Research Practicum

Students must complete the research practicum sometime prior to submitting their application to candidacy. Many students meet this requirement during the summer after the first year of course work. The practicum requires that the student work for a minimum of 90 hours on a faculty supervised research project. Many projects require the student to work more than 90 hours. Students register for the research practicum as a 395K conference course with the practicum supervisor as the instructor.

There are two options for meeting the practicum requirement. The most common method is for students to work on a faculty research project. In this case, students assist a faculty member who is conducting an ongoing research project. It is expected that students will be able to define and focus on a specific aspect of a larger project that will be their primary responsibility.

The second option is for the student to conduct an independent research project under the supervision of a faculty member. If a student selects this option, they are responsible for designing and conducting a small-scale study and for identifying a faculty member who will serve as practicum supervisor. During the project, the student and faculty member must work closely together to insure that the research design is feasible and sufficiently rigorous to produce useful results. The practicum supervisor is also responsible for helping the student develop appropriate learning objectives and for evaluating the student's progress toward meeting those objectives.