Skills and Curriculum

Skills

In 2026, the I/O Psychology faculty conducted a skills audit to identify the key, behaviorally-based competencies which we seek to develop in students throughout their time in our program. We view these skills (listed below) as essential to student success during their graduate training and throughout their careers beyond graduation. As such, we prioritize this growth through intentional design of our curriculum and by facilitating out-of-classroom professional development.

  1. Evidence Based Thinking & Scientific Reasoning
  2. Data Literacy, Analysis, and Interpretation 
  3. Survey & Measurement Skills
  4. Talent Assessment, Acquisition, & Management
  5. Organizational Development & Change Skills
  6. Professional Communication & Influence
  7. Consulting & Client Facing Skills
  8. Professional Identity & Career Management
  9. Applied Technology & AI Literacy
  10. Breadth Awareness & Adaptive Learning

Curriculum

A key factor which differentiates I/O psychologists from other business professionals is the science-based perspective for dealing with organizational issues. In other words, organizational interventions and processes used by I/O psychologists are based on a foundation of scientific findings. What this means for our students is that we must train them to be consumers of the science of I/O psychology. Thus, our students are trained to read, understand, and evaluate scientific research. Additionally, our students are trained to understand and perform analytics techniques so that they can make evidence-based decisions.

Under this scientist-practitioner model, students will gain foundations in both core and cutting-edge topics such as in topics such as talent management, leadership, competency modeling, succession planning, job attitudes, employee motivation, organizational development and organizational change.

Students are enrolled in two courses per semester and complete two courses during their first summer. The order and content of classes may vary slightly from cohort to cohort. A sample two-year curriculum plan is as follows:

Year 1

  • PSYC6171 – Industrial/Organizational Psychology
  • PSYC6102 – Organizational Research Methods
  • PSYC6205 – Field and Lab Based Quantitative Research Methods
  • PSYC6207 – Measurement in Organizations
  • PSYC6175 – Organizational Development and Change (Summer)
  • PSYC6640 – Topics in Organizational Psychology (Summer)

Year 2

  • PSYC6172 – Talent Acquisition 
  • PSYC6177 – Talent Management 
  • PSYC6630 – Topics in Talent Management 
  • PSYC6173 – Job Attitudes 
  • PSYC6899 – Comprehensive Examination (Summer)