Skills (That May Be) Obtained During Graduate Study in Psychology

Graduate training in psychology can provide many skills that are useful outside academic and scientific settings. The particular skills gained will depend on both the breadth and the depth of the training. Experience on both the breadth and depth dimensions is important. Perhaps the most generalizable skills are information gathering, analysis and synthesis skills, methodological skills, and statistical reasoning skills. Although all of these skills may not be acquired by all graduate students in the course of their study, graduate students may acquire these skills by a thoughtful selection of courses and experiences.

General skills

• Action oriented, take initiative
• Bright, energetic, learn quickly
• Understand and know how to deal with people
• Can work on several problems at once
• Are good team workers
• Are dependable and get things done
• Can negotiate effectively

Information gathering and reporting skills

• Literature searches (paper and electronic)
• Structuring conversations (e.g., interviews) to obtain information
• Avoid bias and preconceptions in information searches
• Designing instruments (e.g., surveys, questionnaires) to obtain information
• Observational techniques for obtaining information
• Preparing and delivering oral and written reports
• Organizing programmatic investigations

General analysis and synthesis skills

• Reading critically (e.g., are the claims appropriate for the information provided?)
• Synthesizing and summarizing information from multiple sources
• Intrepret both qualitative and quantitative data
• Dealing with inconsistent information
• Extracting key pieces of information rapidly from extensive material
• Imposing structure on ambiguous, messy data
• Translate information into meaningful conclusions, recommendations, or plans of action
• Structuring and evaluating arguments

Project planning skills

• Identifying the steps in a project from beginning to end
• Identifying potential problems ahead of time
• Identifying resources needed (e.g., material, people, time)
• Can mobilize team members

Problem definition

• Identifying central issues and key questions
• Experience in identifying the most important problem(s) to be addressed from ambiguously defined problem statements
• Can both solve general problems and focus on details
• Understanding that there may be more than one route to problem solving
• Understanding that there might not be only one right answer

Understanding that people may have different perspectives

• Understanding that people trained in different disciplines may look very differently at the same problem
• Understanding that there is an advantage to understanding the different perspectives
• Having the ability to take the different perspective (e.g., of clients)
• Ability to coordinate or facilitate action among individuals with diverse perspectives

Methodological skills

• Ability to detect confounded variables and design settings for appropriate comparisons and conclusions
• Ability to conceptualize in terms of cause and effect
• Experimental and quasi-experimental design skills

Statistical and inferential skills

• Statistical reasoning skills (e.g., law of large numbers, regression principle)
• Statistical analysis skills
• Ability to draw appropriate inferences from numerical data
• Computer literacy/familiarity with appropriate software
• Ability to present data to nontechnical audience

Knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of people

• Cognitive
• Perceptual
• Physical
• Motivational
• Social
• Development
• Personality