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After the faculty advisor has given his/her approval, the thesis is to be submitted to the thesis committee members for their feedback and suggestions. Committee members should be given at least four weeks to provide feedback. At the end of this period, committee members may require students to make changes to the thesis. Only after all committee members have given their approval should a thesis defense date be scheduled. Students should include a faculty member (other than the 3 committee members) to chair the committee. At the Masters level the chair can be from within the Human Development and Family Science Department or from other departments/colleges throughout the University. This person will act as the representative of the Graduate School and will moderate the thesis defense.  Read up on the procedures for graduate students defending theses or dissertations found at the Graduate School graduation requirements page.  All M.S. students must complete a Request for Examination form, at least three weeks prior to your defense date.

Defenses may only be scheduled during the fall and spring semesters. All thesis defenses are open to the public and students are expected to provide the departmental administrative assistant with an abstract of their thesis two weeks prior to the defense. One copy of the thesis should be made available in the departmental office for public reading two weeks prior to the defense. 

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Comprehensive Examination

After completing coursework, students have two years to prepare for, and pass, the comprehensive examination. The exam is intended to assess students’ ability to integrate substantive knowledge within the broad field of Human Development and Family Science. Students are expected to synthesize, critically analyze, and evaluate the literature in the field and articulate this scientific information. Doctoral Students are encouraged to start thinking about and discussing the focus of their review with their doctoral advisor during their last year of coursework. The topic for the comprehensive exam should be chosen in consultation with the academic advisor.  Doctoral students must successfully complete the exam before they can advance to candidacy. Students enrolled in the M.S. and who have continued on to the Ph.D. program must have submitted their Master’s thesis prior to sitting for the comprehensive examinations. 

Proposal Procedures and Guidelines:

Students intending to take the comprehensive exam must submit a letter of intent to the graduate director Graduate Director by the dates date listed in Table 1 before proceeding with their comprehensive examination. In order to complete the comprehensive examination requirement, students must independently produce a high quality, publishable or near-publishable quality review of the literature in a particular substantive area. Prior work may not be submitted to fulfill this requirement. Students are encouraged to submit their reviews for publication after it is completed but that is not a requirement of the comprehensive examination. Details of the review are described below.  

Evaluation and Notification of Results:

Students should notify the Graduate Director of their intents to complete their comprehensive examination requirement using the dates in Table 1. The Graduate Director shall . The Graduate Director, in consultation with the student’s advisor, will appoint an Assessment Committee for the student’s comprehensive exam consisting of three faculty members including the student’s advisor and will inform the student and the advisor of the composition of the Committee.After notifying the Graduate Director of the intent to complete the comprehensive exam and the Director’s appointment of an Assessment

Committee, the student shall The student is required to develop a proposal outline for their comprehensive exam review outlining the confirmed topic, its significance, and the methods to be used in conducting the review (e.g., textual review, meta-analysis, etc.). The student must submit the detailed outline (no more than 5 pages excluding references) of the proposed review to the Graduate Director by the date listed in Table 1.  The student’s doctoral advisor should approve the proposal outline prior to the student’s submission. The proposal outline also should include a preliminary list of at least 15 references from the last 10 years of research that will form the basis of the proposal.    

Students should assume that the Assessment Committee will need at least 3 weeks to review the proposal outline. The Assessment Committee will review the proposal outline to determine if the topic is appropriate to meet the requirements of the comprehensive examination. The Committee may determine that the proposal is adequate as submitted or may require a meeting with the student to discuss the proposal further.    

Final Review and Notification of Results:

Following approval by the Assessment Committee, students will be allowed to take a semester to complete the review. Students

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are expected to start the review

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on the date listed in Table 1. The review should be of high-quality with substantive consideration of the aims and scope of the review, theory, research methods, the question(s) explored, analytic techniques, and future directions for research on the topic. The review should consider literature within the last decade. The review should be of high-quality and should be systematically organized using APA style format. It should not exceed 8,000 words excluding references, Tables, and Figures. The review should be completed independently of advisor input or input from other faculty or students after the review proposal has been approved. The review should be of publishable or near-publishable quality according to the standards of the field, and could be submitted for publication. The calendar for submission dates (proposal due to Assessment Committee; Final Review due to Assessment Committee; and deadline for Assessment Committee decisions) and decision dates are listed in Table 1. 

 Table 1: Doctoral Examination Due Dates*

*If any of the above dates falls on a weekend or a holiday, the deadline will be extended to the next business day.

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