Research (School of Social and Health Sciences)

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This is a one year (three semesters) research programme, which will be supervised by one or more of our faculty members. Successful graduates will be awarded a masters degree with one of the following titles depending on the subject area of research.

* Master of Science by Research (main subject name) (MSc)
* Master of Arts by Research (main subject name) (MA)
* Master of Technology by Research (main subject name) (MTECH)
* Master of Laws by Research (main subject name) LLM

The School of Social and Health Sciences has long been associated with excellent, innovative and theoretically strong research, often with an applied focus. Current research covers areas such as: load carriage, sports performance, counselling, public sociology, forensics, human-computer interactions, evolutionary and biological psychology. School staff are involved in collaborative work both within Abertay and with colleagues across the globe. School staff are organised into cross-disciplinary research groups, each with a clear focus and strategic direction.

The key characteristic of the research within the school is the focus on understanding people and how they fit into the wider society. This may be achieved through the examination of individual behaviour, the behaviour of groups, the study of society itself as well as comparative and cross-cultural studies. The quality of research has been recognised in research assessment exercises, media attention and through external funding and high quality publications.

Research and teaching are indivisible parts of what defines a University, and we are proud that research underpins all of our taught courses. Students gain opportunities to benefit fromt he research activity going on within the school, both as part of their formal studies, or by taking part in our well-established research volunteer programme.

These research web pages provide a flavour of the dynamic and exciting research going on within the school and we hope that you will find them both interesting and informative. Should you require any more information, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Psychology

o Face recognition (both theoretical and applied)
o Forensic Psychology and Forensic mental health
o Stereotyping processes relating to gender and social class in the
domains of education, health and the law
o Human Factors, Human performance in an applied context
o Evolutionary progression of cognitive abilities, taking a comparative
approach to look at cognitive underpinnings of complex behaviours
displayed by modern hominids
o How experience during critical developmental stages affects cognitive
development in humans and non-humans
o Social cognition - self-reference effects in memory
o The early development of self-processing biases, and implications for
learning and education
o The impact of ownership on cognition
o Effects of stereotypes on cognition and behaviour
o Person perception across the lifespan
o Strengths and weaknesses of human memory
o Applying psychology theory from social cognition and memory
domains to real-life issues such as everyday memory use and the
accuracy of eyewitness testimony
o Social influences on memory, such as the effects of discussion on
subsequent memory accuracy
o Identifying the cognitive and social factors operating in collaborative
retrieval and recognition
o Animal Behaviour in wild, zoo or domesticated animals
o Personality and psychometrics
o Zoo visitor behaviour (public engagement and understanding)

Sociology

o Social Movements and Political Protest
o Environmentalism
o Work & Employment
o Education and Training
o Political Sociology
o Sex Education, Sexuality and Social Movement Activity
o Issues related to gender, feminism, rape, sexual assault, domestic
abuse, commercial sexual exploitation, legal responses to sexual
offences, alcohol
o Ethnicity, migration and integration
o Epistemology and belief systems
o The sociology of emotion
o Social Theory
o Nation and Society
o Class
o Welfare Movements
o Collective Memory
o Cultural Technologies Urbanism
o Discourses of occupational identities
o Doctor-patient interactions and shared decision-making
o Tourism as visual experience
o Death and dying
o Young people and crime,
o Criminal justice and gender
o Gender violence
o Personal development planning, graduate attributes and citizenship
within higher education

Nursing and Counselling

o Media portrayals of mental illness in 19th Century Dundee
o Measuring recovery in mental health
o Hope Studies
Therapists hope and therapeutic outcomes
Clients hope and therapeutic outcomes
Operationalising hope in therapy
o Perspectives on the Self
The differentiation of self - development of a new inventory
The differentiation of self within family therapy
The recovery of the reflective self within counselling and psychotherapy
o Epistemic Development and Style
Therapists´ epistemic development
Epistemology and approaches to counselling and psychotherapy

Sport and Exercise Science

o Human Load Carriage
o Energy cost
o Electromyographic aspects
o Subjective perceptions
o Novel loading systems
o Strength and Conditioning
o Strength and power training regimens
o Autoregulatory training
o Training for strength and power with no external load
o Novel training methods
o Role of microRNAs in human disease processes and their utilization as
blood biomarkers
o Regulation of skeletal muscle metabolism in type 2 diabetes
o Diseases of the eye and secondary complications of type 2 diabetes
o Training modalities to enhance performance and health
o Nutrition to promote performance and health
o Participation in extreme sports Sport, motivation and motivational
climates
o Outdoor education
o Sport and social policy

Tuition fees
* Scottish and EU- PhD/MPhil/Masters by Research (Full-time, fee per academic year) £3600;

overseas

* Research Postgraduate Programmes (PhD/MPhil/Masters by Research at Dundee Business School, School of Social & Health Sciences, fee per academic year) £10500
* Research Postgraduate Programmes (Phd/MPhil/Masters by Research at School of Engineering, Computing and Applied Mathematics, School of Contemporary Sciences, Institute of Arts, Media & Computer Games, fee per academic year) £12650

To apply for the Masters of Research degree, you must first complete the standard Masters Degree Application Form online using the links below. In the personal statement, which must be uploaded to your online application, you should mention the research topic you want to undertake. You should also ensure that you explain how your previous studies have provided you with the necessary knowledge/skills to undertake the proposed research topic. Please note that, if your application is accepted by the research team, you may be asked to provide additional information and/or details connected with the specific research topic. * Masters by Research (Institute of Arts, Media and Computer Games) * Masters by Research (School of Contemporary Sciences) * Masters by Research (School of Computing and Engineering Systems) * Masters by Research (Dundee Business School) * Masters by Research (School of Social & Health Sciences) English Language Requirements IELTS band: 6.5 IMPORTANT NOTE: Since April 2014 the ETS tests (including TOEFL and TOEIC) are no longer accepted for Tier 4 visa applications to the United Kingdom. The university might still accept these tests to admit you to the university, but if you require a Tier 4 visa to enter the UK and begin your degree programme, these tests will not be sufficient to obtain your Visa. The IELTS test is most widely accepted by universities and is also accepted for Tier 4 visas to the UK- learn more.

Scholarships
The Overseas Student Scholarship Fund is open to students living outside the European Union and the European Free Trade Area, who are liable to pay overseas tuition fees and whom Abertay believes would bring to the University additional personal and academic qualities.
The fund will support individual scholarships based on academic merit, and/or personal achievement in either sports or music. The scholarships will be available for students enrolling for study at Abertay in September 2013, and we have set 31 January 2013 as the deadline for applications for the first round of awards. Two further rounds of applications will be invited in April and July 2013.