Overview
Digital data now dominates our world. Almost every human activity leaves a digital trace. Our smartphones, our card purchases, our social media activity, the cameras that record us in public spaces, can all be used to analyse our behaviour. We already use this data in the business sector, the health service, the public sector, the leisure industry, politics, and government. But being able to analyse digital data is not the same as understanding why people are behaving in the way that they do. That requires knowledge of the psychology of behaviour. Our MSc will teach you how to integrate psychological insights with digital data – giving you a unique set of skills for any career that involves behavioural analysis or further research at PhD level.
You don’t need a psychology degree to study this programme. It is suitable for those with a range of backgrounds such as computer science, data science, business and management, sociology, criminology, social geography, digital humanities and more.
With a unique blend of data science and psychology-orientated modules, you will learn how to work with digital visual data (like CCTV, body-camera footage, social media videos), natural language data (like blogs, social media posts and forum data), and mobile sensor data (like movement, sound, and technology use logs). We will teach you how psychology can help you make sense of this kind of complex data; how psychology can help you ask better questions of your data, and how psychology can help you predict and evaluate behaviour change.
We teach both quantitative and qualitative analysis skills, so you will learn how to use digital data to understand the experiences of individuals as well as large scale groups. You will see how generating qualitative analysis of digital data can be just as useful as analysing large, collective datasets.
In addition to developing your analytical skills, we introduce you to a toolkit of core psychological concepts to help inform your analytical conclusions. These will include theories relating to behaviour, such as identity, personality, and cognitive decision-making. With a practical and applied approach to the integration of theory and skills, you will learn about – and have to grapple with – applied ethics in the acquisition of data. You will also think about the limitations and bias in existing data sets, and the principles of responsible research and innovation.
In the final term, you will conduct an extended placement-based dissertation project. This might be working in an organisation with one of our placement partners, or pursuing your own research idea within the Department. Whichever you choose, you will get hands-on experience with digital data from a psychological perspective. Support is provided to those seeking an external placement opportunity as we guide you through the application and interview process. Upon graduation this practical experience will be hugely beneficial to employers and help you stand out when applying for jobs.
Entry requirements
Academic Requirements
2:1 Hons degree (UK or equivalent) in Psychology, Data Science, Computer Science, Sociology, Criminology, Human Geography, Politics, Law, Management and Marketing, Linguistics. Your degree needs to have covered some Research Methods and Data Analysis modules.
If you have studied outside of the UK, we would advise you to check our list of international qualifications before submitting your application.
English Language Requirements
We may ask you to provide a recognised English language qualification, dependent upon your nationality and where you have studied previously.
We normally require an IELTS (Academic) Test with an overall score of at least 7.0, and a minimum of 6.0 in each element of the test. We also consider other English language qualifications.
If your score is below our requirements, you may be eligible for one of our pre-sessional English language programmes.
Contact: Admissions Team +44 (0) 1524 592032 or email pgadmissions@lancaster.ac.uk
Course structure
You will study a range of modules as part of your course, some examples of which are listed below.
Information contained on the website with respect to modules is correct at the time of publication, but changes may be necessary, for example as a result of student feedback, Professional Statutory and Regulatory Bodies' (PSRB) requirements, staff changes, and new research. Not all optional modules are available every year.
Core
core modules accordion
This module will provide you with an introduction to, and grounding in, both qualitative and quantitative approaches to the analysis of talk and text. It takes you through the process of conducting a research project using combined methods. By the end of the module, you will be able to generate and collect qualitative and quantitative data from both mediums suitable for analysis, apply a range of analytical methods to such data, as well as consider the ethical issues surrounding the collection and analysis of speech and text-based datasets.
This module focuses on developing the statistical understanding and practical skills required to analyse quantitative data using the modern and powerful R statistical programming language and environment. During this module, our students will learn how to apply a range of analytic techniques that are standard in professional practice in psychological research, how to apply statistical tests across a variety of settings, as well as how to analyse both qualitative and quantitative data types.
