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Graduate School Requirements

Human Subjects Requirements | Master's Degree | Advancement to Candidacy | Doctoral Comprehensive Exam | Doctoral Dissertation and Final Oral Exam

Protection of Human Subjects Requirements
All research conducted at Penn State that involves the use of human subjects must be reviewed and approved by the University's Human Subjects Review Committee. Any graduate student conducting research with human subjects must submit an application for human subject's approval. Application forms with instructions are available in the main office (417-B Moore), and should be reviewed by the faculty sponsor after they are completed. Completed applications must also be signed by the Head of Psychology before being transmitted to the Human Subjects Review Committee. For theses and dissertations, the approval memo from the Human Subjects Review Committee must be included as an appendix in the final draft submitted to the Graduate School.

Master's Degree
Although the department does not, in general, admit students for the purpose of earning only the Master's degree, the department does require that each graduate student complete a Master's degree or its equivalent to be admitted to Candidacy. The "equivalent" option again reflects the department's commitment to flexibility in each student's program. There is not, however, a specifically defined set of criteria that establishes what an "equivalent" must be. As a rule, an empirically-based published journal article (in a reputable journal in the field) on which the student is first author is often taken as an adequate equivalent.

Although a Master's degree is not required, if an equivalent project is accepted by the Director of Graduate Training in concert with the student's major advisor, the vast majority of students who enter the program without having previously earned a Master's degree do complete one as part of their program. Given that each student must do a research project regardless, it simply makes good sense that a Master's degree be obtained in the process.

Guidelines for Meeting the Master's Degree (or research equivalent) Requirements:

1. Each student is required to select three faculty members from the Department of Psychology for a Master's degree committee that will be responsible for overseeing and evaluating the quality of this research project. The three faculty members chosen for this committee would include two from the student's major area and one from an area outside the major but within the department. The committee must be chaired by a faculty member holding a tenured or tenure-track appointment in the Department of Psychology. (Faculty members not holding such an appointment may serve as co-chair.) Additional members may be included from other areas or departments, but these would be in addition to the required three departmental members.

2. In consultation with the chair and the other committee members, each student must develop a specific research proposal that is distributed to all committee members (a minimum of two weeks in advance of the proposal meeting). A proposal meeting of the student and the committee must be held, and the proposal approved prior to the conduct of the project. The deadline for an accepted proposal for the Master's (or research equivalent) will be April 1 in the student's second year. This deadline is before the traditional Spring evaluation of graduate students. In most cases, the proposal meeting should be held well before this deadline. Failure to meet this proposal deadline will result in the inability to register for graduate courses/credit until the proposal is accepted, and loss of priority for funding. Formal petitions for exceptions must be approved by the student's area and the Director of Graduate Training.

3. In general, the Master's project (or the research equivalent) should be completed by the end of the second year in the program; however, it must be completed by the end of the third year in the program (end of Spring semester). Students that have not completed the project by this time will not be allowed to register for credits other than Master's research credits, and will receive automatic major area review of their progress in the graduate program. The Master's thesis is considered completed only when it has been delivered to the Graduate School and accepted.

4. The completed Master's thesis or research equivalent must be evaluated during a meeting of the student and his/her committee. This meeting will constitute a "Master's Defense," similar in nature to a doctoral dissertation defense. The student is responsible for ensuring that each committee member, as well as the Department Head, receives a final draft of the thesis at least two weeks prior to the defense.

5. The faculty committee is charged with evaluating the student's research project (in regard to its appropriateness as a Master's thesis or its equivalent in Psychology from this Department) as well as the student's performance in pursuit of this goal. The faculty committee will then vote to 1) accept or reject the thesis as meeting the requirements for a Master's degree in Psychology, and 2) recommend or not recommend that the student continue in graduate study toward the Ph.D. This latter recommendation would involve three possibilities:

(1) Clear recommendation that student should be advanced to candidacy for doctoral study.

(2) Clear recommendation that student should not be advanced to candidacy, and move for terminal Master's degree.

(3) Recommend comprehensive review by student's major area to aid in decision for advancement to candidacy.

