The Department of Psychology at the University of Prince Edward Island has several openings for Sessional Instructors during the forthcoming Fall 2023 semester. All positions are subject to final budgetary approval.

Please note: all courses offered below will be taught in person, unless otherwise specified as an online course.

PSY 2010 – Developmental Psychology

This survey course examines human development across the life span through physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional domains. The course includes discussions surrounding applications of developmental theory in various contexts, including public policy, education, counselling, and health domains. Lectures, in-class assignments, and research papers are designed to encourage students to evaluate developmental change critically and to apply their knowledge to their communities. Three hours per week.

PSY 2220 – Psychology of Personal Experience

This course introduces students to the basic concepts and ideas in Humanistic and Existential psychologies and involves applying and integrating psychological theory to personal experience. The development of humanistic psychology from phenomenological and existential approaches is considered, and the differences from experimental psychologies are discussed. As ways of comprehending our lives, themes of personal ('self ') and interpersonal ('self-in-relation') experience will be explored within a larger sociocultural context. Topics may include: being/becoming, intentionality, authenticity, values, growth, agency, identity, anxiety, and transcendent experience. Three hours per week.

PSY 2510 – Thinking Critically About Psychological Research

Designed for non-Psychology majors, this course develops their abilities as consumers of psychological research. Students learn about paradigms of research and knowledge, consider key assumptions in both quantitative and qualitative research, and explore how quantitative and qualitative perspectives influence the construction of knowledge. Students apply critical thinking strategies within the context of psychological research and develop skills to evaluate claims made about psychological phenomena in the popular media and professional literature. Concepts explored include understanding and prediction, description and inference, biases in research conduct and communication, representativeness, evaluating testimonials, correlation and causation, multiple causation, operational definitions, placebo effects, experimental control, and probability. Three hours per week.

PSY 2600 – Sensation and Perception

This course examines how the more basic senses work and how they contribute to our awareness of the world. The sense of touch seems to give us direct contact with the world. The abilities to sense chemicals in the food we eat and the air we breathe guide not only what we eat but also our emotions. Sensing vibrations in air enables us to detect events out of sight and to receive both verbal and musical communications from others. Content covered in this course also considers principles and theories of how visual information is received, and how it is processed and combined to produce visual images. These vastly different sources of information-mechanical, chemical and gravitational, as well as the electromagnetic basis of vision are sensed by specialized biological receptors that transform the information into nerve impulses. This course examines how the principles used by the brain to interpret the diverse information are surprisingly similar. Three hours per week.

PSY 2710 - Statistics for the Behavioural Sciences

This course is an introduction to applied statistics as used by behavioural scientists in measurement, data, analysis, and design of experiments. This course stresses both an understanding of the rationale governing the selection of appropriate designs or techniques as well as practical experience in calculation. Topics include: scaling, measures of central tendency and variability, probability, statistical inference and hypothesis testing, means test (z and t), correlational techniques, chi-square and other non-parametric techniques, and analysis of variance. Three hours per week.

PSY 3050 – Adolescent Development & Adjustment

This course examines both the research and theoretical perspectives in areas that are integral to an understanding of the period of adolescence and of adolescents themselves. We address the following areas: puberty and psychobiology; the development of cognition and social cognition; the formation of identity, including career options, and the development of sexuality and a system of values, factors that influence the formation of identity, such as the family, the peer group, and the media, the school experience; and issues in adolescent development such as some aspects of psychopathology, juvenile justice, and the problems encountered by indigenous youth. Three hours per week.

PSY 3080 – Child Development

This course explores children’s development in depth by focusing on the various domains of change from birth to adolescence. Themes of change and stability throughout childhood are examined using analytical and descriptive theories of development. Implications of developmental approaches are examined for practice and public policy domains. Lectures, in-class assignments, and research projects are designed to encourage students to assess critically these developmental changes and to apply that understanding to other contexts. Three hours per week.

PSY 3420 - Intimate Relationships

This course is designed to examine a variety of areas of study within the field of intimate relationships. Through in-class discussion of the major theoretical frameworks of the discipline and by designing their own original relationship research proposals, students will gain an increased understanding of the multifaceted nature of intimate relationships. Topics to be covered include but are not limited to: attraction, social cognition, interdependency, conflict, and love. Three hours per week.

PSYC 3520 – Psychological Disorders

This course engages students in a critical review of theories and research in psychological disorders.  Strengths and limitations of current diagnostic classification systems, such as the DSM, are analyzed, as are the personal and social consequences of their use. Current models of diagnosis, etiology, maintenance, and treatment of various disorders are reviewed. We explore limits on the generalizability of key concepts and findings across individual and cultural diversities. Three hours per week.

PSYC 3820 – Cognitive Psychology

This course examines recent developments in cognitive psychology with special emphasis on the study of thinking, problem solving and decision making. Its topics include theories and research in inductive and deductive reasoning, information processing approaches to thinking and problem solving, and the implications of the cognitive perspective for our understanding of intelligence, creativity and mental development. A lab will provide students with the opportunity to perform problem solving demonstrations, test representative phenomena, analyze their own data, and examine the results in terms of current theories. Three hours per week.

Qualifications:

Successful applicants should hold a Graduate degree or a Doctoral degree in Psychology.

Please note that applicants on the UPEI Sessional Roster for Psychology will be considered first.

Application Instructions: 

Applicants should submit a letter of application, an updated C.V., and the names of three referees to:

Dr. Nia Phillips, Associate Professor and Chair
Department of Psychology
University of Prince Edward Island
Charlottetown, PE C1A 4P3
nlphillips@upei.ca
tel: 902-566-0966
fax: 902-628-4359

UPEI is committed to equity, diversity, inclusion, and reconciliation and believes in providing a positive learning and working environment where every person feels empowered to contribute. UPEI is committed to the principle of equity in employment and encourages applications from underrepresented groups including women, Indigenous peoples, visible minorities, persons with disabilities, persons of any sexual orientation or gender identity, and others with the skills and knowledge to productively engage with diverse communities.

Closing date for applications is May 1, 2023.