Resources For Psychology Students
Tech, Tools & Advice for Psychology Majors
Psychology students need three basic types of resources to negotiate their degree earning years and on to establishing a successful professional foundation: those that support in-class work; those that help with student success outside the classroom; and those that help graduates find that all-important first professional job. Fortunately, all three types are well represented online. Here are some of the best.
Psychology Groups and Networking
Another important aspect to founding a solid career is to make oneself known to his or her academic peers and professional community, and the best way to do that is to connect with like-minded individuals through professional associations and societies, and on-campus groups and clubs, a number of which are listed here:
Academics & Research within Psychology
The master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation are fundamental elements to the vast majority of psychology graduate programs available in the United States, although a few master’s programs offer completion of comprehensive exams in lieu of a formal thesis. In all cases, psychology grad students will be required to conduct a substantial amount of individual research in the course of earning their degrees. Online resources can prove to be extremely helpful to psychology students in their academic research work. A sample of what is available can be found by following the links below.
| Resources | Descriptions |
| 1. American Psychological Association – Dissertation and Research | This APA page acts as a basic guidebook for students to researching and writing a doctoral dissertation or master’s thesis as part of their psychology grad school program. |
| 2. American Psychological Association – Library Research In Psychology | Another excellent APA page offering an overview of psychology resources for college students as well as a comprehensive list of APA resources. |
| 3. Association for Psychological Science (APS) – Research Resources | Sponsored by APS at Hanover College. This research resources page offers links to and brief descriptions of source sites for information and data for a variety of psychology subfields and topics. |
| 4. TheDataWeb | A service of the U.S. Census Bureau. Not strictly for psychology students, TheDataWeb provides a portal to Federal census, economic, family, health, income and labor data. |
| 5. Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) | A unit within the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. The ICPSR maintains a data archive of more than one-half million files of research in the social sciences, including specialized collections of data in education, aging, criminal justice, substance abuse and 12 other fields. |
| 6. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) | One of the 27 institutions and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health. The NIMH is the lead federal agency for research on mental disorders. The site’s “Research Priorities” link will connect the visitor to a wealth of psychology-related government resources. |
| 7. National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) | Another institute of the NIH, the NIDA offers a wealth of information and data on drugs and drug abuse including the Clinical Trials Network, with data on 3,000 patients from 13 clinical trials on substance abuse treatment. |
| 8. NeuroMorpho.org | This site contains the world’s largest centralized, curated repository of digital reconstructions of neurons. Users can search for data based on several factors including species, brain region and cell types. |
| 9. The NIH MRI Study of Normal Brain Development | Sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, this site provides access to MRI data on a representative sample of approximately 500 children and young adults. |
| 10. Psychological Research on the Net | Index of hundreds of psychology-related research papers, with links and very brief topic descriptions. Listed by general subject. |
Psych Industry News & Scholarships
Among the best reasons to visit psychology professional association and society websites is that almost all of them offer useful and up-to-date information and news on current psychology issues and trends. They’re not the only ones, however. There are also a number of sites that provide access to high-level journals and articles on cutting edge research and findings by top psychology scholars and institutions, some of which are listed below.
Internships
One of the most important aspects to launching a successful career in any field is career prep, that is, the actions a student takes to make himself or herself known and attractive to potential employers before graduation. Here are some great sites psychology students can visit to help make that student/employer connection happen.
| Resource | Description |
| 1. Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC) | This site provides an excellent search engine for information on internship and postdocs for psychology students located throughout the U.S. and Canada. |
| 2. Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia | The internship program’s goal is to prepare advanced doctoral-level students for entry-level professional clinical practice, interdisciplinary collaboration, advocacy and scientific investigation. This is a one-year clinical internship experience. |
| 3. Children’s National Health System Psychology Internship Program | Children’s National, located in Washington, D.C., offers this pre-doctoral internship program in clinical and pediatric psychology. This is a full-year, full-time program that begins in July. |
| 4. Duke University Psychology Internship Training Program | Offered through Duke’s Department of Psychiatry’s Division of Medical Psychology, this program provides one year of doctoral-level internship training in the essential skill areas of clinical psychology. |
| 5. National Science Foundation: Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) | The National Science Foundation’s REU program sponsors active research participation by undergraduates in all areas funded by the NSF. Details, qualifications and time periods vary by specific opportunity. |
| 6. Northwestern University LGBTQ Health Psychology Internship Program | Located in Chicago, this one-year program is designed to prepare clinical psychologists for careers addressing the behavioral health needs of individuals in the LGBTQ community. |
| 7. Ohio State University Clinical Mental Health Counseling Internship | Offered by OSU’s Counseling and Consultation Service, this 10-month internship is open to OSU students and provides advanced training in clinical counseling and the provision of supervised clinical interventions. |
| 8. Stanford Medicine Child and Adolescent Psychiatry: Pre-Doctoral Psychology Internship | This program is open to advanced level pre-doctoral students currently enrolled in APA accredited doctoral programs in clinical or counseling psychology. Interns receive training in assessment and treatment of children and families in several interdisciplinary settings. |
| 9. University of Pennsylvania Clinical Psychology Internship Program | This full-time program is located at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. Interns rotate through services in other locations, including the acute inpatient unit, the community mental health program, the general medical hospital, and the palliative care cancer center. |
Apps, Tools & Tech in Psychology
The explosion of recent technology breakthroughs, like big data and mobile devices, to name just two, have given rise to changes in every corner of the digital information world, including both psychology and education. The result is a whole new approach to learning and practicing psychology, one that will undoubtedly prove more expansive and inclusive at the same time. What will happen specifically, only time will tell. In the meantime, here a few newer applications, tools and other technology available now for psychology students. Some of these applications can be downloaded for free, while others charge a nominal fee.
