Gain valuable experience researching how people think, learn, and grow

Conduct research to help improve educational outcomes and lives. If you’re pursuing graduate school and—ultimately—a career in educational research, the educational psychology research minor will help you gain valuable research experience critical to narrowing your research interests and school search and completing graduate school applications.

If you’re a future educator, the minor will help you better understand and teach using evidence-based practices.

While students majoring in education, psychology- or social sciences-related fields will find the minor complements their major coursework, all University of Minnesota undergraduate majors are welcome to apply. The educational psychology research minor may be combined with any other minors.

Careers

Most educational psychology researchers pursue graduate degrees before beginning careers as:

• Faculty (after completing a PhD) training the next generation of researchers and scientist-practitioners in: psychological foundations of education, quantitative methods in education, school psychology, special education, and related fields
• Research scientists at universities and companies
• Government agencies
• Other educational settings (e.g., K-12 school research offices)
• Human and social service organizations
• Health care organization evaluator/researcher
• Research and development centers

Curriculum

As an undergraduate student, you’ll learn basic research methodologies. You’ll also learn how to get the most out of the University of Minnesota library system and how to make connections with faculty researchers. During your last two semesters, you’ll work on an educational psychology faculty directed research project. Your coursework will include a statistical analysis class which will prepare you to present at the University’s Undergraduate Research Symposium.

View the full educational psychology research minor curriculum.