Core Courses (required)

A student's four-year course of study will obviously depend upon personal interests and goals, but there is a general pattern to all study plans in psychology. In the Lower College, students have the opportunity to explore the foundations of psychology by sampling from a range of 100- and 200-level courses. Requirements prior to Moderation include one course (preferably in the first year) among the following: General Introduction to Psychology (Psychology 103); Introduction to Developmental Psychology (111); Introduction to Social Psychology (115); and Introduction to Clinical Perspectives (141). Students who have taken AP Psychology and have received a score of 5.0 on the exam receive course credit for General Introduction to Psychology. Requirements also include a sophomore sequence consisting of Psychology 203 and 204, Introduction to Statistics and Research Design and Research Methods in Social Psychology. The introductory course is designed to give the student an overview of contemporary psychology, from any one of a variety of perspectives. The sophomore sequence provides conceptual and analytical tools necessary for advanced work in the field in the Upper College.

    · General Introduction to Psychology — Psych 103
    · Introduction to Child Development — Psych 111
    · Introduction to Social Psychology — Psych 115
    · Introduction to Clinical Perspectives — Psych 141
    · Introduction to Statistics and Research Design — Psych 203
    · Research Methods in Psychology — Psych 204
    · 300-Level Research Conferences
    · PSY 401-402 Senior Project I & II

General Introduction to Psychology
Psychology 103
A survey of the academic discipline of psychology, organized around five main questions: How do humans (and, where relevant, other animals) act? How do they know? How do they interact? How do they develop? How do they differ from one another?

Introduction to Child Development
Psychology 111
An examination, from a psychological perspective, of the cognitive, social, and motor development of children from infancy through middle childhood. The course first introduces the psychological theories of cognitive, social, and motor development that serve as its theoretical foundation and then as background examines the biological and environmental underpinnings of development, prenatal development, and birth.

Introduction to Social Psychology
Psychology 115
A consideration of the ways in which we experience ourselves and come to know others, how our attitudes and behavior are influenced by other people, and how our identities are institutionally mediated. How do we form and maintain conceptions of ourselves? How do we form and maintain impressions of others? What are the fallibilities of human reason in everyday life? What are the challenges we face in our pursuit of happiness? What role does physical beauty play in attraction? What factors promote conformity, compliance, and obedience? What is injustice, and how do people resist it in their daily lives? Under what conditions are some people likely to aid a person in distress? How are we affected by features of the physical environment around us?

Introduction to Clinical Perspectives
Psychology 141
An introduction to clinical psychology, a branch of the discipline that involves the analysis of human psychological problems and efforts to remedy them. Selected readings reveal how clinical theory has evolved from the unique intersection of personal experience, clinical observation, and research. Writers whose works are studied include Carl Rogers, Oliver Sacks, Hilde Bruch, Irving Yalom, Kay Jamison, and Martin Seligman.

Introduction to Statistics and Research Design
Psychology 203
The first semester of a one-year integrated course in applied statistics and research design that prepares students for serious work with quantitative data and introduces them to the fundamental concepts of research design. The first semester emphasizes experimental research and parametric models; the second course in the sequence, Psychology 204, focuses on correlational research and nonparametric models. The first semester includes elementary descriptive and inferential statistics from t-tests through contrasts and the analysis of covariance. Other topics covered are the rationale of basic concepts, their application, and presentation of the results of statistical analyses; the fundamentals of the logic of experimental design and methods for controlling the effects of relevant variables; and enough computer usage to establish familiarity with experimental software programs and the SPSS/PC+ statistical analysis package.

Research Methods in Psychology
Psychology 204
A continuation of Psychology 203, with the objective of extending to the area of methodology the skills and abilities students acquired in that course and offering hands-on experience in social psychological research. An understanding of research methods and design is developed through reading, class discussion, lectures, and original research. Students work together to design studies using observational studies, archival analysis, questionnaire studies, formal experiments, computerized experiments, and field studies. Student research teams conduct, report, and present two of the studies they have designed. Ethical issues relevant to each stage of the research process are discussed and students’ ability to assess research reports is developed.

300-Level Research Conferences
The 300-level Research Conference courses are typically taken in the junior and senior year. Two 300-level courses are required to fulfill major requirements. A primary goal of these courses is to provide in-depth exposure to the primary literature and to introduce new laboratory techniques. Another goal is to help students generate ideas for the senior project.

PSY 401-402 Senior Project I & II
The Senior Project is the culmination of your academic work at Bard. The psychology program typically accepts two types of projects. The first is an empirical research study, in which you actually collect some data from subjects and analyze it with regard to a set of research questions and hypotheses. The second is a critical review of a research literature on a particular question. A midway review will be conducted on the project proposal typically within the last three weeks of the semester. The project will follow the APA Publication Manual for references, graphs, figures, tables, data summary, and matters of style. With empirical projects, a detailed statistical analysis of data will be included in an appendix and the raw data and computer analysis output will be submitted on a floppy or zip disk. The final project must be submitted to the members of the board on or before the general project due date, which is set by college-wide policy and is generally three weeks before the end of the semester. More information on the senior project can be found at:
http://inside.bard.edu/psych/students/guidelines.shtml