Building on skills learnt in PSYC411, this module aims to equip students to conduct and present quantitative data analyses appropriately and effectively using advanced methods. Students will be introduced to popular, modern, data analysis techniques through a combination of lectures and practical workshops, learning especially how to utilise modelling techniques (such as linear and generalised linear mixed-effect models) across a wide range of psychological applications, as well as the importance of reproducibility within the psychological sciences.
In this module, students will embrace a fresh interdisciplinary approach that fuses psychology and computer science. Our curriculum introduces case studies that showcase how researchers have harnessed the potential of digital tools. Students will witness first-hand how psychology and new digital methods synthesise to enhance one another at every stage of the research process.
In a laboratory environment, students will master the art of analysing emerging forms of digital data and extract meaningful insights through hands-on experiences with cutting-edge tools (such as Integrated Development Environments like R Studio and state-of-the-art behavioural observation software like BORIS).
Students will be exposed to several digital data types (e.g., video, sensor data, smartphone data, and digital trace data) and will be taught several methods of how to create meaningful psychological knowledge from this data. They will learn a variety of data-driven and theoretically-driven analysis methods (e.g. data cleaning, predictive modelling, behavioural coding, data visualisation, and general data interrogation). By the end of this module, students will have enhanced their practical research and analytical skills through this interdisciplinary perspective on digital data, allowing them to seek solutions to real-world issues.
In this three-month dissertation project (undertaken over the summer), students will complete a substantial research project intended to tackle a current, real-world challenge, giving them the opportunity to consolidate, integrate and further develop the behaviour analytics skills gained during the taught course component.
Students may undertake a project with an associated 'external placement', facilitated by an industrial or research organisation working in partnership with the University. In these cases, the academic supervisor will ensure that the overall research-orientation of the project is preserved. For some students, however, an 'academic project' (i.e. without placement with an external partner) may better align with their career aspirations, such as for progression towards a PhD, or their skills level. In addition, if it is pedagogically or practically beneficial to both the student and/or company, the dissertation work could be undertaken at the University.
The aim of the dissertation is to enable students to synthesise, refine and extend their own scientific reflection and practice as well as apply and refine their technical skills, knowledge, and behaviour analytical skillset. By the end of the module, students will have completed a comprehensive literature review of the existing theory relating to their topic, formulate a testable research hypothesis, conduct a practical element in order to investigate their research question as well as appropriately analyse and interpret the data produced from their research.
This module aims to develop skills in critical reading, review, thinking and communication, alongside an awareness of ethical concerns in psychology. Student will learn how to understand and accommodate for the moral and ethical implications of experimental and observational studies, complete literature reviews of scientific papers from across psychological domains, as well communicate experimental findings – in both written and oral mediums – in a format suitable for academic and non-academic settings.
This module is designed for students that are completely new to programming, and for experienced programmers, bringing them both to a high-skilled level to handle complex data science problems. Beginner students will learn the fundamentals of programming, while experienced students will have the opportunity to sharpen and further develop their programming skills. The students are going to learn data-processing techniques, including visualisation and statistical data analysis. For a broad formation, in order to handle the most complex data science tasks, we will also cover problem solving, and the development of graphical applications. Two open source programming languages will be used, R and Python.
This module is designed to explore meta-level issues that are important for work on psychology and behavioural analytics. Here, students learn a theoretical toolkit - and understand the implications for how they might use these concepts to explore or refine a psychologically-relevant question using digital data. To this end, the module discusses the current state of psychological science and the key tensions that exist as psychologists begin to embrace new forms of digital data. It introduces key psychological theories and explores which theories are best supported ‘outside of the lab’ by new forms of digital data. Beyond positioning psychology across this new digital plane, this module deals with issues of research ethics, morality, and scientific practice.
Optional
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This module will enable you to learn about the skills psychologists need to study human behaviour. The module will enable you to understand the main ideas behind some key scientific methods used in advanced psychological research, combining critical concepts with an introduction to the skills required to use these methods in practice.
You will study research methods from different topic areas in psychology: social, developmental, neuroscience, cognitive.
The module will: (1) ensure that you are furnished with introductions to a range of methods across topic areas; (2) provide you with flexibility over which topic area you will focus on; (3) enable the development of a range of research skills in depth; and (4) promote open science best practices.