Any committee vote that is not unanimous in support of the student's advancement to candidacy for doctoral study in this department should be regarded as a call for a comprehensive review by the student's major area. Advancement to candidacy for the doctoral degree would then depend upon recommendation of the faculty in the student's major area as well as the recommendation of the Master's committee. Final disposition will be made by the entire faculty at the Graduate Student Evaluation meeting in either the Fall or Spring semester as appropriate.

Several Graduate School requirements for the Master's degree are worth noting. The Graduate School specifies that a minimum of 30 graduate credits must have been earned, 20 of which must have been earned at Penn State. Also, at least 18 credits must be in the 500 and 600 level series. Finally Psychology 600 or 610 must have been taken for 6 credits. Plan carefully to ensure that these requirements are met.

The Master's Thesis
The structure and content of the thesis is usually a joint student-committee decision. Typically the thesis is experimental in nature with sections and content much the same as a published empirical paper. The thesis, however, must be written in accordance with the graduate school's requirements which are detailed in the Thesis Information Bulletin available in Kern at the information desk. Do find a copy of this Bulletin and become familiar with it before writing your thesis. It will save you a fair amount of grief. It is a departmental policy that the Human Subjects Approval memo is to be included as an appendix in all Master's theses. Please be sure that this memo is included in the final copy of the thesis that will be read by your advisor and reader and subsequently turned in to the Graduate School.

Students Entering with Master's Degree
Some students enter the graduate program with a Master's degree in hand (or a research equivalent such as a first authored journal article). These students may apply to have the above requirements waived in lieu of their previous accomplishments. The decision to waive the Master's or research equivalent requirement will involve the following. Three copies of the thesis should be provided to the Director of Graduate Training early in the student's first semester here. A three person committee (similar in composition to the regular Master's/research committee) will read and evaluate the student's thesis or research article in relation to its acceptability as a Master's thesis or equivalent for this department. This committee will then make a recommendation to the Director of Graduate Training to either (1) accept the previous work as meeting our requirements for an acceptable thesis or research equivalent, or (2) require that the student complete an acceptable thesis or research equivalent as part of their graduate program at Penn State. Upon acceptance of the previous research project, and completion of any necessary course work, student's may apply for advancement to candidacy. If a student is requested to complete another research project or Master's thesis as part of their Penn State program, the standard process described in the previous section for completing Master's theses/research equivalents will apply.

Time Limit
Note that the Graduate School has established an 8-year time limit between entry and completion of the Master's degree. The Department, however, expects that your progress will conform to that outlined in the Guidelines!

Advancement to Candidacy
Upon admittance by the Graduate School and acceptance by the Department of Psychology, students may begin working toward the doctoral degree. But surprise! Graduate students have no official status as doctoral students or assurance of acceptance as doctoral candidates until the student is admitted to Candidacy. The graduate faculty in the Department of Psychology is responsible for the decision regarding Advancement to Candidacy.

There are essentially two sets of requirements which must be satisfied before the student may be considered by the faculty for Advancement to Candidacy. First, students must complete the Master's degree or equivalent, requirements for which have been described previously. The second requirement involves the selection of the doctoral comprehensive examination and dissertation committees. Requirements for the selection of the doctoral committee are straightforward. First, the committee must number at least four members (more than four is certainly acceptable). Second, one member must be from a department other than Psychology (this member may be chosen by the student, often in consultation with the committee chair or advisor). Third, the committee members must all be members of the graduate faculty. Finally, the committee must be chaired by a faculty member holding a tenured or tenure-track appointment in the Department of Psychology. Any Psychology faculty member may serve as chair. Graduate faculty members not holding such an appointment may serve as co-chair with a Psychology faculty member.

To apply for Advancement to Candidacy, students must submit to the Graduate Training Committee (GTC) (through the Graduate Program Assistant), a letter requesting Advancement to Candidacy. This letter must include the exact date on which the Master's thesis was delivered to the graduate school, the title of the thesis, and your thesis advisor's name. Following the thesis information, a list of proposed doctoral committee members and a statement of the student's educational goals must be included. Accompanying each proposed committee member's name should be a brief but clear justification provided by the student, noting the reasons for selecting that particular person as a committee member. Also, the College and Departmental affiliation of that faculty member must be specified. Before listing any faculty member as part of a doctoral committee, the student must obtain that faculty member's approval and agreement to serve. The preparation of the document requesting Candidacy should involve consultation with the student's advisor. As such, the student and all members of the student's committee must sign the document before it is submitted to the Graduate Records Secretary. The written request for Advancement to Candidacy should be a well-reasoned, well-written defense. The hope is that the effort will result in careful thought about long-term goals and orientations. Because of the highly individualized nature of the information required, there is no specific form provided for the Advancement to Candidacy procedure.

