Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

DOI

10.1007/s12144-025-08269-x

Publication Title

Current Psychology

Volume

44

Issue

18

Pages

15454-15471

Abstract

Quantitative methodology is part of the core curriculum for training in psychology and is required of graduate students across all subdisciplines; as such, the depth and breadth of course content is a universal issue among psychology training programs. Required and supplemental quantitative content is constantly evolving with the development of new techniques or applications. Therefore, the purpose of this inquiry was fourfold; we aimed to (1) describe the current state of undergraduate quantitative education and establish a common set of current undergraduate curricular topics; (2) characterize graduate quantitative education in terms of required coursework, optional coursework, and omitted topics; (3) identify any gaps in practical knowledge that may not be addressed in formalized coursework; and (4) gather perspectives of faculty members who teach these courses about the state of the discipline and perceptions about where we should be headed. A two-study sequence using a mixed-methods approach provides the current state and trends over time for quantitative education in psychology at both the graduate and undergraduate level from 2014 (Study 1) to 2019 (Study 2). We establish a common set of topics for undergraduate quantitative education and note topics with variability across institutions. Standard required content in the graduate curriculum is also noted, including trends over time. Gaps in practical knowledge not addressed in formalized coursework were identified. Qualitative themes were identified from the perspectives of faculty members who teach these courses, including which ones persisted over time versus ones that waned.

Rights

© 2025 The Authors.

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original authors and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

Data Availability

Article states: "This study was not preregistered. Data are available upon reasonable request."

Original Publication Citation

Braitman, A. L., & Henson, J. M. (2025). Graduate and undergraduate quantitative education in psychology in the United States: A mixed methods approach. Current Psychology. 44(18), 15454-15471. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-025-08269-x

ORCID

0000-0003-2259-1094 (Braitman), 0000-0003-3888-9864 (Henson)

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