Education & Skill Development
The following resources focus on the acquisition and development of real knowledge, intellectual improvement and practical skills in the field of psychology. The information offered on these sites and in these courses provides a solid educational foundation in a broad variety subjects to anyone interested in psychology, and are especially helpful to psych students by supplementing their degree coursework.
- Abnormal Psychology (iTunes U)
A 26-part podcast course covering the ways in which personality may become disordered, with emphasis on normal human development as highlighted by psychopathology and problems of treatment. - ALISON: Diploma in Psychology
ALISON is a global online learning community that provides free high-quality online education resources to help students develop “essential, certified workplace skills.” ALISON offers this course in psychology with an option to earn an official ALISON diploma. - Buddhism and Modern Psychology (Princeton University)
This course examines Buddhism and its practices (such as meditation) as they relate to modern psychological concepts. - The Brain and Space (Duke University)
This six-week, nine-unit course focuses on how the brain creates a sense of spatial location from a variety of sensory and motor sources, and how this spatial sense shapes cognitive abilities. - Classics in the History of Psychology
Website dedicated to presenting full texts of historically significant documents from the scholarly literature of psychology that are now in the public domain. Includes an extensive list of suggested primary source materials. - The Clinical Psychology of Children and Young People (University of Edinburgh)
Offered through Coursera. This course provides an introduction to the core models of psychological development and applied developmental psychology as it relates to the practice of clinical psychology of children and young people. - Discovering Psychology (Annenberg Learner)
Comprehensive learning series covering every aspect of the world of psychology through 26 chapters with titles such as “The Behaving Brain,” “The Developing Child” and “Cognitive Processes.” Includes an extensive glossary and list of psychology pioneers. - Encyclopedia of Psychology
Offered by Psychology.org, this is a comprehensive, open-source encyclopedia covering a variety of areas such as careers, paradigms and theories, and publications, along with additional reference materials. - Environmental Psychology (iTunes U)
Podcast lecture series that emphasizes the interdependence between the physical and social aspects of places. - Introduction to Psychology (MIT Open Courseware)
An introductory course that surveys the scientific study of human nature such as how the mind works and how the brain supports the mind. Topics covered include the mental and neural sources of perception, memory, cognition, psychopathology and many others. - Introduction to Psychology (Open Yale Courses)
This site offers free courses from the Department of Psychology at Yale University. Of particular note is its “Introduction of Psychology” whose video elements can be accessed on iTunes and YouTube. - Neuropsychotherapy
Offered through OpenLearning, this self-paced course is designed to help therapists and teachers adapt digital gamification and multimedia to provide effective brain stimulation. - Neuroscience and Behavior (MIT Open Courseware)
Undergraduate level course that covers the relation of structure and function at various levels of neuronal integration. Topics include sensory and motor systems, sleep and dreaming, motivation and reward. - Online Psychology Laboratory (OPL)
Funded by the National Science Foundation and part of the National Science Digital Library, OPL offers classic studies in psychology allowing students to participate and analyze data from their experiences. - Psychiatric Epidemiology (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)
This course reviews descriptive and analytic epidemiology for major mental disorders of childhood, adulthood, and late adult life. Designed for students, researchers, epidemiologists and public health professionals. - Psycholinguistics (MIT Open Courseware)
This course involves topics in language processing, including the structure of language, discourse, speech processing and ambiguity resolution. - Psychological First Aid (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)
This six-week course employs the RAPID model (Reflective listening, Assessment of needs, Prioritization, Intervention, and Disposition), to perspectives on injuries and trauma that are beyond those physical in nature. Offered through Coursera. - Social Psychology (MIT Open Courseware)
Another undergraduate course from MIT. Social Psychology offers an introduction to the subject and covers topics such as interpersonal and group dynamics, and how the thoughts, feelings and actions of the individual influence and are influenced by large and small groups. - The Science of Everyday Thinking (University of Queensland
Offered through edX, this 12-week introductory course discusses the psychology of everyday thinking. Can be taken for free or for a verified certificate with fee. - Statistics for Psychosocial Research: Structural Models (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)
Studies quantitative approaches to theory construction in relation to multiple response variables. Topics include the statistical basis for causal inference, latent class regression, and analysis of panel data with observed and latent variable models.
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