Psychology

Program Code: SAC.PSYC.AA

Program Control Number: 04247

The associate degree in psychology prepares students to move into a curriculum at a four-year institution leading to a baccalaureate degree for specialization in any of more than twenty branches of psychology including child, clinical, personal, vocational and marriage counseling, industrial, mental health, and college teaching. Completion of the two-year program is appropriate for students whose career plans include helping people, e.g., teaching, social welfare, probation, criminology, nursing, law, or personnel work. Consult a counselor for information about course requirements for specific universities.

Learning Outcome(s):

1. Demonstrate familiarity with the major concepts, theoretical perspectives, research methods, core empirical findings, career pathways, and historic trends in psychology.
2. Understand the impact of diversity on psychological research, theory and application, including (but not limited to): age, race, ethnicity, culture, gender, socio-economic status, disability, and sexual orientation.
3. Have an understanding of the relationship between biology and psychological processes as it relates to typical, atypical, and psychopathological behavior and mental processes.
4. Be able to think critically and objectively, problem-solve, and employ the scientific method of inquiry to address psychological questions.
5. Be able to conduct academic research, understand the logic of statistical methods, and determine the validity and relevance of the research literature.
6. Be able to conduct descriptive and inferential statistics on data sets, understand the logic of hypothesis testing and apply this logic to the evaluation and interpretation of research data and findings.
7. Have an understanding of the logic of hypothesis testing and apply this logic to the evaluation and interpretation of research data and findings.
8. Be able adequately distinguishing between primary and secondary sources and communicate in writing using the standards and conventions of the American Psychological Association.