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 Modeling
PSYC 845 Longitudinal Structural Equation 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 to cover topical areas similar to the classes listed above 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.
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. A list of pre-approved courses is provided below, but students may also request pre-approval of other courses by emailing the Director of the Quantitative Graduate Program (please include a copy of the syllabus). 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.
Below are a list of pre-approved courses for substitutions. Please note that the courses listed below may have their own enrollment restrictions.
BIOS 611 Introduction to Data Science
BIOS 665 Analysis of Categorical Data
BIOS 667 Applied Longitudinal Data Analysis
BIOS 680 Introduction to Survival Analysis
BIOS 762 General Linear Model
BIOS 780 Survival Analysis
COMP 755 Machine Learning
ECON 874 Advanced Topics in Causal Inference
EDUC 884 Statistical Analysis III (Multivariate Analysis)
EPID 711 Clinical Measurement and Evaluation
HSCI 903 Foundations of Qualitative Data Analysis
HSCI 918 Meta-Analysis
INLS 772 Applied Machine Learning
PSYC 859 Mediation Analysis
SOCI 711 Categorical Data Analysis
SOCI 754 Survey Sampling
SOCI 830 Demography
STOR 612 Foundations of Optimization
STOR 634 Probability I
STOR 654 Statistical Theory I
STOR 664 Applied Statistics I
SOWO 914 Measurement
Enrollment
There is no formal application or enrollment process for a Psychology and Neuroscience graduate student to pursue the FCQP, although Quantitative faculty can be consulted for information on course content and advisement on course selection.
Completion
Upon completion of the FCQP requirements, the student can request a letter from the Quantitative 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 formal minor as defined by the Graduate School. However, the Quantitative Concentration has the 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 might noted as
Jane Doe
Ph.D., Clinical Psychology
Formal Concentration, Quantitative Psychology