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Course Overview

Consumer psychology is the study of how we relate to the transaction of goods and services we use every day. Understanding consumers requires knowledge of consumer psychology theories, collecting and interpreting consumer data and opinions and developing meaningful interactions with consumers. In the MSc in Consumer Psychology, we train students to become data-literate consumer professionals ready to identify insights from various data sources to a variety of commercial and non-commercial organisations, addressing the needs of employees and consumers.

This MSc programme is an interdisciplinary programme based in the School of Psychology at University of Galway. We integrate inputs from the School of Psychology, the Irish Centre for High Performance Computing, the J.E. Cairnes School of Business & Economics, and the University of Galway Launchpad student innovation hub, as well as guest lecturers from local and international companies and organisations.

The MSc in Consumer Psychology seeks to provide students with an important competitive advantage: the ability to make more insightful business decisions that integrate a deeper understanding of human psychology. Objectives of the Programme The objectives of the programme are to:

• Develop informed problem-solvers who are comfortable working in today鈥檚 data-driven economy.
• Provide training in consumer psychology, user experience design and human decision-making to provide the student with an understanding of how consumers typically interact with products and services.
• Develop the student鈥檚 knowledge of the commercial context including unit economics and industry tools.
• Equip students with the skills to collect user data in person and online and analyse these data using R to generate novel data-based insights.
• Prepare students for the opportunities and challenges in developing sustainable solutions for consumers from different communities, cultures and contexts.

Course Outline

The MSc in Consumer Psychology skills students up in three areas, their understanding of consumer behaviour, their ability to design for data collection and analyse consumer data and finally their knowledge of today鈥檚 business and organisational environment.

Students will undertake a variety of modules that address these topics in Semesters 1 and 2.

Across Semesters 1 and 2 and into Semester 3, they will undertake a group project addressing a consumer issue identified by an external organisation. In this project, they will put their research skills into practice by designing and executing a piece of original research relevant to the field of consumer psychology and producing a series of relevant outputs including a literature review, pitch document, poster presentation and a research report.

Career Opportunities

Industry is more data-focused than ever before. However, as the amount of data is increasing, it becomes ever more difficult to extract relevant signal from irrelevant noise. Some companies feel that they are 鈥渄rowning in data鈥�. McKinsey in May 2011 pointed out that only 20% of the data collected by companies is unique and the rest is duplicated. Every second, the haystack gets bigger and the needles are harder to find.

Many companies are "drowning in data". They need employees who understand consumers and the market in order to design tests to collect the data that matter for organisational decisions. You will refine and isolate decision-grade information. To do this, you require the combination of psychology, business and data skills provided in this programme.