Skip to main content

Formal Concentration in Quantitative Psychology: FCQP

The Quantitative Psychology Program within the L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory offers a Formal Concentration in Quantitative Psychology, or FCQP, to any graduate student who is enrolled in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience. The purpose of the FCQP is to establish a predefined set of curricular requirements that constitute advanced training in quantitative psychology, substantially beyond the minimum coursework required for all graduate students. Obtaining the FCQP indicates a high level of training and coursework as defined by the faculty of the Quantitative Psychology Program.

The FCQP is available to any graduate student who is enrolled in one of the five non-quantitative doctoral programs in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience: Behavioral and Integrative Neuroscience, Clinical, Cognitive, Developmental, and Social. The FCQP program is not available to non-psychology graduate students or students from other universities. However, non-psychology students are always encouraged and welcome to enroll in any psychology quantitative courses, providing seats are available.

Requirements

The FCQP requires the completion of PSYC 830 and PSYC 831 (Statistical Methods in Psychology I and II, respectively) plus a minimum of four additional three-credit-hour courses in quantitative psychology. All courses must be completed with a grade of P or better. Examples of quantitative psychology courses that can be applied toward the FCQP include:

  • PSYC 791 Categorical Data Analysis
  • PSYC 795 Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging
  • PSYC 834 Machine Learning
  • PSYC 840 Computational Statistics
  • PSYC 842 Test Theory and Analysis
  • PSYC 843 Factor Analysis
  • PSYC 844 Structural Equation Models
  • PSYC 845 Latent Curve Modeling
  • PSYC 846 Multilevel Modeling
  • PSYC 859 Graphical Data Analysis
  • PSYC 859 Item Response Theory
  • PSYC 859 Mediation Analysis

On occasion, additional advanced seminars are offered in Mixture Modeling, Time Series Analysis, and Advanced Structural Equation Modeling, among other topics. All of these courses count towards the FCQP requirements without the need for prior approval from the Quantitative Program Director.

Course Substitutions

Due to limited resources, there are times during which advanced courses are not offered within the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience that follow a set schedule. If there is a period of time in which the courses listed above are not available, quantitatively-focused courses offered by other departments on campus may be applied toward the four-course requirement. There are excellent courses available within many units on campus including Biostatistics, Statistics, Sociology, Education, Social Work, and Economics, among several others. However, there is one limitation and one condition for these substitutions.

First, under no circumstances can more than two non-psychology classes be applied towards the four-course requirement. Second, any potential substitution must be pre-approved by the Quantitative Program Director for application towards the FCQP. Pre-approval ensures that a given course is consistent with the curriculum of the FCQP and that a substitution is justified given limited course offerings within the Department. If pre-approval is not obtained prior to enrolling in the course, there is no guarantee that a non-psychology course can be applied toward the four-course requirement. To clarify, any student can enroll in any course on campus entirely at their own discretion; the pre-approval requirement is only to establish whether a given course can be counted toward the four-course minimum to fulfill the FCQP.

Enrollment

There is no formal application or enrollment process for a Psychology and Neuroscience graduate student to pursue the FCQP. However, any student who is interested in working towards the FCQP is asked to notify the Director of the Quantitative Psychology Program of their intention via email. This is simply meant to track what students are pursuing the FCQP and to help inform future course offerings.

Completion

Upon completion of the FCQP requirements, the student can request a letter from the Quantitative Psychology Program Director indicating that they have completed the concentration requirements. This request can be sent via email and should list each course taken, as well as in what semester it was completed and what grade was obtained. The Director will then write a formal letter of completion for the Concentration in Quantitative Psychology.

Formal Status of Concentration

The concentration is not the equivalent of a “minor” as defined by the Graduate School. However, the Quantitative Concentration has the formal certification and endorsement of the Quantitative Psychology Program and the Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory and can be listed as such on a curriculum vitae. For example, this distinction could be listed as:

Jane Doe
Ph.D., Clinical Psychology
Formal Concentration, Quantitative Psychology

Please direct any questions to Dr. Dan Bauer.