Industrial-Organizational Psychology (I-O)

I/O Faculty 2019
Left to right: Richard Landers, Nathan Kuncel, Aaron Schmidt, Paul Sackett, Deniz S. Ones
Additional Program Information:
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Our program is designed to give students broad training across all areas of I-O psychology and deep training in the areas of expertise of our Psychology department’s faculty.

The I-O Psychology program at Minnesota has long maintained a reputation as one of the top three I-O Ph.D. programs in the United States.  Current and former Minnesota faculty and students have won over 80 awards, prizes, grants, and other recognitions from the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), our field’s primary professional organization.  Six graduates and two faculty of the Minnesota I-O program have even served as presidents of SIOP (i.e., almost 10% of all SIOP presidents).  In general, Minnesota faculty and students are highly engaged with the I-O psychology community and have been broadly recognized for their many contributions to the field.

Students often choose to specialize in such areas as personnel psychology, training and development, individual assessment, work motivation, group and organizational processes, data science, research methods, and psychometrics, among others. Such specialization may be achieved with courses in:

  • Counseling Psychology
  • Advanced Seminars in Industrial/Organizational Psychology
  • Personality Assessment
  • Social Psychology
  • Cognition
  • Data Science
  • Computer Science
  • Research Methods
  • Psychometrics
  • Statistics
  • Speech Communications
  • Sociology
  • Industrial Relations
  • Marketing
  • Political Science
  • Management

Research

In addition to coursework, you will be immersed in research.  Upon arrival, you will be brought into a new or continuing faculty research project immediately.  You will also develop and carry out a first year research project.  This may be an outgrowth of the early research experience, or it may be completely separate.  A major goal is to have a topic identified by the end of your first semester.  It is not crucial that you originate the idea, but it is the intent of this project that you take a lead role in carrying out the project (as opposed to being a “helping hand” on a faculty project) and write up the results for presentation and publication.   Students typically remain continuously engaged in research their entire time at the University.

Practical experience

In addition to coursework and research, students have many opportunities to gain real-world experience.  In addition to attending monthly meetings of the local I-O psychology practitioners group, all students who want practical experience before they graduate complete summer internships either locally, remotely or in locations desirable to them.  Students have significant flexibility in this depending upon their interests; some complete internships every year, whereas others choose to spend their summers teaching or working on research grants.  Recent internships have included:

  • Internal consulting at major corporations, including:
    • Johnson & Johnson
    • Land O’Lakes
    • Marriott International
    • Proctor & Gamble
    • Target
    • Walmart
  • Internal consulting at Silicon Valley firms, including: 
    • Amazon
    • Facebook
    • GitHub
    • LinkedIn
    • Oracle
  • External consulting at human resources consulting firms, including:
    • Aon Hewitt
    • Assessment Associates International
    • Development Dimensions International
    • HumRRO
    • Korn Ferry
    • Personnel Decisions Research International
    • SHL Talent Measurement Solutions
    • Public sector consulting at government agencies, including: 
    • Department of Veterans Affairs

Course, research, and internship opportunities are all intended to help you meet your career goals, and your academic advisor will work closely with you to guide your decision-making to reach those goals (even if you aren’t quite sure what they are yet).  

Curriculum

Since you are required to satisfy a set of general distribution requirements in psychology, you will spend much of your first two years taking such courses, typically with a significant emphasis on I-O psychology courses, statistics courses, and research methods courses. As you progress through the program, the proportion of your time that you spend on research versus coursework will increase sharply. For specific curriculum requirements to the Industrial Organizational (I-O) program, please visit the Graduate Education Catalog: Psychology.

The star attraction of Minnesota I-O psychology’s curriculum is the I-O seminar, which is an in-depth 3-semester seminar series that you will complete by the end of your third year in the program.  The course has no books; each week, students plus two I-O faculty read journal articles and discuss them in significant depth.  One week each semester, you will be responsible for becoming a world-class expert in your chosen topic and present this to the class. I-O seminar is designed to build real, deep expertise in several topics of your choosing, to create professional identification with the field, and to develop professional associations and friendships with students and faculty that will last for years to come.

Fall

PSY 5703: Psychology of Organizational Training and Development

PSY 5707: Personnel Psychology

PSY 5862: Psychological Measurements: Theory and Methods

PSY 8814: Analysis of Psychological Data I

Spring

PSY 5708: Organizational Psychology

PSY 8993: Research Methods in I/O Psychology

PSY 8815: Analysis of Psychological Data II

Fall

PSY 8701: Seminar in Industrial and Organizational Psychology I (Kuncel, Landers, Ones, Sackett, Schmidt)

Select among stats, methods, I/O specialty seminars, and other courses within or outside psychology, in consultation with your advisor

Spring

PSY 8702: Seminar in Industrial and Organizational Psychology II (Kuncel, Landers, Ones, Sackett, Schmidt)

Select among stats, methods, I/O specialty seminars, and other courses within or outside psychology, in consultation with your advisor

Fall

PSY 8703: Seminar in Industrial and Organizational Psychology III (Kuncel, Landers, Ones, Sackett, Schmidt)

Select among stats, methods, I/O specialty seminars, and other courses within or outside psychology, in consultation with your advisor

Spring

Select among stats, methods, I/O specialty seminars, and other courses within or outside psychology, in consultation with your advisor

Dissertation

Core Faculty

Nathan Kuncel, Professor, Marvin D. Dunnette Distinguished Professor, and Distinguished McKnight University Professor
Richard Landers, Professor & John P. Campbell Distinguished Professor
Deniz S. Ones, Professor, Hellervik Professor of Industrial Psychology & Distinguished McKnight University Professor (Area Director)
Paul Sackett, Beverly and Richard Fink Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Liberal Arts
Aaron Schmidt, Associate Professor

Affiliated Faculty

Abdifatah Ali, Assistant Professor
Elizabeth Campbell, Associate Professor
Michelle Duffy, Professor & Vernon Heath Chair 
Theresa M. Glomb, Professor & The Toro Company-David M. Lilly Chair in Organizational Behavior
John Kammeyer-Mueller, Professor & Curtis L. Carlson Professor of Industrial Relations
Connie Wanberg, Professor & Industrial Relations Faculty Excellence Chair 

Emeritus Professors

John Campbell, Professor