Although the Graduate Training Committee has no veto power over whom the student selects for membership on the committee, faculty members of the GTC or their designates may ask to meet with the student to discuss committee composition. The faculty at large may also seek clarification of committee choices. When the procedures described above are followed carefully, however, there is rarely any question regarding student's choices for committee membership.

Advancement to Candidacy is generally done twice each academic year, coincidental with the faculty's graduate student evaluation meetings that are held once each semester. Typically, these meetings occur around the second week in November for the Fall semester and the second week in April for the Spring. For most students, these occasions provide satisfactory opportunity for advancement. There may be students, however, who have compelling reasons to be advanced at earlier or different times than these meetings would accommodate. When this is the case, students must seek prior approval from the Director of Graduate Training to be advanced. Whether applying for advancement during the regularly scheduled meetings or at a special time, students must notify the Graduate Program Assistant (or the main office in the absence of the Graduate Program Assistant) of their desire to be advanced to Candidacy no fewer than 10 days prior to the date on which advancement is to be proposed.

Residence Requirement
For students entering the doctoral program prior to Fall 1994, the following applies. Once a student has been admitted to Candidacy, and before the Ph.D. is granted, the Graduate School requires that over the course of some 12 month period, students spend two semesters as a registered full-time student engaged in academic work at the University Park campus. One of the two semesters may be the one in which the student was advanced to Candidacy. This is an important requirement, and is restated in a letter that each student receives from the department upon being admitted to Candidacy. Beginning in the Fall 1994 semester, residence requirements can be met from the time of entry into the graduate program (1st year, 1st semester) rather than beginning after advancement to candidacy. This will obviously make this an easier requirement to satisfy, and will afford students entering in Fall 1994 and beyond a good deal more flexibility in their degree program.

Time Limits
After Advancement to Candidacy, the Graduate School allows you a total of 8 years to complete the Ph.D. requirements. However, we do not expect you to take that long! Note that if you do not complete the final oral exam within 6 years from the time you passed your comprehensive exam, you must take a second comprehensive exam some time prior to the final oral exam.

Doctoral Comprehensive Examinations
Following Advancement to Candidacy and the completion of course work requirements, students are given a comprehensive examination in their field. This exam is both given and evaluated by the student's doctoral committee, with the intent of judging the student's breadth of knowledge within and scholarly understanding of their major area.

The Department of Psychology has no formal structure or procedure for the comprehensive exam. A general policy exists which specifies that students must take the comprehensive exam by the time the student has completed 70 graduate credits or prior to the fourth year of graduate study. Students entering with a Master's degree will be considered as having completed 30 credits and one year of graduate study. In recent years, this policy has been somewhat inconsistently applied, and students can be given extensions when warranted by special circumstances. Extensions should be granted by the student's doctoral committee and the Director of Graduate Training. Students who have not taken their comprehensive exams by the end of the fourth year are severely behind any acceptable schedule.

The nature and requirements of the comprehensive exam are determined by the student and the student's doctoral committee. In most cases, the comprehensive exam involves an extensive written component as well as an oral exam attended by the student and each of the committee members. The written exam often involves providing empirically-based responses to broadly important conceptual and methodological issues central to the student's major field of study. The oral exam often involves further exploration and clarification of issues raised in the written portion of the exam, and may include a discussion of dissertation plans as well. While the above scenario may be typical, it is neither mandatory nor departmental policy for the conduct of the exam. Again, the specifics of the exam are set by the student and the doctoral committee.

There are, however, a number of departmental and Graduate School requirements and policies that should be noted. The Graduate School requires that the student be registered as a full-time or part-time student for the semester in which the comprehensive exam is taken. Two weeks notice is required by the Graduate School for scheduling the exam. In relation to departmental requirements, the written portion of the exam does not require Graduate School notification (unless only a written exam is taken), but does require that two weeks notice be given to the Graduate Program Assistant. The oral exam is the part that requires notification to the Graduate School, and therefore the department's Graduate Program Assistant needs to be notified in sufficient time to provide the Graduate School its two week prior notification. Got that? Good.

