NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY
Las Cruces, NM
Department of Psychology

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BACKGROUND:
Title: Engineering Psychology (MA, PhD)
Est: 1969
Semester
Granted last 3 years: MA 18, PhD 7
Part-time: yes
HFES student chapter: yes
Program: Emphases are (1) the application of models, theories, and principles pf perception, cognition, social psychology, and other areas of psychology; (2) training in quantitative and research methods; and (3) hands-on training in usability design and evaluation, with a focus on HCI and automation. Courses include a mix of basic and applied experimental psychology with a strong statistical component. All faculty have interests in measuring mental models and user knowledge. Other specific faculty research interests include information visualization, team cognition, information retrieval, instructional technology, and assistive technologies. In addition to classroom- and lab-based training, most students participate in internships to enhance their graduate training. Accredited by: HFES.
Contact: Jim McDonald, NMSU, Department of Psychology, Las Cruces, NM 88003; 505/646-1408; jemcdon@nmsu.edu, http://www.psych.nmsu.edu/.
Catalog: http://www.gradschool.nmsu.edu/gradcat.html

APPLICATION:
Deadlines: 2/1 (fall)
Fee: $30

ADMISSION REQUIREMENTS:
GPA: 3.0
GRE: 1000 v + q
Other: research methods and statistics
Research: medium
Work experience: medium
Letters: medium
Interview: low

ADMISSIONS:
Students applying last year: 54
Accepted: 14
Entered program: 10
Openings/year: 5-10

TUITION AND FEES:
Resident: 1-11 credits $164/credit; 12-15 credits $1968/semester
Nonresident: 1-6 credits $164/credit; 7-11 credits $522.25/credit; 12-15 credits $6267/semester

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE:
% receiving: 100
Amount: $14800/$15000/$15200
Available: fellowship, TA, RA, scholarship, all tuition exempt
Apply: with application, or by 2/15 for fall semester

DEGREE REQUIREMENTS:
MA: 36 units, thesis defense, research required, no languages or practical experience, 2-3 years
Nonthesis option: no
PhD: 48 units beyond MA, qualifying exam for admission into PhD, comprehensive exam for admission to candidacy, dissertation defense, research and internship required, no languages, 5 years

CURRICULUM:
Required courses (units): Quantitative Methods: Basic Statistics (3), Quantitative Methods: Experimental Design/ANOVA (3), Quantitative Methods: Regression (3); Engineering Psychology (3), plus selection from the following (6 units for MA, 9 for PhD, plus 6 additional units of statistics for PhD): Cognitive (3), Perception (3), Learning (3), Biopsychology (3), Developmental (3), Social (3)
Required courses outside department: 0
Recommended courses outside department: Depends on student's program of study as determined with the committee.
Class size: 10-20

RESEARCH/TEACHING OPPORTUNITIES:
Research facilities: Students do research with a faculty adviser and have access to that faculty member's lab facilities (total available lab space is approximately 11,000 square feet). Lab resources include 60 microcomputers, visual research equipment (e.g., tachistoscopes and eye movement recorders), aviation simulation equipment, and EEG and ERP recording systems. We have a state-of-the-art lab for studying team performance and cognition as team members perform various synthetic tasks, a lab for studying face-to-face interactions in simulated environments, a robotics control lab, and two computer-based labs for (a) developing multimedia applications (including Web-based applications) to be used as class projects or for teaching, (b) performing statistical analyses, (c) conducting usability tests and analyzing video data from the tests, and (d) developing experiments. In addition, the Psychology Department works in collaboration with other departments and labs on campus, including the Computer Science Department and the Computing Research Lab, resulting in research, development, and evaluation opportunities in human-computer interaction.
Teaching: TAs lead recitation sections in Introductory Psychology and teach lab sections in Methods and Perception courses. PhD students are required to teach at least one course, but the more skilled teachers will have opportunities to teach several courses over their graduate careers. Advanced graduate students can teach in the weekend college, at the Dona Ana Branch Community College, or at branch campuses of NMSU.
Current research: Research spans the breadth of applied cognitive psychology, with strong applications to the design and evaluation of various user interfaces. Specific research projects include analyzing how trust affects operator responses to automation recommendations, how operators monitor and control mulitple UAVs, visual search during luggage screening tasks, perceptual and cognitive processes in reading, the role of monitoring in prospective memory, cultural and individual differences in cognition, the Stroop effect, acquisition of knowledge and skills, and the relation between learners' metacognitive appraisals of their knowledge and their actual abilities.

STUDENT STATISTICS:
Active: 22 men, 23 women
First-year students: 10
Mean scores: MA: GRE 531 v, 668 q. GPA 3.41; PhD: GRE 643 v, 683 q. GPA 3.72

FACULTY:
Stephen Dixon, PhD 2006, U Illinois; automation, trust, UAVs, attention, visual search
Peter Foltz, PhD 1993, U Colorado; latent semantic analysis, information retrieval, discourse processing (on leave 2006-2007 academic year)
Melissa Guynn, PhD 2001, U New Mexico; prospective memory, retrieval processes in human memory
Adrienne Lee, PhD 1993, U Colorado; instructional technologies, learning and transfer, expertise (on leave 2006-2007 academic year)
James McDonald, PhD 1981, New Mexico State U; information retrieval, HCI
Dominic Simon, PhD 1997, UCLA; acquisition of knowledge and skills, metacognition