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Investigative Psychology MSc (Distance Learning)

2025-26 (also available for 2024-25)

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This course is eligible for Master's loan funding. Find out more.

Start date

22 September 2025

12 January 2026

18 May 2026

Duration

2 years part-time

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About the course

Reasons to study

  1. This course is one of the most established Master’s in Investigative Psychology in the world delivered by our expert academic team for over 15 years.
  2. Gain advanced knowledge and skills in a specialised area of forensic psychology that will prepare you for an exciting career in crime and investigations.
  3. Our lecturers are active members of many research centres including The Secure Societies Institute, meaning you’ll learn the very latest theory and practical skills needed for future careers. 

Investigative psychology is the systematic science that developed out of early ‘offender profiling’ contributions by psychologists and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to police investigations and court cases. In recent years this sub-discipline has become an increasingly dominant area of forensic psychology. This course allows you explore this specialised field of practice, from the application of psychological principles to the diverse aspects of the analysis, investigation, and legal processing of crime.

  • You’ll undertake intensive training on advanced statistical methods, which may open doors to many jobs beyond crime and investigations.
  • Engage with the Research Centres and Institutes across the University.
  • Hear from visiting speakers including experts from around the world, reflecting on real life cases.
  • Learn about the full range of contributions that professional psychologists make such as evaluating the validity of suspect or witness accounts, assessing the decision-making processes of detectives or jurors, developing profiling inferences about likely offender characteristics, and geography. Intensive examinations of the variations in criminal behavioural style are a central feature of this course.

The course aims to provide in-depth expertise in all aspects of Investigative Psychology. It has a strong research emphasis, helping to equip you with the expertise to conduct your own crime research projects in diverse professional contexts.

This course is delivered 100% online, part-time, giving you the flexibility to fit your studies around your other commitments. You can also choose to study online on a full-time basis and complete your studies in one year.

Discover more about Distance Learning at Huddersfield.

Course detail

Introducing Investigative Psychology: From Offender Profiling to the Science of IP

Investigative psychology is concerned with the psychological input to a range of issues related to the management, investigation and prosecution of crime. You'll be introduced to the scope of investigative psychology and the principles on which it is based. The module explores the contributions that psychologists can make to police investigations, the emergence of investigative psychology from offender-profiling, processes of detection, the significance of inference and the main questions investigative psychologists ask.

Investigative Psychology for Violent, Acquisitive and Sexual Crime of IP

You will explore the complexities in the process of drawing offender inferences from offence behaviour and why deriving such inferences empirically is not as straightforward as it is expected. You will study ‘criminal narratives’, considering the life stories of offenders and the roles they perceive themselves as playing throughout their lives. Theories and models for a range of different crime types including robbery, burglary, fraud, murder, stalking, domestic violence, sexual offences, organised crime and terrorism will be critically examined.

Improving Legal Testimony and Evidence in Court and Investigation

In this module you will explore potential sources of error within the evidence at each stage of an investigation, from initial witness statements and comments from suspects, to how the evidence is presented in court. You will examine the challenges of investigative information and investigative decision making, explore the procedures that have been developed to improve the effectiveness of investigative interviews and consider factors that lead to false confessions and reasons for false allegations. In addition you will learn about the regulatory constraints relating to the interviewing process.

Investigative Psychology: Tactics and Strategies For Studying Criminal Action

Through this module you will have the opportunity to gain knowledge and understanding of the variety of research methods used in investigative psychology. You will conduct and interpret advanced statistical analyses, as well as communicate research findings in a format suitable to the research community. You will also explore data sources, research design, analysis of qualitative data, multivariate statistics, inferential statistics and multidimensional scaling.

Offender Spatial Activity: Beyond Geographical Offender Profiling

This module will examine how offence locations relate to the lives of offenders. You will explore the significance of closeness of the crime locations to key places in the offender’s life and the geometry of the distribution of the offences. You will also study propinquity (the distance offenders travel), morphology (whether investigators can predict the offenders home area), variations in criminality and offender geography and geographical profiling systems.

Clinical Forensic Psychology

This module will introduce you to the major issues within clinical forensic psychology. You will explore the psychology of criminal behaviour and the relationship between mental disorder and crime. You will also study mental disorders, the different interventions, treatments and rehabilitation of offenders, as well as the risk factors and risk assessment measures used to assess the risk of (re)-offending and approaches to helping victims.

