Sport, Exercise and Performance Psychology (MSc)

This MSc programme seeks to equip candidates with a sound understanding of theory and research and develop core competencies and professional skills across a range of key domains including performance psychology, exercise and mental health, professional issues and ethics, and research design. The core aims of the programme are to create an outstanding and distinctive learning experience through innovations in teaching, instilling a scientist practitioner approach across both sport and exercise contexts, and highlighting the role of ethical considerations in practice.

The MSc aims to:

• Provide a learner-focused and connected curriculum to enable students to develop their capacity to think critically and acquire a broad set of attributes as identified by the UL as knowledgeable, proactive, innovative, responsible, articulate and collaborative.
• Extend the traditional remit of sport psychology by focusing on performance restoration, resilience and mental health, rather than exclusively targeting performance enhancement.
• Enhance the understanding of mental health challenges in sport contexts using a positive psychology approach.
• Develop a multidisciplinary mode of graduate enquiry coupled with an ethical scientist-practitioner basis.
• Lead the provision of postgraduate training in this evolving field of Performance psychology.
• Provide stage one of the recognition process for sport and exercise psychologists for PSI and BPS.
• Include the appropriate skills to enable graduates to develop a case study submission as part of their application for professional membership of the Irish Institute of Sport.