Each seminar covers recent theoretical and applied developments in cognitive and quantitative psychology. The seminar topics mirror changes in the discipline as they occur. For changes that are viewed as enduring, the program revises the content of courses currently available, and introduces new courses as deemed to be appropriate. The Department of Psychology uses a student-faculty contract system to ensure mastery of content and methodology at the doctoral level and to permit accommodation to each student's interests. Each student develops an agreement with the faculty that includes a statement of goals, how those goals are to be achieved, and the methods by which achievements are to be evaluated.
Progress is reviewed on an agreed-upon schedule.
Modification of the contract, which can occur for any of a number of reasons, is a matter simply of discussion and agreement between the student and the faculty. The training program emphasizes the development of a broad based foundation in theory, research methods, technical skills, and quantitative analysis for application in a variety of basic and applied research settings. In addition, collegial relationships exist with the Institute of Life-Span Development, and the University of Kansas Medical Center Departments of Neurology, Pediatrics, Hearing and Speech and the Alzheimer's Disease Center. The quantitative track in the experimental program seeks to produce graduates who have acquired expertise in one or more areas of quantitative psychology. Areas of focus in the quantitative methods include psychometric methods, item response theory, structural equation modeling, multivariate methods and mathematical modeling.