Doctoral Program (PhD)

For more information, admission criteria, course requirements, and financial aid please visit the Special Education Doctoral
webpage

Doctoral Instructional

The general purpose of the Ph.D. program is to prepare leadership personnel for positions in research, teacher training, program development, policy making, and administration.

Completion of the program certifies competence in three areas:

• Understand and use the theoretical and applied content of special education and behavior analysis to critique educational practices and develop new ones
• Understand, design and conduct group and single-subject research
• Develop courses, practica, and programs for a variety of adult learners (e.g., college students, inservice teachers, paraeducators)

• A core of coursework that includes research methods and advanced behavior analysis
• A broad array of specialty classes and topical seminars
• Extensive collaboration with faculty

• Conduct and write a comprehensive literature review
• Write and submit a paper for publication
• Present a paper at a major conference
• Write and submit a grant proposal
• Teach a college course and supervise a teaching practicum

• In research--Doctoral students work with faculty members in ongoing research projects and collaboratively develop new experiments and lines of research. Please see the faculty list that follows for a description of ongoing research interests.
• In personnel preparation--Nationally, the Department is a leader in developing innovative programs for preservice and inservice personnel development. Doctoral students collaborate in these projects. Currently, the Department has grants to support development of programs that utilize traditional, live, on-campus instruction and field practica, as well as newer distance education technologies such as the websites, live computer-based video links, CD-ROM and videodisc technologies.

Many forms of financial assistance are available for qualified students. The Department supports students through research assistantships, teaching assistantships, part-time work on research and development projects and other sources. In addition, qualified students may be awarded waivers of some or all of their tuition.