Printer-Friendly  Printer-friendly version 

Home > Educational Psychology > PhD

 

PhD Program Requirements

Completion of 33 credits of required core courses. Students must receive a grade of at least “B” in all core courses. The purposes of the core courses are (a) to determine whether to encourage students to proceed in the PhD program; (b) to develop an appropriate plan of study; and (c) to advance to candidacy. Students may submit Student Progress Form I upon completion of core courses. In some cases, students may request substitutions of core courses.

Completion of Required Interdisciplinary Specialization

  • The interdisciplinary specialization consists of three courses in a cognate area outside of educational psychology.
  • Students should submit a memo for approval via their advisor to the Graduate Chair describing the focus of their interdisciplinary specialization and as much detail about the three proposed courses as possible. Students should submit the memo as soon as they are aware of what their interdisciplinary specialization might be.
  • Generally, a directed reading course is not acceptable toward the interdisciplinary specialization; however, under special circumstances or when a graduate course is not available, students can make a proposal explaining why a directed reading course is necessary.

College Teaching Experience in Conjunction With One or More Faculty Members

  • All students are required to have a significant role in the planning and instruction of a college-level course.
  • Prior to teaching, students should submit a proposal to the Graduate Chair indicating what they are going to teach, who their supervising faculty member will be, and the student’s role in the planning and instruction.
  • After teaching, students should submit a memo to the Graduate Chair, via their supervising faculty member, describing their role in planning and instruction of the course. Students should also describe the strengths and weaknesses of their instruction and their professional growth in this process.

Documentation of Directed Research Experiences

Minimum Residency of three semesters of full-time work or the equivalent in credits at UHM.

Dissertation Prospectus

Completion of the core coursework marks the beginning of greater concentration in developing expertise in the area of the student’s interest. The development of a dissertation prospectus is done in conjunction with the identification of the Dissertation Committee Chair. The prospectus is a 5-10 page description (exclusive of references) of the proposed dissertation that is developed in consultation with a prospective Chair and submitted to the faculty.  The prospectus includes:
  • the statement of the problem,
  • its relevance to educational psychology,
  • the design of the investigation, and
  • analysis.
The prospectus must be submitted by the 15th of each month in order to be considered at the first faculty meeting of the following month.

Dissertation Proposal

If there are no major objections to this prospectus from the graduate faculty as a whole, the student develops a dissertation proposal in consultation with the Dissertation Chair and forms a doctoral committee based on mutual interest. Dissertation committee formation generally is intertwined with proposal development. The dissertation proposal includes a literature review that contextualizes the question(s) within existing research and theory.  The proposal also includes a description of the proposed research methods, including how the data will be analyzed.  Students should work with their Disseration Chair to develop their proposals and refer to the Proposal Literature Review Assessment Rubric and the Proposal Method Section Assessment Rubric.

A formal oral defense of the dissertation proposal is made by the student to the doctoral committee in order to confirm approval of the proposed research.

Committee on Human Subjects

Students whose dissertation research involve human participants should receive approval from the University's Committee on Human Studies (CHS) for their project.  Students work with their Dissertation Chair to develop their Human Studies applications and refer to the CHS application guidelines.  They should also refer to the Human Studies Application Assessment Rubric. Students who plan to do research in the Department of Education should refer to the Guidelines for Research in the HIDOE. This may entail an additional application to the DOE Systems Accountability Office.

Comprehensive Examination

The comprehensive exam is taken after the proposal defense. Committee members typically formulate two or three questions that may be related to the student's proposal but may be broader in scope. Typically, students take between three to six weeks to complete the written comprehensive exam; however, each committee determines the exact timeline. When students pass the comprehensive exam, Student Progress Form II
will be submitted to the Graduate Division.

  • The questions may focus on literature review, methods, theory, or research design. The questions will be relevant to, but may be broader, than the student’s proposal.
  • If students need clarification about their comprehensive examination questions, they should submit their questions to their committee chair.
  • Students’ written answers to the two or three questions should be between 20 – 35 pages (total).
  • An oral defense will be scheduled after the written answers are turned in. The Committee will have at least two weeks to read the written answers before the oral defense.
  • A student who fails the comprehensive exam may repeat it once. The Graduate Chair shall report the results of the repeated exam to the Graduate Records Office via a copy of the Student Progress Form II. A student who fails any portion of the comprehensive exam twice will be dismissed from both the graduate program and the Graduate Division, unless recommended otherwise by the Graduate Chair.

Completion of the Program

The dissertation is a single-authored written manuscript in book form written by the student.  The dissertation typically includes:

  • an introduction that includes a literature review contextualizing the research question(s) within existing research and theory,
  • a method section describing the research methods, including how the data were analyzed,
  • a results section presenting what was found, and
  • a discussion section that interprets the results and suggests implications for theory, research, and practice.

Students work with their Dissertation Chair to develop the dissertation and apply the writing style and conventions described in the current edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association.  They should refer to the Dissertation Literature Review Assessment Rubric and the Dissertation Method Section Assessment Rubric. It is the responsibility of the student to keep all members of the Dissertation Committee informed of the scope, plan, and progress of the dissertation research.

After consultation with the Dissertation Chair, copies of the completed dissertation must be submitted to the committee members at least two weeks prior to the date of the dissertation defense.

Dissertation Defense

The dissertation defense is an oral examination open to the public, during which the candidate demonstrates satisfactory command of all aspects of the work presented and other related subjects, if applicable.  The defense must be one hour or more in length.  It may be scheduled between 8:00 am to 4:30 pm on any work day, during both instructional and non-instructional periods.

The examination typically begins with the student's research presentation, a brief summary of the research questions, related literature, results and implications.  Students work with their Dissertation Chair to develop their research presentations and refer to the Research Presentation Assessment Rubric.  After the presentation, the candidate answers questions posed by the Dissertation Committee and if time allows, questions from the audience.

Upon successful defense of the dissertation and subsequent completion of revisions, Student Progress Form III is submitted to the Graduate Division.

It is the student's responsibility to edit and prepare a final manuscript that meets the Graduate Division's format requirements.  Students may submit either a PDF version of the manuscript saved on a CD or an unbound printed copy of the manuscript to the Graduate Division. The dissertations are due at the Graduate Records Office by the deadline specified in the "Academic Calendar." A printed copy of the original signature page is required, regardless of the chosen format for manuscript submission.  Students who plan to publish through ProQuest need to submit additional items.  See the Graduate Division website, for more information. A copy of the manuscript in PDF version must be provided to the Department. A copy of the manuscript should also be provided to the Dissertation chair. The student should discuss with their chair whether he/she prefers a paper or PDF version of the manuscript.