Doctoral Degree Requirements
Ph.D. Requirements
The program’s emphasis is on the training of psychological scientists, regardless of the training stream. The Ph.D. program consists of graduate seminars and courses, comprehensive examinations in an area of specialization, and a dissertation based on a research project.
Coursework and Comprehensive Examination
Note that training streams may require coursework above and beyond the departmental requirements listed below. Additionally, training streams may require coursework that fulfills a department requirement in a specific way (e.g., by requiring students to take a specific advanced research methods course relevant to that subdiscipline). Please be sure you are aware of any requirements specific to your training stream by consulting with the relevant area chair.
Note that the requirements described below assume completion of the coursework required for students continuing on from our department’s MSc program. If you did not complete an M.Sc. in our department, additional coursework may be required based on your previous education and training. Please be sure you discuss this issue with the head of your training stream and the graduate chair.A Ph.D. student must take the equivalent of 1.5 full substantive graduate course credits and complete the comprehensive examination milestone by the end of Year II of the PhD program.
**At least one full course or two half-courses must be taken in Year I of the program.
**One of the required half-courses must be in statistics, experimental design, or computational foundations. This course must come from this list https://psychology.uwo.ca/graduate/program_information/advanced_courses.html.
**Other courses may fulfill this requirement, including advanced coursework taken during the M.Sc. that exceeded the minimum required. Students must obtain approval of any alternatives from their supervisor, other supervisory committee members, the chair of their training stream, and the graduate chair of the department.
**The Comprehensive Examination, https://psychology.uwo.ca/graduate/program_information/comprehensive_examinations.html, is to be completed by the end of Year II of the program.
**Additional Ph.D. coursework as required by the training stream.Dissertation
Details regarding the dissertation can be found here Thesis Guide.
Ph.D. Residency Requirement
We value all members of our departmental community and view in-person interactions between students, faculty, and staff as an important way of fostering collaboration and departmental cohesion.
Our minimum residency requirement is six terms of full-time study as a Ph.D. student, but completion of the degree almost always requires a period extending beyond this minimum.
Our graduate program is full time; students are therefore expected to comply with SGPS policy requiring that any full-time student be geographically available to fulfill program requirements. Additionally, almost all GTA assignments require students to come to campus.
Students should be mindful of the fact that the program is under no obligation to accommodate long-distance studies or requests for online GTA assignments and that the choice to live far from campus does not justify requests for remote learning.
