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Master
Vergelijk
Psychology: Health Promotion & Behaviour Change (track)

Study programme

Psychology: Health Promotion & Behaviour Change

This intensive 1-year Master's track combines scientific knowledge with practical skills, focusing on four major health challenges in today's society: sexual health, addiction, stress, and overeating. Through active learning, you’ll gain the tools to address these pressing issues and make a meaningful impact.
  • Semester 1

    Practical workshops will be offered at the start of each course. You will learn:

    • Intervention mapping, a protocol for developing effective behaviour change interventions
    • Statistics/methods to analyse changes in health behaviour
    • Hands-on experience with programming online interventions
    • Motivational interviewing, an important evidence-based method to motivate behaviour change
  • Semester 2

    During the second semester, from January to the end of June, you will conduct the Master's Internship and the Master’s Thesis. 

    At the end of this Master's track, you will be able to:  

    • approach practical health problems based on state-of-the-art theory and methods 
    • design, execute and evaluate theory-driven intervention programs (e.g. e-health) 
COURSES SEM 1 SEM 2 SEMESTER 1 SEMESTER 2 EC
  • Obesity
    6

    In this course you will learn theories explaining unhealthy behaviours, identify predictors of health behaviours and learn strategies that could effectively change behaviour. The focus will be on topics such as motivation, habits, and automatic processes in eating behaviour, including how people pursue their health goals, and stick to good intentions. Different strategies for behaviour change, including strategies on the individual level (planning) and the group level (large scale health interventions, nudging) will be discussed.

  • Sex and Sexually Transmitted Diseases
    6

    During this course u will acquire knowledge about the most important theories and empirical research regarding the influence of peers (e.g., imitation) and peer norms (e.g., descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and peer pressure) on unhealthy behaviours. and what is the role of parents? Furthermore, you will learn current theories on the etiology of sexual motivation problems. Finally, you will learn the latest on the determinants of chemsex and how to intervene.

  • Addiction
    6

    In this course, you will learn to understand how addictive behaviours such as excessive alcohol use and smoking develop and are maintained in adolescence and adulthood. In addition, the role of conditioning and neurobiological processes and genetics in addiction are introduced, including the crucial role of motivation in behaviour change. You learn how to use these theories in interventions aimed at decreasing unhealthy behaviors.

  • Stress
    6

    This course, will provide in-depth knowledge about stress topics such as the effects of stress on cognition (e.g., worry), memory (e.g. ptsd) emotion (e.g. depression) and motivation for (un)healthy behaviours (e.g. addictions). In addition you will learn about stress-reduction techniques, such as mindfulness, and to evaluate the effectiveness of such interventions.

  • Master’s Thesis Health Promotion & Behaviour Change
    18

    The Master's thesis process involves the supervisor assigning a research theme/question, the student developing a design, writing a proposal, collecting data, conducting statistical analyses, interpreting results, writing a scientific report, and presenting the thesis publicly.

  • Master's Internship Health Promotion & Behaviour Change
    18

    The internship will involve a specific assignment (or a number of sub-assignments) within the field of health promotion and behaviour change that will be carried out for the internship organisation. The assignment can be applied or research-oriented.

See more information in the Course Catalogue
I chose this Master's track because of my longstanding interest in the health sector. Read more about Sara's experience
Additional information
  • Certification

    As this is not a clinical Master’s track, completing it does not qualify you for clinical certification in the form of a Basisaantekening Psychodiagnostiek BAPD (Basic Qualification in Psychodiagnostics, a certificate issued by Dutch Institute for Psychologists) or a GZ-aantekening. 

  • Workload

    The workload is considerable. Each 4-week course starts with a 40-hour intensive practical week. Weeks 2-4 contain lectures, 2 tutorial groups each week, and extra assignments (individual presentations, essays) and end with an exam in week 4. Of course, self-study is an essential part of problem-based learning.