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Program
components
The curriculum includes
six major components: Core Courses, Supporting
Program, Research Practicum, Teaching
Practicum, Electives, and Dissertation.
Core
Courses
- A minimum of twelve courses or 36 credits
to be completed in four semesters of full time study.
- Students define a "supporting program"
of four or more courses. A supporting program may be organized around
a discipline, a substantive topic, a methodology, or some other theme;
however, the emphasis in the supporting program and any additional
courses the student takes after the fourth semester should be on developing
advanced methodological competence. The student will develop and present
in writing a rationale for the supporting program.
- Students take 6 required social work
courses, and six additional, generally external, courses, including
the supporting program.
- At least two of the external courses
will be advanced statistics courses (above our current SoWo 304).
- One of the external courses will be
a qualitative methods course.
- In the fifth semester, students will
register for SoWo 313 (Dissertation Seminar). During the
first semester of Dissertation Credit registration, students will
take the required dissertation seminar.
Students may register for SoWo 313 and
take the dissertation seminar only after they have completed the two
required years of residency.
- The revisions spell out a minimum
curriculum. Students, in consultation with their adviser, may select
additional courses after the fourth semester that are needed
to support their dissertation research.
Summary of doctoral curriculum
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Category
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Requirements
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Social Work courses
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Six courses:
SoWo 301 Foundations for Theory Construction
SoWo 303 Research Methods in Social Interventions
SoWo 314 Measurement in Social Intervention Research
SoWo 312 Development of Social Intervention
Models
SoWo 309 Teaching Seminar (1 credit)/SoWo 319 Teaching Practicum
(2 credits)
SoWo 305 Research Practicum
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Courses outside Social Work
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Required supporting program of four
outside courses relating to dissertation area
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Electives
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Students may add as many electives
as they wish
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Minimum required statistics courses
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Two advanced statistics courses for
all students (above basic level). Students who do not have a basic
level of statistical content will take (as an elective) SoWo 304
Analysis and Presentation of data in the first semester of study
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Qualitative training
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Content in Foundation, Research,
and Measurement courses and one required course exclusively
devoted to Qualitative Methods
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Dissertation seminar
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Usually taken in student's fifth
semester, after two year residency requirement has been fulfilled and
required courses have been completed
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Total number of credits
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Minimum of 36 course credits, 3 dissertation
credits per semester until completion and defense of dissertation
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The Supporting
Program
Students define
a "supporting program" of four of more courses outside the
School of Social Work. A supporting program may focus on a discipline,
a methodology, or a substantive topic; however, the emphasis in the
supporting program and any additional courses the student takes after
the fourth semester should be on developing advanced methodological
competence. The student must develop a written plan with the rationale
for the supporting program.
Students have concentrated
their studies outside the School of Social Work in the social and behavioral
sciences or in other programs that provide theoretical grounding and
research methods for the student's dissertation problem.
The intent of the
supporting program is to augment the social work knowledte base within
the student's specialized area of study and to provide the student with
a complementary theoretical perspective on the specialized area. The
supporting program courses will build the student's repertoire of research
and data analytic/statistical methods. On the Supporting Program form,
they must present a rationale for the selection of courses, showing
how each supports their area of study and dissertation research.
The following competencies
that students are to demonstrate should guide the selection of supporting
program courses:
- Ability to draw
on explanatory theory to analyze the etiology and dynamics of social
problems and social needs within the specialized area of study, and
the specific characteristics and needs of social groupings that are
the focus of concern;
- Substantive knowledge
about the range of interventive measures within the specialized area
of interest;
- Knowledge of
and skill in using research and data analysis tools for theoretically
grounded inquiry for the design and evaluation of interventions within
the specialized area of interest.
Credits
Students must earn
a minimum of 12 credit hours in the supporting program.
Electives
Students may select
elective courses from within the School of Social Work or from other
departments and professional schools within the university community.
The intent of the electives is to complement the core and minor program
components with additional conceptual frameworks and research methodologies
appropriate to the specialized area of study.
Elective courses
may include an independent study elective, usually carried out under
the guidance of a School of Social Work faculty member. The independent
study should be designed to permit the student to do one or more of
the following:
- Explore broadly
within an area of interest in order to define the specialized area
of study;
- Review the literature
in depth within a defined specialized area of study; or
- Conduct some
other type of focused inquiry within the specialized area of study
that moves the student towards the dissertation.
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