Human Factors Ph.D. Program |
| Graduate Training |
| Degrees Offered |
| Faculty |
| Admission Requirements |
| Formal Degree Requirements |
| Courses Offered |
| Research |
| More Information/ Application |
| Graduate Training |
Coursework is combined with extensive involvement in the applied research activities of the Heimstra Human Factors Laboratory. The faculty associated with the program provides an active program of both personal and sponsored research.
Students accepted into the program on a full-time basis are usually provided some financial support, typically in the form of graduate research or teaching assistantships. Each student is expected to assume progressively increasing responsibility for conducting research activities within the ongoing program of the laboratory. Corporate internships or fieldwork placements have been secured for many of our graduate students.
| Degrees Offered |
The Human Factors Training Program in the University of South Dakota's Department of Psychology offers graduate training leading the the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees with specialization in the broad area of Human Factors Psychology. The primary mission of this program is to train Ph.D. level professionals competent to conduct and administer applied psychological research and to serve as human factors/ergonomics specialists for government, industry and the academic community.
| Admission Requirements |
Applicants for admission to graduate study must meet certain minimum requirements established by the Graduate School, the Department of Psychology, and the Human Factors Training Program. Applicants are expected to have an undergraduate grade point average of at least 3.0, based on the A=4 grading system used at USD.
An undergraduate major in Psychology is not required for admission to the program but applicants are ordinarily expected to have taken:
Experimental psychology
Calculus
Basic descriptive and inferential statistics
At least one year of a laboratory science
Applications from students already holding a Masters degree in psychology or a related area are also encouraged and roughly, one-forth of the admissions to the program ate at the post- Masters level. Thirty graduate credit hours may be transferred toward the Ph.D. degree requirements if you have completed a Masters degree at another institution.
Satisfactory performance on the Graduate Record Examination is an important criterion for admission to the program. Scores on the GRE should ordinarily be above the 50th percentile for serious consideration for admission Foreign students are also expected to score above 550 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Three letters of recommendations are required.
In evaluating applications to the program, the faculty also takes into consideration unique work experienced and other back- ground factors. We particularly encourage applications from non-traditional students with work experience in government, private industry and the military. Although Human Factors is a traditionally male occupation, half of our presently enrolled students are female.
| Formal Degree Requirements |
The Masters degree in Human Factors Psychology requires 30 hours of credit including the completion and defense of a Masters thesis. These 30 credit hours must include the courses listed below. Competence in math through calculus and at least one computer programming language are required prior to the award of the masters degree.
Seminar in Sensation and Perception
Seminar in Physiological Psychology
Seminar in Developmental
Seminar in Social Psychology
Seminar in Personality Theories
Quasi Experimental Design
Learning, Memory and Cognition
Research Design and Statistics-I
Research Design and Statistics-II
Masters Thesis Research
In addition, the graduate school as part of the masters degree requires 6 hours of coursework outside Psychology.
The Ph.D. degree requires 54 credit hours beyond the master's degree and the completion and defense of a dissertation. Prior to beginning a dissertation, students must be admitted to Ph.D. candidacy. This requires passing an extensive comprehensive written examination, lasting for five days. The exam includes one day of questions concerning the particular specialty area chosen by the student, one day of general human factors questions, one day of advanced methodology and statistics and two full days of general psychology questions. Coursework beyond the masters level must include the following:
Human Performance
Human Engineering
Seminar in Sensation and Perception
Human Factors Psychology
Methods and Instrumentation
Multivariate Statistics
Doctoral Dissertation Research
| Courses Offered |
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Course offers an overview of artificial intelligence including foundation topics such as
the meaning of intelligence knowledge representation, search strategies, and problem
solving. Surveys application of artificial intelligence in the areas of expert systems,
learning, natural language vision, and speech recognition will be covered. Programming
language and tools appropriates to artificial intelligence will be discussed and used.
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
Course is a survey of historical and contemporary research and theory in cognitive
processes. Considers encoding, storage and retrieval processes from an experimental point
of view.
EXPERIMENTAL METHODS AND INSTRUMENTATION
Topics considered in this course include assembly and use of experimental apparatus in
psychology.
HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY
This course is a survey of the origin and development of psychology during the modern
period, from about 1600. Special attention is given to systems of thought that have
emerged since the founding of psychology as an empirical science.
HUMAN ENGINEERING
A study of the relationships between technology and human capability in the design and
operation of person-machine systems. Course includes consideration of systems analysis
techniques, human sensory, motor and decision-making capabilities, the human-machine
interface, and the dynamics of the human-machine environment.
HUMAN FACTORS IN COMPUTER SYSTEMS
A survey of the interaction of humans with computers. Topics include human performance
issues in computer programming and software design human engineering design and evaluation
of interactive systems and training of computer users.
HUMAN FACTORS PSYCHOLOGY
This is a broad level survey of the field of human factors/engineering psychology.
