course offers training in the foundations of psychology, decision-making, behavioural economics and behaviour change. It will also develop your understanding of state-of-the-art methods in data science and data analytics, focusing on statistical methods, machine learning, and data visualisation.
You will gain an understanding of large-scale patterns in data, with an eye to comprehending the underlying factors driving human behaviour. This can be used to understand consumer behaviour, economics, politics, history, wellbeing, and many other large-scale patterns at national and international levels. Previous experience in behavioural science is not necessary, but you should have programming skills in at least one programming language (e.g., R, Python, Matlab, or others).
Skills from this degree
Graduates will be able to:
Applicants are required, at a minimum, to have a degree in a relevant subject, e.g. Psychology, Computer Science, Mathematics, Economics, etc., equivalent to a UK 2:1 or greater in order to be considered. As we anticipate receiving a large number of applications, preference will be given to those with the strongest quantitative or social sciences backgrounds.
Evidence of experience with programming in Python or R is also preferred—at a minimum, students should have online or university instruction in programming in at least one programming language. The MSc in Behavioural and Data Science is a quantitative degree and students should feel comfortable taking a mathematical approach to their thinking before they join the course. The course requires students to undertake programming assignments and long-form essay assignments and so requires students to be comfortable in programming and to have very good written communication skills in English.
On the MSc, we cover the use of statistics and computational approaches to make sense of behavioural data (e.g., regression, t-tests, machine learning). We cover R, Python, and Matlab programming languages for statistics and mathematical modelling. We also use maths in psychological and computer science models.
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Graduates from our MSc have followed career paths in postgraduate research and industry. Some have gone on to work on PhDs at the Alan Turing Institute and various Universities both in and outside the UK. Others have taken up positions as data scientists in industry, government, and NGOs.
Our department has a dedicated professionally qualified Senior Careers Consultant offering impartial advice and guidance together with workshops and events throughout the year.
Core modules
Students will study seven core modules across Psychology and Computer Science, including a Behavioural and Data Science project. These modules include:
Integrated Behavioural and Data Science
This module covers thinking, writing, evaluating, project planning, and methodological integration of behaviour and data science.
Issues in Psychological Science
This module covers core psychology and behavioural science content relevant to later modules in the degree, including memory, attention, perception, personality and individual differences, choice, and subjective well-being. It will provide you with the psychological background to enable you to understand and critically evaluate material on those later modules. Through a combination of lectures, seminars, and laboratory-based sessions, you will learn about both models and data in the relevant areas of psychology. You will also learn basic MATLAB programming and model implementation.
Methods and Analysis in Behavioural Science
The purpose of the module is to introduce you to experimental design and statistical programming. Behavioural scientists need statistical analysis of experimental data and of large data sets. This module covers these topics to allow you to understand how to test hypotheses, plan experimental design and perform statistical analysis using R.
Foundations of Computing
The aim of the module is to equip you with a grounding in foundations of computing, to enable students from a wider background to confidently undertake a taught Master's programme in advanced computing topics.
Data Mining
This module will help you understand the value of data mining in solving real-world problems, as well as the foundational concepts underlying data mining. You will also understand the algorithms commonly used in data mining tools to gain the ability to apply data mining tools to real-world problems.
Optional modules
You will also choose two psychology-/behavioural science-focused optional modules, and two computer/data science-focused optional modules.
Optional modules can vary from year to year. Example optional modules may include:
Psychology-/behavioural science-focused optional modules:
Computer/data science-focused optional modules:
The availability of option modules depends on several factors and cannot be guaranteed in advance. Therefore, the list above provides a sample of previously available options for illustrative purposes only.
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