Human Development and Family Studies
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The graduate program at PSU, which focuses on both basic and applied research, helps prepare students for careers in science, higher education, and agencies that design, administer, and evaluate interventions to promote healthy development. The program takes a life-span perspective, focusing on individual development in infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age, as well as the development of families within communities and society.
The program of research and graduate training is designed to help students generate scientific knowledge about individual development and family functioning across the life-span. There is a strong interest in the ways in which social institutions and settings such as day care facilities, schools, neighborhoods, and social policy institutions facilitate (or inhibit) opportunities for development and change for individuals and families. Understanding the characteristics and conditions that place individuals or families at risk for developing problems, designing effective prevention programs to address those risks, and mounting rigorous evaluations of such programs is a growing emphasis in the program. All students, regardless of substantive area, are encouraged to develop strong skills in research methods, a hallmark of PSU's graduate training.
The PSU department is organized into four broad areas: Individual Development, Family Studies, Intervention Research, and Developmental Research Methods. It is important to underscore, however, that there is purposeful overlap across areas. For example, there is strong interest in individual development in the context of family relationships, developing new methods to understand individual development over time, and understanding how to strengthen individual competence or family functioning. Most faculty fit into more than one area, and graduate students are strongly encouraged to work across at least two areas.
Last modified: 01/09/08 | Contact Webmaster
