Students are required to schedule a fall meeting of their pre-prospectus advising committee. That meeting will include both a general academic review discussion and approval of the student's proposal for the second-year project. The proposal should take the following form:
Your name
Your RTG/Program
Your adviser
Your pre-prospectus advising committee members.
The proposal itself should be organized into the following sections:
General question
Background
Specific research question
Study contribution
Design of experiment(s)
Proposed data analyses
Predicted results and theoretical interpretation
References
When drafting their proposals, students should be explicit about the question(s) the study is designed to answer, the proposed data analyses, and how the findings will bear on the question at hand. Proposals should be understandable by a general psychology audience, as exemplified by articles appearing in Psychological Science.
At the conclusion of the pre-prospectus committee meeting, ask a member of the committee to send the Graduate Office an e-mail note informing the CHD that the committee has met, discussed the proposal, and approved it. A copy of the proposal itself should also be sent to the Graduate Office, modified if necessary to incorporate changes made by the advising committee.
The Graduate Office will schedule oral presentations to be given during the Spring term reading period. The supervisor and second reader will grade the oral presentations (Ph.D. pass, M.A. pass, fail) and report this to the CHD on forms provided by the Graduate Office.
Copies of the final written report must be submitted to readers in early May. Students will not be allowed to present if they have not submitted the written report to readers, and if they do not have data collected and analyzed. The supervisor and reader will grade both the oral and written paper (Ph.D. pass, M.A. pass, fail), and their evaluation is given to the CHD, which assigns the final grade for the project at the end of May. Students are expected to submit early drafts of the paper to the supervisor in order to receive feedback that can be incorporated into the final draft.
Following the talks the student will schedule a post-presentation review session with the two readers. During this review session the readers will give feedback on both the written paper and the oral presentation. Students are expected to make modifications to the paper based on this feedback, and it is not uncommon for the final grade in the project to be deferred pending incorporation of the modifications. Many students will wish to submit their projects for publication.
If the student has failed the project, termination proceedings will ordinarily be recommended to the Department. If the student has passed at the M.A. level, the CHD will decide whether to postpone the completion of the requirement and exactly what additional work is required to fulfill it or whether to recommend termination. In the latter case, the M.A. degree may be recommended by the Department.