Sport and Exercise Psychology

Our program is designed to offer students a well-rounded educational experience in the field of sport and exercise psychology, within a collaborative, mastery-oriented learning atmosphere. We focus on preparing students to be competitive applicants for doctoral programs by offering them research and applied opportunities of interest, using a scientist-practitioner approach. Our program offers the opportunity for students to work towards certification as a mental performance consultant through supervised applied work with athletes.

We offer a M.S. (thesis) and a M.A. (non-thesis) option for our program, which is a 2-year, 33-credit hour program. Students complete core courses in sport and exercise psychology, along with research courses and directed electives. We also have partnerships with the Counseling Psychology and Psychological Sciences departments, which allows students to apply to minor in clinical mental health or rehabilitation counseling, or double major in rehabilitation counseling, clinical mental health counseling, or social or clinical psychology, if so desired.


In addition to the curriculum requirements of our program, we encourage students to be involved in research projects in order to gain experience with manuscript submissions, conference presentations, grant writing, and service work to be active citizens of the field, University, and community. Additionally, we provide students with teaching opportunities such as guest lecturing or conducting workshops. We strongly recommend that students become student members of at least one national organization related to the field as well as attend a related state, regional, or national conference.