Continuous Registration Requirement
Beginning the semester after the student has passed the comprehensive exam and met the two semester residence requirement, the Graduate School requires that the student register continuously for each Fall and Spring semester, until the Ph.D. dissertation has been accepted by the doctoral committee. (Note this means you cannot register for 601 in the same semester that you pass comps. It must wait until the following semester.) Students either register in the usual way to continue taking courses (if desired), or students may register for Psychology 601 or 611. The 601 and 611 courses are special non-credit thesis preparation courses that apply to those students whose sole academic activity is completion of research and writing the dissertation. The 601 designation is for full-time students while 611 designates part-time students, and either involves payment of the special thesis preparation fee rather than regular tuition. More complete information in regard to this requirement may be found in the Graduate Degree Programs Bulletin.

Doctoral Dissertation and Final Oral Examination
If you are reading this section of the GUIDELINES, hooray for you! You are either anticipating getting to this point, or you are there already. If you are here already, congratulations on your progress and keep up the good work. The dissertation is often a major stumbling block for many graduate students but need not be so. Maintaining a strong working relationship with your committee members (and the chairperson in particular) will help, as will applying yourself to a consistent schedule of work toward its completion.

As you might guess by now, there is no specific departmental policy or criterion which defines an acceptable dissertation. Again, this is a matter to be decided between the student and his or her doctoral committee. In consultation with the committee chair, the student must develop an independent research proposal outlining the dissertation topic. As a rule, the dissertation should be a substantial empirical and/or conceptual contribution within a substantive area in Psychology. A dissertation proposal meeting should be held between the student and the doctoral committee members and the written dissertation proposal distributed to each member at least two weeks in advance. At the proposal meeting, the student should present the proposal and field questions from the committee members. The proposal should then either be approved or disapproved, and the student begin the dissertation research or make appropriate changes, as necessary. Ongoing contact with each committee member is strongly encouraged.

Traditionally, students work closely with their committee chair in accomplishing their research and writing their dissertation. Often, the chairperson can provide suggestions, help solve problems as they arise, and be a source of encouragement. Further, numerous drafts of the dissertation are often necessary, and the chair can provide valuable input in the early phases of preparation. The chair will also try to keep the student on a reasonable schedule to ensure timely completion of the dissertation. The length of time it will take to complete the dissertation depends upon the nature of the research undertaken, and the motivation of the student. Nevertheless, there are few instances in which the entire dissertation process should extend beyond two years.

In the past, doctoral theses final oral examinations have been scheduled and completed with theses in varying degrees of completion. This procedure is now clearly unacceptable. The present departmental policy has established that theses must: 1) be complete before the examination; and 2) be delivered to all committee members at least two weeks prior to the final oral.

Graduate School policy has generally established that both the thesis director and the student are responsible for assuring the completion of a draft of the thesis and for adequate consultation with members of the thesis committee well in advance of the oral examination. Again, it is critical to stay in touch with your committee members and let them know of your progress or difficulties. Major revisions to the thesis should be completed before the final oral examination. The dissertation should be in its final draft, with appropriate notes, bibliography, tables, etc., at the time of the oral examination. The content and style should be correct (i.e., meeting Graduate School standards) and polished by the time that the final draft of the thesis is delivered to the committee. As is the case with the Master's degree thesis, the department requires that the Human Subjects Approval memo be appended to the final dissertation copy. Please be sure that this form is included in the final draft read by the Doctoral Committee, as well as the final product delivered to the Graduate School. Again, there should be an adequate period of time (at least two weeks) between the delivery of the final draft of the thesis to committee members and the scheduled oral examination. Please note: The head of the department must read and approve the thesis as well. Thus, at the same time the thesis is delivered to committee members, it should be delivered to the department head. Date of the examination should be given to the GPA at least two weeks prior to the oral exam. Although a final and polished draft is to be delivered to the committee members before the defense, changes in the thesis may still be requested by committee members on the basis of the final oral examination.