Internship & Electives (15 credit hours)
Internship and electives combined must total 15 credit hours. Students may choose any combination of internship and elective credits to total 15 credit hours. The internship course can be completed up to three times.
Electives may include directed study courses, specialized research courses, or courses related to specific content in the field of education.
Doctoral Candidacy
Students enter doctoral candidacy upon successful completion of the first and second benchmark papers. The Initial Program Benchmark Assessment will be completed after the first 12 credit hours of coursework and prior to beginning the second year of the program to determine the candidate’s readiness to continue in the program.
The Second Program Benchmark Assessment (i.e., the dissertation proposal) will be completed after 24 credit hours of coursework to determine the students’ readiness to engage in the final research processes. This assessment requires a formal written document consisting of following sections: a complete and revised analysis of the problem causes and context (from the initial benchmark assessment), a full description of the theory of improvement supported by the research and professional knowledge base, a full description of the proposed PDSA cycle(s). Students may continue to make edits on the dissertation proposal until it is satisfactorily completed.
Upon successful completion of all courses and benchmark assessments, a dissertation defense will be conducted where the student will defend their work to the dissertation committee. Students at this stage will work with the committee to revise the dissertation paper until it is acceptable to the committee. Students may only defend the final dissertation twice.
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