Plan of Study

Doctorate in School Psychology > Plan of Study

Graduate trainees admitted to the Doctoral Program in School Psychology may choose to earn a master's degree in Psychology prior to receiving the doctorate degree. To be eligible for the master's degree, trainees must complete a minimum of 32 graduate credits, which is the first three years of the doctoral curriculum, and the master's thesis. Trainees should review the Master's Thesis section of the Doctoral Program's Policies and Procedures for more information about completing the master's degree. The Doctoral Program's Policies and Procedures are available on the Doctoral Forms & Agreements website .

Trainees are responsible for reviewing and complying with the department's Thesis Procedures, which are explained below. Trainees should also review the Thesis section in the Graduate Catalog . Trainees should also review the Graduate School's Student Support (Thesis Assistance) website for additional information about the University's thesis policies, continuous enrollment, graduation deadlines, etc. A thesis:

• Should have a theoretical framework as its conceptual base
• May represent a test or prediction derived from a theory, or an extension of an existing group of studies
• May replicate an existing study, provided it attempts to repeat the study with some meaningful variation
• May be reports of surveys related to themes of professional interest (see American Psychologist )
• May have as a goal the development or improvement of instrumentation (see Behavior Research Methods
• May be ethological or statistical in nature, originating a new design, improving an existing design, or reapplying a quantitative statistical technique (see Journal of Mathematical Psychology and Educational and Psychological Measurement )
• May be theoretical in nature providing an exposition of constructs, assumptions, interactions among constructs, translation into empirical variables, or illustrations of applications (see Psychological Bulletin and Psychological Review )
• Must investigate a real problem (i.e., if the answer is obvious based on existing literature, the thesis poses a non-problem). However, research may be conducted to solve a practical problem, provided the solution can be generalized.