Psychology – (Ph.D.)

Under the PhD and NRPhD programmes, you may also be supervised in areas of Cognitive Psychology and Developmental Psychology.

The breadth of our research interests allows us to offer supervision of research degrees in a number of areas of psychology, including: social psychology (eg social attitudes and social cognition as well as specific topics within the Centre for the Study of Group Processes, such as discrimination, social attitudes, social influence and group decision-making); developmental psychology (including children's and adolescents' prejudices, peer exclusion, visual and language processing in children and infants); forensic psychology (eg gangs, sexual abuse, prisons, policing, psychology and law); cognitive psychology (eg human-computer interaction; vision; language; face processing; cognitive neuropsychology); existential psychology; personality and motivation. You should send an outline of your proposed research with your application form.

The New Route PhD is a special option for students who wish to commit to a programme combining taught and research elements. New Route PhD is a four-year degree that spreads the coursework of one of our taught MSc programmes throughout the first two years of registration, but otherwise proceeds as a normal doctorate.

Your research will be supported by a supervisory panel which will include a main supervisor and a secondary supervisor. Who you have as supervisors is decided by the compatibility between your own and the available supervisors' research interests. Typically, you meet with your supervisors more frequently at the initial stages of research than during the phases of data collection and analysis.

We also provide substantial additional training for our doctoral students. As a doctoral student, if you have not already successfully completed an advanced statistics and methods course, in your first year you will need to take the Advanced Statistics and Methodology module from the taught MSc. Doctoral students at Kent are also provided with training in research-specific and broader ‘transferable' skills, including academic writing, career management and presentation skills. Doctoral students also have the opportunity to train for an advanced teaching qualification (ATAP).

During term time, the research groups hold weekly meetings to discuss ongoing work, and there are also weekly seminars featuring external speakers.
Numerous data analysis and research methods workshops (recent examples: structural equation modelling; hierarchical linear modelling; metaanalysis; Eprime experimental software), and individual training opportunities are available.

We also offer taught MSc degrees in research (one year full-time, or two years part-time), involving a research project and the Advanced Statistics training required of doctoral students.