Masters Degrees in Organisational Psychology, Netherlands

The track Work and Organizational Psychology concentrates on sciencebased solutions to human problems in work and organizational settings. It aims to understand how to achieve each of the following objectives: optimizing performance, improving processes and relationships, enhancing fairness and equity, and increasing subjective well-being.

The European Network of Work and Organizational Psychology (ENOP) developed a reference model and standards for a curriculum in Work & Organizational Psychology. According to the ENOP model, the main areas to be considered are Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology. The track Work and Organizational Psychology adheres to these standards as far as possible, and offers a study program that deals with the most important topics in Work & Organizational Psychology at the individual, task, group and organizational level.

The program

Work and Organizational Psychology is a field with both a strong scientific base and an applied orientation. Thus, the program connects psychological theory and application whereby theoretical concepts are shown to lead to useful interventions. In each of the areas of Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology, the program seeks to develop two types of knowledge and skills: explanatory and intervention.

Explanatory refers to theory devoted to the explanation of (the context of) human behavior and to diagnostic skills in work, organization, and personnel fields. This will prepare you to assess, diagnose, explain, and interpret phenomena and processes in the areas of work, organizations and personnel.

Intervention refers to change theory and intervention skills in work, organizational and personnel settings. This will prepare you to plan, implement, monitor, and evaluate changes and interventions to improve behaviors, situations, and social processes in the fields of work, organizations, and personnel. This type of knowledge also prepares you to design new models, methods, and tools. The two types of knowledge and skills will be integrated as much as possible within the various courses.

Career Perspective Social Psychology

With an MSc in Social Psychology, you can work in positions at an academic level in research, communication, policy, consulting, human development and organization development in private, semi-private or governmental organizations. With this MSc, you are able to conduct theoretical and applied research to advance scientific knowledge in the areas of social, economic and work and organizational psychology. You are also able to contribute to many applied fields, because you will be able to develop tools and interventions to solve practical problems in the areas of social, economic and work and organizational psychology and to research the effectiveness thereof.

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Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology focuses on the behaviour, attitudes, cognitions and feelings of people in the organizational context.

The study of Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology includes topics that have clear relevance for the understanding of a variety of situations that occur in the organizational context and in which intra-individual, inter-individual, or intragroup processes play a central role. Examples include leadership and power, productivity, innovation, motivation, decision-making, skill acquisition and training.

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IMPROVING LEARNING, EDUCATION AND TRAINING

Better education and training for all are of the utmost importance when it comes to developing our society. In this Master’s programme, you will learn to develop, evaluate and improve learning processes and learning environments from a variety of theoretical perspectives. You will do so by means of state-of-the-art methods and approaches in several different contexts; from a classroom setting to the non-profit and commercial sectors, and with a focus on people in all phases of life. This means that the person doing the learning may be a pupil, student or employee, but also a lecturer, educator or trainer, depending on the context. During the study programme, you will learn to optimise learning environments so that they meet the needs of the learners themselves and of society as a whole.

During the programme you will master an academic educational scientific and systematic approach. You will acquire and further develop theoretical knowledge of:

• instruction design, including
• e-learning
• educational psychology
• assessment and evaluation
• change management in organisations
• professtional development and Human Resource Development (HRD)
• research methods and skills

What can you expect?

1. Focus on learning and learning environments
2. Training on how to conduct research
3. Strong link between theory and practice
4. Multidisciplinary, international orientation
5. Ties to social issues and involvement from professional practice
6. Specialisation through electives

Read more about these characteristics under ‘Why in Utrecht?’

Variants

This Master’s programme is offered in a full-time variant (average of 40 hours of study per week) or a part-time variant (average of 20 hours of study per week).

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