Northern Illinois University
Department of Psychology
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Several core Psychology courses are designated by the Department. All graduate students in the Department must complete three of them. See the Psychology Department Graduate Student Manual for a full listing of qualifying courses.

Students gain a basic understanding of Social and Industrial/Organizational Psychology as well as Quantitative Methods by completing a set of core courses that are common to all students in the area. These courses must be completed prior to completing the Ph.D.:

• PSYC 616    Organizational Psychology
• PSYC 620    Experimental Social Psychology
• PSYC 604    Analysis of Variance
• PSYC 605    Research Ethics and Professional Issues in Organizations
• PSYC 606    Regression
• PSYC 607    Psychometrics

Each student’s focus determines the remainder of their coursework. Students complete an additional three courses in their major area of emphasis, one in their minor area, and one in tools/quantitative methods. Here are examples of elective courses in each of the subfields:

Social Elective Courses

• PSYC 613    Evolutionary Psychology
• PSYC 621    Small Group Behavior
• PSYC 624    Attitude Change
• PSYC 625    Social Cognition
• PSYC 626    The Social Self
• PSYC 631    Motivation
• PSYC 670E  Social Neuroscience
• PSYC 671J   Seminar in Social Psychology

Industrial/Organizational Elective Courses

• PSYC 615     Personnel Psychology
• PSYC 617     Individual Assessment within Organizational Settings
• PSYC 619     Psychology of Organizational Development  and Training
• PSYC 623     Occupational Health Psychology
• PSYC 652     Practicum in I/O Psychology
• PSYC 671J    Performance Appraisals

Quantitative Methods and Tools Courses (or equivalents from other departments)

• PSYC 618     Evaluation Research (in preparation)
• PSYC 710     Multivariate Statistics
• PSYC 712     Structural Equation Modeling
• PSYC 714     Meta-Analysis
• PSYC 671J    Multi-Level Modeling

Additional Ph.D. Requirements

Students are STRONGLY encouraged to go well beyond the minimums and take as much coursework as they can so that they become as knowledgeable as possible. This includes tools/quantitative methods courses.

After completing the M.A., students must acquire Ph.D. candidacy to continue toward the Ph.D. degree. Successful candidacy requirements include:

• Completion of the M.A. degree
• Passing the candidacy exam (end of third year in program)
• Sustained research activities beyond the degree-bearing projects
• A positive vote by area faculty

Per department guidelines, students must acquire a total of 90 credit hours (including M.A. credits) to graduate with a Ph.D. Students must complete 18-24 credit hours of PSYC 799 (Dissertation hours). The Social-I/O Program also requires continued enrollment in PSYC 690 until all Ph.D. requirements have been met.