GRADUATE STUDY
Ogwlab accepts master's and doctoral students through the Graduate School of Humanities (Integrated Psychological Science) at Kwansei Gakuin University. Applicants from other universities are welcome. You must contact us before applying.
BEFORE CONTACT
Research topics are chosen from your own interests. But being free to choose is not the same as any project being feasible: together we check the prior literature, the methods, the equipment available here, and the time to completion, and turn your interest into a plan that can actually be carried out.
WHO THIS IS FOR
As a rule, applicants should have majored in psychology at the undergraduate level. Applicants from related fields can be considered depending on their training and intended topic. We also assume experience with empirical research — an experiment, survey, observation, or data analysis, typically through an undergraduate thesis. Without any empirical research experience it is difficult to start building a research plan soon after admission, and acceptance may not be possible.
BEFORE APPLYING
We strongly recommend a lab visit or an online meeting before applying. We will discuss your interests, your research experience so far, the methods and equipment available at Ogwlab, and the rough shape of your first years — and answer questions about the seminar and graduate-student life.
HOW RESEARCH DEVELOPS
You do not need to arrive with a finished research plan. We expect you to bring a question you care about, read the literature, revise the plan through discussion, and carry it through experiments, analysis, and writing. Topics are set by your own interests; plans and manuscripts are examined concretely.
TWO COURSES
MASTER'S COURSE
In the first year you review the literature and run pilot experiments to settle a topic and method. In the second year you run the main experiments and analyses and write the master's thesis. Where possible, we aim to publish master's work as peer-reviewed articles.
DOCTORAL COURSE
Building on your master's research, you design the set of studies that will make up the dissertation. While presenting at conferences and submitting papers, we support applications for JSPS DC fellowships and completion within the standard period as far as possible.
RESEARCH PROCESS
Match your interests against the literature and narrow the topic to what graduate work can address.
Make the hypotheses, methods, analyses, and research-ethics procedures concrete.
Carry out the research and examine the results. When things do not go as planned, revisit the method and the reasoning.
Present at conferences, write the thesis, and submit publishable studies to peer-reviewed journals.
SUPPORT
PRACTICAL NOTES
WHAT TO SHARE FIRST
JSPS FELLOWSHIPS
Ogwlab hosts fellowship applications in perception and cognitive psychology. Contact us early in the application season.