Ph.D. Program: Program of Study

The program of study includes the following areas:

  1. Content Knowledge
    1. Overview of school psychology
    2. Developmental psychology; child psychology
    3. Learning, cognition, motivation, and behavior analysis
    4. Personality models; healthy and unhealthy personality (abnormal psychology)
    5. Social psychology; community mental health
    6. Physiological and neuropsychological bases of behavior
    7. Educational administration and school law
    8. Special education overview; psychological aspects of learning disabilities; the reading process
    9. Individual and group differences as reflected in cultural, ethnic and gender differences
      1. Legal and ethical issues
  2. Clinical Skills
    1. Assessment procedures: intellectual assessment; personality assessment; early childhood assessment; behavioral assessment; the assessment of individual, group, and family interaction patterns; evaluation of the school and community systems
    2. Intervention: individual and group psychotherapy; marital and family counseling; behavior modification; play and child therapy; systems intervention; crisis intervention
    3. Consultation: mental health and behavioral consultation; teaching techniques (in-service training), and systems evaluation
  3. Practica
    1. Observation of the classroom and of the educational administrative process
    2. Supervised practice in assessment procedures
    3. Supervised practice in individual counseling; play therapy
    4. Supervised practice in behavioral intervention and consultation
    5. Systems consultation experience
    6. Observation and supervised provision of special services in the schools and other child-related facilities
      1. Research experience
      2. Supervised practica in evidence-based interventions
  4. Research (Required of all students)
    1. Descriptive statistics applied to assessment and research
    2. Inferential statistics
    3. Advanced statistical analysis
    4. Qualitative research methods
      1. Research design
      2. Computer literacy
    5. g. Evaluation models
    6. h. Research apprenticeships (see below)
      1. Dissertation
  5. Research Apprenticeship/Experience:
    1. During the completion of research design and applied statistics courses, each student is required to work with a program faculty member on a research or program evaluation project for a total of 2 credit hours. Students are also encouraged to become involved in faculty research beyond the apprenticeship course.
  6. Internship
    1. Minimum 1500 hours supervised internship for Ph.D. students. (See Chapter 3 for more information).
    2. (It should be noted that these areas are integrated throughout the program and are presented in this form as a means of simplification.