Psychological and Quantitative Foundations

This is the first version of the 2025–26 General Catalog. Please check back regularly for changes. The final edition and the historical PDF will be published during the fall semester.

Undergraduate major: counseling and behavioral health services (BA)

Undergraduate minor: educational psychology

Graduate degrees: MA in psychological and quantitative foundations; EdS in psychological and quantitative foundations; PhD in psychological and quantitative foundations

Faculty: https://education.uiowa.edu/directory

Website: https://education.uiowa.edu/about/administration/department-psychological-and-quantitative-foundations

The Department of Psychological and Quantitative Foundations offers programs in these areas: counseling psychology, educational measurement and statistics, learning sciences and educational psychology, and school psychology. These programs have two general goals: to help students acquire the knowledge and skills that are necessary to function effectively in settings that require the application of psychological and quantitative principles and to extend knowledge and understanding of the teaching/learning process as it occurs in a variety of settings. The department's graduate degree programs incorporate both goals, but the Master of Arts and Specialist in Education programs emphasize the first goal, and the Doctor of Philosophy programs emphasize the second.

The department offers graduate degree programs in the following major areas within psychological and quantitative foundations:

  • counseling psychology (offered in the PhD);
  • educational measurement and statistics (offered in the MA and PhD);
  • learning sciences and educational psychology (offered in the MA and PhD); and
  • school psychology (offered in the EdS and PhD).

In addition to the graduate degrees offered as programs of study, the department offers an undergraduate minor in educational psychology and an undergraduate major, the bachelor of arts in counseling and behavioral health services, which advances training and introduces students to counseling and the helping professions. The curriculum includes an emphasis in counseling skills with courses in applied counseling, psychology, ethics, career development, and introductions to and theoretical foundations of human services fields.

The department offers two courses that are approved for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences GE CLAS CorePSQF:1020 Elementary Statistics and Inference, approved for the Quantitative or Formal Reasoning area; and PSQF:2115 Introduction to Counseling Psychology, approved for the Social Sciences area.

Applicants for admission to the graduate degree programs must meet the admission requirements of the Graduate College; see the Manual of Rules and Regulations on the Graduate College website.