Critical Discourse Analysis is a particular area of discourse analysis concerned with the way social identities and relations are encoded in and enacted through texts. This module will introduce you to foundational approaches and recent advances in critical discourse analysis, which draw on and apply a range of theoretical frameworks in linguistics, including systemic functional linguistics, pragma-dialectics, cognitive linguistics and corpus linguistics. A variety of discourses will be studied, including discourses of immigration, war, civil disorder and corporate responsibility, as they are articulated in and across a variety of communicative modes and genres. Text types analysed will include print news media, political speeches, party manifestos, campaign leaflets and digital social media. The aim of the module is to enable you to identify and analyse the semiotic features of texts and conceptualisations that are involved in the discursive construction of ideology and the discursive legitimation of social action.
Fees and funding
| Location | Full Time (per year) | Part Time (per year) |
|---|---|---|
| Home | £13,600 | n/a |
| International | £29,150 | n/a |
Additional fees and funding information accordion
There may be extra costs related to your course for items such as books, stationery, printing, photocopying, binding and general subsistence on trips and visits. Following graduation, you may need to pay a subscription to a professional body for some chosen careers.
Specific additional costs for studying at Lancaster are listed below.
College fees
Lancaster is proud to be one of only a handful of UK universities to have a collegiate system. Every student belongs to a college, and all students pay a small College Membership Fee which supports the running of college events and activities. Students on some distance-learning courses are not liable to pay a college fee.
For students starting in 2024, the fee is £40 for undergraduates and research students and £15 for students on one-year courses. Fees for students starting in 2025 have not yet been set.
Computer equipment and internet access
To support your studies, you will also require access to a computer, along with reliable internet access. You will be able to access a range of software and services from a Windows, Mac, Chromebook or Linux device. For certain degree programmes, you may need a specific device, or we may provide you with a laptop and appropriate software - details of which will be available on relevant programme pages. A dedicated IT support helpdesk is available in the event of any problems.
The University provides limited financial support to assist students who do not have the required IT equipment or broadband support in place.
For most taught postgraduate applications there is a non-refundable application fee of £40. We cannot consider applications until this fee has been paid, as advised on our online secure payment system. There is no application fee for postgraduate research applications.
For some of our courses you will need to pay a deposit to accept your offer and secure your place. We will let you know in your offer letter if a deposit is required and you will be given a deadline date when this is due to be paid.
The fee that you pay will depend on whether you are considered to be a home or international student. Read more about how we assign your fee status.
If you are studying on a programme of more than one year’s duration, tuition fees are reviewed annually and are not fixed for the duration of your studies. Read more about fees in subsequent years.
Scholarships and bursaries
You may be eligible for the following funding opportunities, depending on your fee status and course. You will be automatically considered for our main scholarships and bursaries when you apply, so there's nothing extra that you need to do.
Unfortunately no scholarships and bursaries match your selection, but there are more listed on scholarships and bursaries page.
If you're considering postgraduate research you should look at our funded PhD opportunities.
| Scheme | Based on | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Based on {{item.eligibility_basis}} | Amount {{item.amount}} |
We also have other, more specialised scholarships and bursaries - such as those for students from specific countries.
Browse Lancaster University's scholarships and bursaries.
Important Information
The information on this site relates primarily to 2025/2026 entry to the University and every effort has been taken to ensure the information is correct at the time of publication.
The University will use all reasonable effort to deliver the courses as described, but the University reserves the right to make changes to advertised courses. In exceptional circumstances that are beyond the University’s reasonable control (Force Majeure Events), we may need to amend the programmes and provision advertised. In this event, the University will take reasonable steps to minimise the disruption to your studies. If a course is withdrawn or if there are any fundamental changes to your course, we will give you reasonable notice and you will be entitled to request that you are considered for an alternative course or withdraw your application. You are advised to revisit our website for up-to-date course information before you submit your application.
More information on limits to the University’s liability can be found in our legal information.
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We believe in the importance of a strong and productive partnership between our students and staff. In order to ensure your time at Lancaster is a positive experience we have worked with the Students’ Union to articulate this relationship and the standards to which the University and its students aspire. View our Charter and other policies.
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