Program Overview

Program Overview

The Bachelor's specialisation Work and Organisational Psychology is provided by the W&O psychology program group and centers around the motivation, wellbeing, and performance of individuals and groups in organisations.

Objectives

The learning objectives for this course are formulated based on Bloom's Taxonomy, encompassing both cognitive domains and affective domains. These objectives are aligned with the content and skills of Work and Organisational Psychology as well as other psychology disciplines. After completing the Bachelor's thesis, students will be able to:

• Assess the research literature on a psychological subject and select the most important publications.
• Paraphrase the content of the selected publications.
• Analyze the academic argumentation applied in the selected publications and evaluate it in broad outline.
• Indicate the current state of affairs within a research area.
• Indicate why the research question is important.
• Set up and conduct an empirical study as part of a group and under supervision.
• Evaluate academic argumentation in the selected publications in broad outline.
• Analyze the data independently.
• Reflect on the ethical aspects of the study.
• Broadly evaluate the results within the research field.
• Write and format an empirical research article in APA style.
• Orally present the conducted research to peers.

Contents

The program group conducts research on topics including motivation, career adaptability, employability, self-regulation, proactivity, health at work, creativity, leadership, power, emotions, conflict, cooperation, negotiation, decision making, team processes, diversity, and innovation. Students will conduct an empirical study in groups and individually write a report in the form of a research article. The research topic will be provided by a supervisor.

Teaching Method and Contact Hours

The program includes an introductory lecture, group-based supervision and teaching in workshops, optional individual sessions with the supervisor, written and other assignments, conducting an empirical study, writing a research report, and presentations to fellow students. For each meeting, thorough preparation, attendance, and active participation are compulsory. The study load for the Bachelor’s thesis is approximately 21 hours a week for the first eight weeks and 42 hours a week for the last four weeks.

Study Materials

• Starreveld, P. A. (Ed.). (2022). Writing Psychology Research Reports. Boom.
• Field, A., van Doorn, J., & Wagenmakers, E.-J. (2025). Discovering statistics using JASP. SAGE Publications Ltd.
• Student manual Bachelor’s Thesis (Canvas)
• Access to a laptop computer and a functioning version of JASP

Assessment

A detailed description of the assessment criteria and procedure can be found in the Student Manual. All criteria have to be met in order to pass. Students individually deliver various sub-products and two final products: a written research report and an oral presentation of their research. The supervisor and second assessor evaluate the report on the criteria scientific reasoning and use of language & style. The presentation is assessed with a pass or fail score.

Remarks

The course is compulsory for the bachelor's specialisation Work and Organisational Psychology. After being admitted to the course, students will be asked to indicate their preference for the various available topics online and will be assigned to a supervisor based on their preferred topics as much as possible. During the Bachelor’s programme, students are required to obtain 5 colloquium points, which is linked to completing the BSc thesis in semester 1 of the third year of study.