UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS:
Honors in Psychology

There are two ways in which a student graduating with a Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology can graduate with honors.  First, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) awards the honor of graduating “With Distinction” primarily based on the student having a high overall grade point average.  Check the current course catalog for details about graduating with distinction.  

The second form of honors, “Latin honors” is awarded by individual departments within CLAS, including Psychology. The UCD Psychology Department has approved a very rigorous set of requirements for Latin honors, described in this document.  Successful completion of an honors project is at least a year-long, multi faceted process in which the student makes a contribution to our knowledge in psychology. A student who satisfies these requirements will have truly earned a noteworthy academic achievement of which they rightfully should be proud.

Students interested in research are encouraged to pursue opportunities as early in their academic career as possible.  These early research experiences can be useful in helping formulate research ideas and hypotheses that can form the basis of an honor’s thesis project.  Listed below are the policies and requirements for completing an honors project.

Types of Thesis Projects

An honors thesis can take one of the following forms:

• An original empirical study designed and carried out by the student. The experimental design must be substantially complex to warrant honors.  Honors students may collect their own data for this project or may use archival data for the purposes of answering their own original question.  A research question is considered to be substantially complex enough if the analyzed data would be of high enough quality to be presented at a local research meeting.
• A substantive, integrative library review in an area approved by the honors committee, culminating in a high quality review article which includes proposed research directions designed by the student to gather knowledge lacking in the current scientific literature.
• A substantive, integrative critical analysis of a major theoretical issue in the field of psychology approved by the honors committee and culminating in a high quality theoretical paper.

Honors Level Performance

Enrolling in Honor’s Thesis Hours and completion of a thesis does not guarantee that the student will receive Latin honors. Successful completion of an honor’s project is at least a year long, multi faceted process.

The PSY 4840 credit hours for which the student is enrolled during the semester that the student will defend their thesis may be changed to credit hours of independent study instead of honor’s thesis hours, if the final project is not worthy of being an honor’s project, but is worthy of being an independent study.  Worthiness of a given project will be determined by the student’s faculty committee.

Eligibility

To be eligible to graduate with honors in Psychology, a UCD psychology major must meet the following requirements:

Student must have an overall G.P.A. of 3.5 or higher at the start of the project   (75 credit hours completed toward the degree).

The student must have a psychology G.P.A. of 3.5 or higher in psychology courses taken at UCD. 

Level of honor’s will be determined by GPA

3.80 - 4.0      summa cum laude

3.60 - 3.79    magna cum laude

3.50 - 3.59    cum laude

Committee

The student must arrange for three faculty members to serve on their thesis committee, only one of whom may be external to the psychology department.  One of the faculty members must be designated as the chair of the committee. The chair must be a rostered member of the UCD psychology department and be of tenure track rank, unless a waiver is granted by the Dean’s office. All members of the committee must be chosen during the semester in which the proposal is being written.

Requirements

During the first semester of the project the student must enroll for three credit hours of independent study.  For these credit hours the student must complete a committee-approved, detailed, written honors research proposal by the end of the semester.

In the final semester, the student will enroll for three more credit hours of independent study (PSY 4840), this time called “honors thesis.”  During this semester the student will complete the thesis, submit it to his or her committee, and defend the thesis.

The thesis must be defended before the honors committee by presenting the thesis and answering questions about the project. The defense date must occur at least four weeks before the end of the semester.

A final draft of the thesis must be given to each committee member at least two weeks before the defense date.

Enrolling in Honors Thesis hours and completion of a thesis does not guarantee that the student will receive Latin honors. The PSY 4840 honors thesis credit hours may be changed to independent study hours if the final project is not worthy of being an honors project but is worthy of being an independent study.  Worthiness of a given project will be determined by the student’s faculty committee.

Exceptions

Exceptions to these rules may be granted via a student appeal supported by all of the committee members and submitted to the Psychology Department Chair. The appeal must be supported by all committee members and approved by the departmental chair.

The College also awards honors—see CLAS Undergraduate Academic Honors.

Rev. 12/08