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Applied Educational Psychology Program

Ph.D. Degree

This program is in the process of being restructured as a specialization within the new doctoral concentration, Learning Environments and Educational Studies (LEEDS). Upon approval LEEDS will begin admitting students for fall 2010.

*Students applying for admission for Fall 2010 or later should refer to the LEEDS program of study for curriculum requirements.

 

Required Courses (for students admitted prior to Fall 2010 only)

What follows is a listing of the required courses associate with the Ph.D. Program in Applied Educational Psychology (AEP) at UT. In reviewing this set of courses, it is important to note that:

  1. Coursework makes up only a portion of any student's doctoral experience. There are other required components of the doctoral program (such as involvement in the program's research and social activities, fulfillment of the residence requirement, successful passage of the comprehensive examination, formation of one's doctoral committee, and submission of forms to the department, the college, and the graduate school).
  2. A student entering this program who has taken similar graduate courses elsewhere can petition to have certain requirements waived. Such requests must be unanimously approved by the Program's core faculty members.
  3. Students should take advantage of courses beyond the ones listed here. UT has many departments that offer a wide variety of courses. Moreover, there are truly wonderful teaching scholars on UT's faculty. An AEP student would be missing a terrific opportunity if he/she failed to take (a) non-required courses taught by departmental faculty members and (b) courses outside the EPC department that help one become "broadly educated."

The AEP doctoral program has seven areas of required courses. These areas and the minimum number of semester hours required in each area are as follows:

I. Doctoral Seminars (13 hrs.)
All AEP doctoral students must take two seminars:

  • Departmental seminar (EP 601)
    This 1-hour seminar is taken by all doctoral students in the EPC department, usually during the Fall semester of their first year at UT.
  • Applied Ed Psych seminar (EP 640)
    This 2-hour seminar is team-taught by K. Greenberg & S. Huck. Students attend this seminar Fall and Spring for 3 years.

II. Ed Psych Core (9 hrs.)
This core involves 3 courses, 1 each from the areas (Applied Ed Psych, Adult Education, and Collaborative Learning) that make up the Ed Psych concentration

  • Survey of Ed Psych (EP 507)
  • Reflective Practice (EP 513)
  • Characteristics of Adult Learners (EP 525)

III. Research (15 hrs.)
Early in his/her program, each AEP student must take the following course:

In addition to the above course, each student takes 12 hours of courses from the list below, with the selected courses and/or course sequences determined in collaboration with the student's major professor.

  • Formal Measurement in Education and Counseling (Counseling 525)
  • Measurement and Testing (Psychology 445)
  • Statistics and Research Design: Conceptual (EP 550)
  • A 2-semester statistics sequence (Stat 531/532, Stat 537/538, or Stat 571/572)
  • Advanced Educational Statistics (EP 677)
  • Introduction to Qualitative Research in Education (Cultural Studies 560)
  • Seminar in Existential-Phenomenological Psychology (PSY 613)
  • Methods of Collaborative Inquiry (EP 530)
  • Advanced Qualitative Research Methods (CFS 650)
  • Qualitative Research (Communication & Information 642)
  • Research in Psychoeducational Studies (EP 655)
  • Ethnographic Research Methods in Education (Cultural Studies 660)
  • Qualitative Research in Early Childhood Settings (Early Childhood Ed 695)

IV. Area of Emphasis (9 hrs.)
Students choose one of two areas of emphasis: (1) Applied Statistics and Measurement or (2) Human Learning and Development.

Applied Statistics and Measurement
A minimum of 9 hours of coursework from the following list of courses, with the specific selection made in conjunction with the student's advisor:

Note: Courses with an "a" at the end are especially appropriate for students interested in measurement; those with a "b" at the end are especially appropriate for students interested in applied statistics.

Human Learning and Development
This section includes 5 courses related to cognitive education and social construction of knowledge. Students take at least 3 of these 5 courses, with the specific selection made in conjunction with the student's advisor.

  • Psychological Theories of Human Development Applied to Education (EP 510)
  • Cognitive Education Models and Approaches (EP 572)
  • Meeting the Needs of Nontraditional & Underachieving Learners (EP 573)
  • Facilitating Group Change (EP 574)
  • Mediated Learning Theory (EP 671)

V. Cognate (6hrs.)
With committee approval, the student selects 2 courses in a single department outside the EP&C Department. These 2 courses, which should be selected in consultation with the student's full doctoral committee, constitute the cognate. In a very real sense, the student's cognate represents his/her "minor" area of study. Therefore, each AEP student is encouraged to (a) consider taking more than 6 hours in his/her cognate area and (b) having his/her cognate courses be interconnected.

VI. Professional Preparation (12 hrs.)
Toward the end of his/her program, each student must take 12 hours of courses that involve the refinement of skills needed for post-program jobs. The timing and specific nature of each of these courses should be determined collaboratively by the student and his/her major professor.

  • A course in technical writing or writing for scholarly publication a
  • Independent Study (EP 593) b
  • Independent Study (EP 693) b
  • Internship in Educational Psychology (EP 569 or EP 669) c

Students planning to teach in higher education should take (as an elective):

  • Practicum in Instructional Design in Higher Education (EP 668)

aThis course may be taken for credit or on an "audit" basis. If you audit this course (and do all assigned work), you would satisfy the requirement of the AEP program, even though you would not accumulate 3 hours of credit (because audited courses at UT do not yield credits like regular courses). Thus, any student auditing this course would actually end up with 9 rather than 12 hours of official credit in Section VI (Professional Preparation), and his/her overall minimum number of official credit hours in the AEP doctoral program would appear to be 85 rather than 88. In reality, however, such a student would not have a shorter doctoral program.

b The independent study courses must be focused upon two of the three topics: (a) independent reading and/or writing a scholarly paper, (b) an applied research project, and (c) facilitating a two-session colloquium or components of a course. The precise nature of the reading or paper, the project, and the colloquium or course teaching must be approved by the student's major professor.

c With approval of the student's major professor, the internship can be combined with a year-long GA, GRA, or GTA appointment, or it can represent a field experience somewhere in the local community.

VII. Dissertation (24hrs.)
UT's Graduate School has a firm rule concerning dissertation hours. Simply stated, once a student begins to accumulate credit for work on his/her dissertation, he/she must continue to register for a least 3 hours of dissertation credit until the dissertation is completed. This rule applies to the summer term in addition to the fall and spring semesters. Typically, the only exception to this rule is made when a student is on a "leave of absence" and not using any of the University's facilities.

Total Hours:

88

 

Updated 11/11/2008

Contact EPC

525 Jane & David Bailey Education Complex
1122 Volunteer Boulevard
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996-3452

Phone: 865-974-8145
Fax: 865-974-0135