Psychology Microcredentials

Microcredentials are a digital tool that helps students and employers recognize specific skills and abilities. These are digital images that look like badges, and include meta-data about the specific competencies the student has achieved. Students can earn microcredentials for successfully completing an activity such as a workshop, an assignment, a collection of assignments, a course, a collection of courses, or a set of pan-curricular activities.

In Psychology we have started with a series of three microcredentials that are meant to help students specialize their degree by identifying a suite of courses that collectively help students build a specific set of skills.

BSc in Applied Psychology

Micreocredential in Psychology, Marketing & Design

Description

This microcredential equips students with the creative, analytical, and strategic skills needed to thrive in today’s dynamic marketing and design landscape. Through a human-centered approach, students will master design thinking to develop innovative solutions, gain deep audience insights using UX research and data-driven methods, and refine their ability to evaluate marketing effectiveness through data analytics. With a focus on integrated marketing communications, students will learn to craft compelling, multi-channel campaigns that drive engagement and business success. Graduates will be prepared to bridge creativity and strategy in roles across marketing, design, and brand management.

Courses

To earn the Micocredential in Psychology, Marketing and Design, students must complete the following courses with a minimum of a C:

  • PSYC3930 – Consumer Psychology
  • PSYC3950 – Cognitive Ergonomics
  • MRKT 1199 – Intro to Marketing
  • MRKT 2401 – Intro to Integrated Marketing Communications
  • DESN 2004 – Design Thinking & Innovation

Learning Outcomes

A student who successfully completes the Micro-credential course will have reliably demonstrate the ability to:

  1. Design Thinking: Engage in human-centric creative problem-solving, and the application of interdisciplinary perspectives, iterative processes of idea generation and testing and development of innovative strategies to arrive at creative and viable solutions.
  2. Audience Understanding: Use various methods, including UX research, interviews and focus groups, and design thinking processes to identify consumer motivations, needs, preferences, and trends, and translate insights into actionable design concepts and marketing strategies.
  3. Marketing Data Analytics: Evaluate the effectiveness of design and marketing initiatives through qualitative and quantitative methods, including user feedback, performance metrics, digital analytics, and return on investment analysis, and iterate strategies based on insights to optimize future campaigns.
  4. Integrated Marketing Communications Develop and execute comprehensive integrated marketing communication plans that effectively utilize a combination of traditional advertising, digital marketing, public relations, and other promotional tactics to achieve organizational objectives, demonstrating proficiency in strategic planning, audience analysis, message consistency, and media selection.

Skills

Design thinking; Graphic design; Content development; Survey design; Qualitative research; UX testing; Data analysis; Data visualization; Presentation skills; Marketing

Career Paths

Human Factors Specialist; Instructional Designer; UX Researcher; Brand & Product Designer; Multimedia Designer; Digital Marketing Specialist; Market Researcher