The Psychology Major at York College
The curriculum for psychology majors has been designed to provide you with content knowledge
and skills such as critical thinking.
Content Knowledge
Content knowledge is comprised of theories, research findings, and applications in various
subdisciplines in psychology.

You will be introduced to the subdisciplines in PSY150 Introduction to Psychology.

The upper level area courses will give you more in-depth information about the
subdisciplines. These include PSY 210, 300-level courses except 370, and PSY 441.
Essential Skills and Tools
The essential skills and tools are to be used in the upper level psychology courses, but many are
also generalizable to other disciplines and other aspects of your life.

The essential skills and tools will be formally introduces in the course PSY200
Essential Skills and Tools in Psychology.

The skills will be further developed in your upper level courses. Not every course
will address each of the skills, but most will require use of several of them.

Your Senior Seminar course will have you review your Portfolio of papers from your
courses to assess your development in a number of these skills; and as the
culmination of all of your coursework, the Seminar will also require use of a majority
of the skills.
What are the essential skills and tools?
Skills
Basic Skills:
Critical Thinking
Critical Reading
Writing (APA style)
Oral Presentation (Paper and Poster)
Using Sources of Information:
Identify types of sources (Primary
v. secondary; empirical v.
review versus theoretical)
Locate sources
Read and understand different types
of sources
Summarize and analyze information
Integrate information from different
sources
Evaluate information
Creative skills: Create hypotheses, research
designs, concepts, critiques, theories,
applications
Research data skills: Collect, code, and
statistically analyze data; Interpret
and apply results
Transfer of Knowledge (see relationships
and use knowledge in new ways)
Tools
APA Editorial Style Manual
Professional texts, journals, and other
library materials
PsycInfo or other database search engines
SPSS (Statistical software)
Webpages (Faculty, APA, etc.)
Advising materials (Advising Guide,
checksheet, portfolio)
Relationships among courses and skills
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
PSY 150: Introduction to Psychology. Introduction to the content of psychology,
broken down into subdisciplines.
PSY 200: Essential Skills and Tools in Psychology. Formal introduction and
opportunity to practice all the skills and tools. Forms the foundation for all the upper
level courses.
PSY 270, 271, 370: Design and Analysis I, II, III. Three-semesters of research which
emphasizes a majority of the skills and tools, especially as they pertain to the original
empirical research experiment conducted by each student.
PSY 210, 300-level courses, and 441: Subdisciplines of psychology. These courses
will provide immersion in the content of each subdiscipline but will also provide the
opportunity to further develop some of the skills, particularly writing, critical thinking
and reading, and using sources. Some courses emphasize theory (e.g. PSY 345
Personality; 441 Counseling Theories) more than others.
PSY 472: History and Systems: A course which describes the philosophical and
other roots of the discipline and how the history of psychology has evolved. This
course refers to many subdisciplines and makes use of several skills.
PSY 490: Senior Seminar: This course is a culmination of the psychology
curriculum. It is an opportunity to integrate and further extend knowledge and refine
skills from previous courses.
PSY 420/421; 431/432; and 498/499: These upper level courses allow students to
pursue more individualized study, particularly to refine interests and acquire
experience to continue work in psychology after graduation. Depending upon the
course, a majority of the essential skills and tools may be demanded.
A listing of courses that will best suit those wishing to pursue a career in the mental health
field is available http://goose.ycp.edu/~jengler under the advising link.
Those wishing to pursue graduate study in a field other than clinical/counseling/social work,
such as Cognitive, Social, or Neuropsych, should speak with your advisor and the faculty
member whose own training most closely matches your interests to plan coursework and
other activities.