Aims & objectives of the MSc in Investigative Psychology


The overall aims of the course are to enable students to acquire the knowledge, skills and experience that will enable them to: a) develop professional roles as investigative psychologists in law enforcement and similar agencies; and b) contribute to the growth of the discipline of investigative psychology through research, teaching and similar scholarly pursuits.

To achieve these aims the course provides the opportunity to gain relevant knowledge by providing the opportunity for students to gain a sound conceptual basis for the understanding of:


1) The available explanations of criminal behaviour
2) The varieties of criminal activities and approaches to their classification including:-
a) arson
b) burglary
c) fraud
d) homicide, single and serial
e) threat and extortion
f) rape
g) robbery
h) stalking
i) criminal violence
j) organised crime and drug networks

3) Approaches to the treatment and assessment of criminals
4) Psychological processes in investigative decision making
5) Procedures available for linking crimes to a common offender
6) The psychology of interviewing and approaches to training interviewers
7) Basic, relevant issues in the British legal system
8) Professional and ethical issues of relevance to Investigative Psychology
9) The history and critiques of 'offender profiling'
10) The processes of publication and dissemination of academic material
11) The nature and processes of police investigations
12) The procedures available for statement validation and detecting deception
13) The IT procedures drawn on from Crime Analysis
14) Approaches to inferring offender characteristics from crime information
15) The main organisational psychology processes that are relevant to understanding both police organisations and criminal networks.


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To make effective use of the relevant knowledge, the course provides the opportunity to develop relevant skills by providing the opportunity for students to gain:

1) A full range of library search and evaluation capabilities

2) A full range of research methodology skills of relevance to field research in an applied context, including skills in:
a) content analysis
b) accessing and handling sensitive data
c) qualitative and quantitative data analysis
d) multivariate statistics
e) commercial IT packages
f) making the most of existing records

3) Preparation of reports for various audiences
4) Making presentations
5) Working at a professional level under pressure
6) Liaising with a range of other professional groups
7) Working as a member of a team

To achieve these aims, using the knowledge and skills, the course provides a wide range of guided experiences, teaching strategies, and learning resources including:

1) A series of lectures that impart the knowledge in a student directed interactive context, encouraging student participation and initiative;
2) Student lead seminars in which they present and evaluate material under the guidance of university staff;
3) Projects that are shaped by the student under staff supervision, including five empirically based assignments and a dissertation;
4) Contact with ongoing investigations, police forces and the material normally held by forces, in a way that allows students to develop skills in the handling of these materials as they would in vivo;
5) Some contact with established criminals in a supportive context that allows direct exploration of the criminals' perceptions of crime and victims;
6) Experience of the mass media and its approach to reporting crime;
7) Access to a special created library of reprints and reports, and to specially collected data-sets on crimes and criminals.

The modes and criteria of assessment directly assess the knowledge and skills the students have obtained by the examination of the levels of competence and professional effectiveness revealed in the following:

1) Participation in team work and presentation in class

2) Overall professionalism and sensitivity to ethical issues

3) The academic standards achieved in the assignments and dissertations, as indicated in the marking scheme presented in the course handbook.


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