Doctorate in Behavioral Psychology Degree Requirements
Coursework and Enrollment Information
You are required to be continuously enrolled from the time of admission to the time you earn your degree. The number of hours in which you enroll depends upon your progress in the program. ABS requires 9 hours of enrollment each Fall/Spring term.
Waiving requirements
If you were admitted for the doctoral degree having taken graduate courses at another university, you are still required to complete all of the ABS coursework and other requirements for the Ph.D. However, you may request that your prior graduate courses count as fulfilling a portion of the ABS coursework as long as you earned a grade of A or B (B- is not good enough).
The Doctoral Degree
Students are free to begin working on Ph.D. level coursework and other requirements even before they have defended their Master’s thesis. However, students will not be allowed to continue working toward their Ph.D. if they have not passed their Comprehensive Exam within one year of the date they successfully defended their Master’s thesis (see below; two years if in the joint-MPH program), or by the end of their third year if entering the doctoral program with a completed Master’s obtained at another university. Obtaining the Ph.D. degree requires the successful completion of the following tasks (each of which is described in more detail below):
Coursework
Conceptual Foundations II: ABSC 862, 901, 921, 931, 981 Research Methods II: ABSC 710, 805*, 940
ABA II: ABSC 788, 802, 865, 890, 961
EAB II: ABSC 936, PRVM 800, BIOS 704/714
Research and/or Intervention Practicum Dissertation Hours
Fulfill your Research Skills and Responsible Scholarship requirement
Complete program of study written document and pass an oral comprehensive examination Propose a dissertation
Complete a second pro-seminar requirement Fulfill the department’s teaching requirement Pass three editorial critiques
Dissertation defense Comprehensive Examination
Comprehensive Examination
In order to take the comprehensive examination, you must meet the requirements for the ABS master’s degree. Students must complete the comprehensive examination by the end of the third year if entering the PhD program with a completed Master's degree obtained at another university, or within a year of successfully defending their Master's in the Applied Behavioral Science MA program at KU. You will generate a program of study document, developed in concert with your advisor. The program of study will be used by the comprehensive examination committee to generate relevant and individualized questions to ask during the oral examination. Questions will span all coursework and student-indicated research domains (those of personal interest to the student and relevant to their career trajectory). These questions will be posed during the oral examination. The oral examination will last two hours and is not open to the public.
Proseminar II Requirement
This is the same as the Proseminar I requirement for the Master’s degree, but requires an additional Proseminar presentation for the doctoral degree; the Proseminar II must also be 45-50 minutes in length. See the Proseminar I requirement above (all such information applies, with the exception of the difference in length).
Teaching Requirement
Students must complete a teaching requirement consisting of formal training in instruction/pedagogy, evidence of teaching efficacy (through student evaluations), and a philosophy of teaching statement.
Three Editorial Critiques
When you have completed your Ph.D., you may be called upon to serve as a reviewer on manuscripts submitted for publication to professional journals or for grants submitted to funding agencies. To give you formal training in this skill, you will write three journal critiques as part of your doctoral training. One of these critiques will be reviewed by a committee comprised of three faculty members.
Dissertation
In addition to completing the foregoing requirements, you will propose, write, and defend an empirically based dissertation. A period of at least 1 month must pass between the defense of your oral comprehensive exam and the defense of the dissertation.
Dissertation proposal
In preparation for the dissertation proposal, you will provide your committee members with a copy of your written dissertation proposal at least two weeks before the scheduled date of the proposal. The introduction of the proposal should include a thorough literature review, but should be written as a peer-reviewed publication submission (i.e., the introduction should be between 7 and 10 pages). Your proposal document must also include Method and Data Analysis sections. The proposal meeting is 1 hour in duration and is open to the public. You will provide a 10-minute presentation of your methods—your committee will not ask any questions during this 10-minute presentation, and the 10-minute limit will be strictly enforced. Following the initial 10-minute presentation, the committee will engage you in 50 minutes of question asking and discussion. During this time, the committee may ask you to defend decisions related to your proposed research question, methods, and/or data analysis plans. Committee members must report a decision to either pass, pass with revisions, or fail.
Dissertation defense (final oral examination)
Before defending your dissertation you must complete paperwork with the Graduate Academic Advisor and the College. This must be completed months in advance of your defense date so that the College may approve your application and committee members before you defend your dissertation. The defense is passed if 4 of 5 committee members vote to pass it.