Students will take courses in human resource management principles aimed at teaching the student about the different theories, methodologies and practical applications of managing and leading people. Students learn about managing the employment relationships of individuals and studying the interactions of groups of people with their leaders or followers.
Students of occupational psychology will take courses in career development to explore how people experience their careers, what provides them satisfaction and how they act with others in the context of their career. Students will learn about how people make career choices, career management practices, adult development, career transitions, impact of social networks on careers, career management intervention strategies and relationship theory and practice.
Understanding what motivates people to work and what increases productivity from individuals and social groups is central to occupational psychology. Students will take courses in motivation and performance theory to learn about the cognitive processes of motivation, how to identify and measure performance, how to define performance, the relationship between performance and key organizational factors such as rewards.
Another key job performed by occupational psychologists revolves around assessing and selecting the right employees for the right jobs. Students will take courses to learn about the psychology of decision-making, the psychological processes involved in making selections and the methods used in job selection, such as the type of tests administered, interview strategies and ethical considerations.
With a technologically-driven environment, occupational psychologists need to understand how people interact with technology to improve job performance. Students will take courses to learn about the design of technology around humans, usability of technology, the human response to technology, technological communication media and impacts on the work environment, and the management of technological change.
Occupational psychologists often develop and help implement training programs for employers. Students in a master's degree program will take courses in training design, development, assessment and evaluation. These courses will help prepare a student to assess the impact of training across an organization, while examining the techniques and methods utilized to determine efficiency.
Courses under this heading usually include group work, where students will interact in groups to carry out projects to learn about applications of psychological theory to the workplace. The objective of such courses is for the students to learn and understand the dynamics of organizational change. Students will learn methods for analyzing the changing organizations and learn about how to best approach deliberate change in an organization.
In courses covering these topics, students will study the relationship between well-being and work. Students learn how worked is defined, the meanings and theories of well-being and associated intervention strategies.