Professional Issues and Applications

This module explores the importance of professional and ethical issues in the application of investigative psychology. You will have the opportunity to study topics including professional applications relating to forensic medical sciences (pathology and toxicology), forensic physical sciences, legal processes and expert evidence, as well as behavioural investigative advice and crime analysis.

Dissertation (Investigative Psychology)

You will undertake a project, which you will design, implement and analyse. This will be in the form of a literature review of a focused topic using a systematic approach or an empirical study that draws on and makes a contribution to investigative psychology. The project must demonstrate appropriate design, methods and techniques along with interpretation and evaluation of the findings reported to a high professional standard.

Entry requirements

Entry requirements for this course are normally one of the following:

  • An Honours degree (2:1 or above) or equivalent qualification in Psychology, Criminology or other relevant discipline.
  • Other appropriate professional qualifications and/or experience will be considered on an individual basis.

You must have access to a computer with a reliable internet connection and the ability to access and use online study guidance and support as this course is delivered through distance learning.

You may also be eligible to gain Recognition for your Prior Learning (RPL).

If your first language is not English, you will need to meet the minimum requirements of an English Language qualification. The minimum for IELTS is 6.0 overall with a minimum of 6.0 in writing and no element lower than 5.5, or equivalent, or Duolingo English certificate, score 105 or above. Read more about the University’s entry requirements for students outside of the UK on our International Entry Requirements page. If you have alternative qualifications or do not meet the IELTS requirement we also offer a range of Pre-Sessional English Programmes.

Student support

At the University of Huddersfield, you'll find support networks and services to help you get ahead in your studies and social life. Whether you study at undergraduate or postgraduate level, you'll soon discover that you're never far away from our dedicated staff and resources to help you to navigate through your personal student journey. Find out more about all our support services.

Important information

Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons

When you enrol as a student of the University, your study and time with us will be governed by our terms and conditions, Handbook of Regulations and associated policies. It is important that you familiarise yourself with these as you will be asked to agree to them when you join us as a student. You will find a guide to the key terms here, along with the Student Protection Plan.

Although we always try and ensure we deliver our courses as described, sometimes we may have to make changes for the following reasons

Changes to a course you have applied for but are not yet enrolled on

If we propose to make a major change to a course that you are holding an offer for, then we will tell you as soon as possible so that you can decide whether to withdraw your application prior to enrolment. We may occasionally have to withdraw a course you have applied for or combine your programme with another programme if we consider this reasonably necessary to ensure a good student experience, for example if there are not enough applicants. Where this is the case we will notify you as soon as reasonably possible and we will discuss with you other suitable courses we can transfer your application to. If you do not wish to transfer to another course with us, you may cancel your application and we will refund you any deposits or fees you have paid to us.

Changes to your course after you enrol as a student

Changes to option modules:

Where your course allows you to choose modules from a range of options, we will review these each year and change them to reflect the expertise of our staff, current trends in research and as a result of student feedback or demand for certain modules. We will always ensure that you have an equivalent range of options to that advertised for the course. We will let you know in good time the options available for you to choose for the following year.

Major changes:

We will only make major changes to non-optional modules on a course if it is necessary for us to do so and provided such changes are reasonable. A major change is a change that substantially changes the outcomes, or a significant part of your course, such as the nature of the award or a substantial change to module content, teaching days (part time provision), type of delivery or assessment of the core curriculum. For example, it may be necessary to make a major change to reflect changes in the law or the requirements of the University’s regulators or a commissioning or accrediting body. We may also make changes to improve the course in response to student, examiners’ or other course evaluators’ feedback or to ensure you are being taught current best practice. Major changes may also be necessary because of circumstances outside our reasonable control, such as a key member of staff leaving the University or being unable to teach, where they have a particular specialism that can’t be adequately covered by other members of staff; or due to damage or interruption to buildings, facilities or equipment, or pandemics.

Major changes would usually be made with effect from the next academic year, but may happen sooner in an emergency. We will notify you as soon as possible should we need to make a major change and will carry out suitable consultation. If you reasonably believe that the proposed change will cause you detriment or hardship we will, if appropriate, work with you to try to reduce the adverse effect on you or find an appropriate solution. Where an appropriate solution cannot be found and you contact us in writing before the change takes effect you can cancel your registration and withdraw from the University without liability to the University for future tuition fees. We will provide reasonable support to assist you with transferring to another university if you wish to do so.

In exceptional circumstances, we may, for reasons outside of our control, be forced to discontinue or suspend your course. Where this is the case, a formal exit strategy will be followed in accordance with the student protection plan.

The Office for Students (OfS) is the principal regulator for the University.

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