Attention to human capabilities and limitations in systems tasks, design of human-machine
interfaces, and systems design and analysis.
INDUSTRIAL PSYCHOLOGY
This course is a survey of performance appraisal, personnel selection and placement,
training, motivation and morale, workstation dissatisfaction and industrial safety.
INTRODUCTION TO ANIMAL BEHAVIOR
The comparative psychology and pathology of human and animal behavior is covered in this
course. Topics include basic and maintenance behaviors, habitat selection, homing,
migration, social behavior, communication, reproduction, development, symbiosis, and play.
Evolutionary, genetic, hormonal and neural influences on behavior will be
highlighted.
MULTIVARIATE STATISTICS
This course is a survey of multivariate statistical methods. It includes a review of
relevant material. Representative topics include: MANOVA, Factor Analysis, Advanced Linear
Modeling, Contingency Tables, Path Analysis, and LISREL. The instructor will select from
these and other topics, based on the needs of the students.
ORGANlZATlONAL PSYCHOLOGY
This course offers a survey of the application of psychological principles of the
understanding of organizational effects on individual and group behavior. Topics include:
organizational climate and culture, work-related attitudes, employee motivation,
leadership, group dynamics and teamwork, organizational change and development, and
minorities and women in organizations.
PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY
This course offers an introduction to the morphological, physiological and biochemical
foundation of behavior. Organic bases of sensation, perception, reflexive and skilled
movements, learning, memory, cognition, emotion and motivation.
PROGRAM PLANNING & EVALUATION
Course covers issues involved in the design, implementation and evaluation
of systems, programs and interventions in the real world. Issues of policy analysis,
system design and program evaluation are considered.
PSYCHOACOUSTICS
Course is a survey of analysis of hearing mechanisms, industrial noise control, room
acoustics, speech intelligibility, music theory.
PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
This course is a survey of language theory, transformational grammar, comprehension and
production of speech, language development in children, speech dialects and
neurolinguistics, communication among groups and sociolinguistics.
PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTING AND MEASUREMENT
Principles of construction and analysis of psychological tests are surveyed in this
course.
PSYCHOLOGY OF AGING
This course surveys differences between normal and problematic aging through late
adulthood. Course covers topics such as learning, memory, intellectual performance
biobehavioral change, inter-generation relations, health, and mortality issues.
PSYCHOLOGY OF HUMAN PERFORMANCE
Topics considered in the course include skilled psychomotor behavior, cybernetic theory,
performance under stress, military, commercial, athletic and medical rehabilitation
applications.
PSYCHOLOGY OF SAFETY
This course is a review of both the casualty rate and case history approaches to accident
analysis and prevention. Topics include risk and analysis and a survey industrial problem
areas. A wide variety of safety management strategies are covered.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND STATISTICS I
This course is a review of elementary statistics, then focuses on issues and techniques in
behavioral research methodology.
RESEARCH DESIGN AND STATISTICS II
This course follows Research Design and Statistics I with an emphasis on the statistical
methods appropriate for a class on research design. Specifically, this course emphasizes
the use of the General Linear Model as a means for analyzing behavioral research data.
SEMINAR IN HUMAN ENGINEERING
Selected current topics in workspace and equipment design to facilitate
efficient human use are critically considered in this course. This course is repeatable
with change of content.
SEMINAR IN HUMAN FACTORS RESEARCH
Course offers a review and practice of selected research methodologies
appropriate to modern human-machine system development, design and evaluation. This
course is repeatable with change of content.
SEMINAR IN LEARNING, MEMORY AND COGNITION
This course is a survey of traditional and contemporary approaches to the
study of animal and human learning, memory and cognition.
SEMINAR IN MEMORY AND INFORMATION PROCESSING
This course offers a detailed consideration of memory and human
information processing with an emphasis on recent advances and the application of current
theory and methods.
SEMINAR IN PERSONNEL SELECTION AND TRAINING
In-depth consideration of selected contemporary topics in personnel
psychology.
SEMINAR IN SENSATION AND PERCEPTION
Course is a survey of current research in sensory coding and processing.
Covers signal-to-noise enhancement, feature detection, event definition, template storage
and retrieval, and ecological evaluations of sensory systems.
SEMlNAR IN STATISTICAL TOPICS
Course offers focused attention to selected topic areas of statistics. May be repeated
with change in content.
SURVEY RESEARCH METHODS
Course is an applied introduction to the methods and statistics appropriate for survey
research. Topics include: sampling techniques, non-response bias, questionnaire design and
appropriate statistics.
Research |
Since authorization of the Ph.D. degree, staffing in Human Factors has increased significantly and the research capabilities of the laboratory have expanded to include a number of major areas of human factors research.
For more detailed information regarding our research, please click on the research name below.
Human Information Processing Research/Human Computer Interaction
Traffic Safety/Transportation Systems Research
| More Information/Application |
Click here on ways to contact us for more information and/or application forms.
Heimstra
Human Factors Laboratory at USD |