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Comprehensive Exam

Procedure:

  • Three person faculty committee convened, consisting of at least two members of the Informatics faculty
  • Student assembles reading list in consultation with committee and gets final reading list approved by all members of the committee
  • Student schedules oral portion of exam with committee (does not get announced but student affairs should be informed)
  • Student submits written document to committee by deadline determined by committee (typically two to three weeks in advance)
  • Two hour oral exam with committee (private)
  • Chair of student’s committee alerts student affairs of outcome of exam

Written Portion of Exam:

This exam is based on a written manuscript through which the student displays deep knowledge of one or two scholarly domains and is able to develop a nuanced framework that articulates the current state of knowledge about a field(s) of inquiry related to their interests and future work. This includes displaying a thorough understanding of the literature in the area(s) of interest, methodological commitments of past scholarship, and ongoing debates or unanswered questions. The written document should be approximately between 10,000-18,000 words and is assessed by the student’s 3 person comprehensive committee.

Each of the three general questions outlined below should be addressed in some way in the manuscript. However, the sub-questions within them (in italics) are meant to inspire, inform, and guide how one might approach the main question. They are not a required set of questions nor a concrete structure. This is NOT a firm outline that the student should be following. Students are expected to develop their own framework based on reading list, disciplinary commitments, and research approach.

  1. What is the area you are generally interested in addressing in your research? Why is this area of research worth investigating and who (be as inclusive as possible of other research communities, practitioners, community groups, and so on) will be interested in the results of your work?
  2. What are methods that scholars have used to address the phenomena or concepts of interest in the reviewed literature?
    1. What questions do such methods allow scholars to address?
    2. What questions or aspects of the area of interest are current methods unable to address?
    3. What ontological perspectives and commitments do various scholars reveal when presenting their perspectives?
    4. How do various scholars assert authority in presenting an account (through empirical data, rhetorical moves, and/or other approaches)?
  3. What are the overall themes and theoretical perspectives that are asserted about the domain(s) you are reviewing and how do these perspectives relate?
    1. In some cases, a strong framework, set of issues, and canon of theoretical perspectives in the field are already fairly well established, in which case you might address:
      1. Current debates in the literature;
      2. Gaps, opportunities, or unexamined implications of current perspectives that you see as potential for future research.
    2. In some cases these perspectives are more emergent or the work crosses too many fields for there to be unifying themes, in which case considerations might include:
      1. Whether and how various fields are looking at similar phenomenon from different perspectives:
      2. How these different perspectives contribute to understanding of the area.
    3. Either way, in this question, there should be a synthesis of the research landscape that demonstrates where conflicts and convergences lie as well as areas that would benefit from attention. Considerations might include:
      1. How these perspectives uncover or mask various elements of the area of interest;
      2. Assumptions about the world inherent to different theoretical perspectives;
      3. How various perspectives build on each other, or how they are not currently in conversation and could be.

Oral Portion of Exam:

During the oral exam, the expectation is that all committee members attend the entire meeting and come having closely read the written portion of the exam in full.

The oral exam is a discussion and the student should come prepared to answer a set of questions from the faculty committee. All questions should be based on the previously agreed upon reading list.

The student is not expected to make a formal presentation (no power point slides needed).

Some questions will focus on areas of the written response that could/should have been expanded, areas that were unclear or poorly done, and so on. Other questions may explore portions of the reading list that were not as fully covered in the document as they might have been, or areas in which the student is not doing a sufficient job of engaging the literature in a manner that reveals they understand the landscape of various strands of scholarship.

The exam is assessed on two criteria:

1. Does the student display an expertise in the domains of literature outlined in their reading list?

2. Is the student able to engage the literature in a manner that reveals an ability to understand, relate, and synthesize the key issues and perspectives within and across the domains of scholarship they have become expert in?

Outcomes:

Pass Outright: The committee is satisfied that the student has a sufficient command of the research literature to progress to conducting PhD level research.

Pass with Revisions: The committee is satisfied that the student has a sufficient command of the research literature to progress to conducting PhD level research barring minor revisions. Minor revisions means that the student should be able to address revisions in 1-2 weeks of additional work. The revised document should be shared with the entire committee. The committee can choose whether to have another meeting with the student or make an assessment from the revised document.

Pass at Masters level: The committee is satisfied that the student has a sufficient command of the research literature to complete MS level research but not PhD level research. The student may take the exam a second time or leave the PhD program (potentially with a MS degree). If this outcome is given a second time, the student must leave the PhD program. The exact process for leaving with a MS degree will depend on coursework taken, whether a previous MS was earned elsewhere, and other factors.

Fail: The committee is not satisfied with the student’s command of the research literature. The student may take the exam a second time or leave the PhD program (potentially with a MS degree). If this outcome is given a second time, the student must leave the PhD program. The exact process for leaving with a MS degree will depend on coursework taken, whether a previous MS was earned elsewhere, and other factors. A MS thesis defense or comprehensive exam for the MS degree must be taken in this case, because the student failed the PhD comprehensive exam rather than passing at the MS level.

*As your comprehensive exam approaches we encourage you to go fill out and submit an Advancement to Candidacy to Masters form (see below) IF you would like the possibility of leaving UCI with a masters degree. A masters degree is not automatically awarded along the way to achieving a Phd. The student must fill out this form and the degree requirements will be checked and the MS will be awarded after you have finished your comprehensive exam. If you would like to leave the program with an MS this form has to be filled out the quarter BEFORE you graduate with the MS so don’t forget this tip.

https://www.grad.uci.edu/forms/current-student/Adv_to_Candidacy_Masters.docx