Program Purpose

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Our Savior, Jesus Christ, was the Master Teacher who commanded his followers to "teach diligently" (Deuteronomy 6:7), both things spiritual as well as secular (D&C 88:78-80). In the doctoral program of the Instructional Psychology and Technology department, we prepare expert teaching and learning professionals with the skills to meet this divine charge of education by helping them:

 

1. Understand how, and when to apply theory and psychology in strategic and evidence-backed ways to improve learning;

2. Utilize all methods of knowing, reasoning, and research to create a disposition of lifelong learning;

3. Support strategic decision-making through rigorous evaluation and assessment;

4. Become professionals who strive to apply the doctrine of Jesus Christ in their interactions, designs, and practices; 

5. Develop leadership and collaboration skills in order to serve and mentor other teachers, learners, and instructional designers; and 

6. Disseminate widely knowledge about effective learning and teaching so that "all may be edified of all" (D&C 88: 122).

 

 

Curricular Structure

1. The IPT doctoral program requires successful completion of 72 credit hours: 54 course work hours and 18 dissertation hours. The 54 course work hours consist of: 13 hours of required courses dealing with the principles of learning, empirical inquiry and statistics, instructional design, assessment of learning outcomes, and evaluation of instruction; 18 elective course hours of specialization chosen in consultation with the advisory committee; 12 hours of supervised internship; 2 hours of seminar credit which are earned at the rate of 1/2 hour per semester; and 6 hours of project credit (3 hours per project for two projects). Projects are selected from one of the following areas: research, assessment, evaluation, and design.
2. The program serves full-time, on-campus students who come from a number of undergraduate and graduate degree sources. It requires knowledge and experience obtained in studies for the IPT Masters degree. Therefore students from non-IPT undergraduate or Masters majors must complete the courses described in item #1 directly above. Students who have completed a Masters degree in IPT previously may receive credit toward these requirements from the courses they completed as Masters students, including 10 hours of required courses, one completed project (3 credit hours), seminar (1 credit hour), and internship (3 credit hours) credit. They may also recieve credit for elective courses completed as Masters students as approved by their advisory committee. In addition, one course (IPT 620-Learning Theory) must be completed as a PhD student if it was not completed during Masters studies. The IPT PhD program provides additional experience and performance capability in multiple areas of practice in addition to greater knowledge and performance ability in one chosen area (design, evaluation, research, or measurement). Most PhD students find part-time employment with campus-based design and development organizations to augment their formal instruction. This provides experience applying newly-learned principles to projects at work. Often the part-time employment will afford project and internship opportunities. Full-time employment is strongly discouraged for PhD students because it has been found to detract from project and dissertation work. All PhD students are expected to maintain a load of no less than 18 hours of course work per academic year.

 

Graduate Catalog

Learning Outcomes

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Ph.D. students are expected to demonstrate an advanced level of proficiency in instructional development, evaluation, assessment, or research. They are expected to be able to defend their designs in all of these areas through an appeal to technological and scientific theory and the application of appropriate design methodologies within project constraints. When appropriate, they must be able to define the limits of existing theory and express a new theoretical position. 

Foundational Knowledge and Understanding

Demonstrate depth and breadth of understanding of the fundamental principles related to instructional design, development, evaluation, assessment, and research.

Ethical and Professional Practice

Develop a personal commitment to integrate into their lives the standards of professional ethics within the field, and demonstrate a willingness to live by high standards of ethical practice consistent with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Practical Application Skills

Demonstrate ability to complete quality projects in the field by applying knowledge and skills related to design, development, evaluation, assessment and research. 

Research Skills

Demonstrate the ability to design, implement, report, and critique quality research within the discipline.

Professional Communication

Demonstrate the ability to effectively communicate research and evaluation findings.

Evidence of Learning

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Direct Measures

1. Core course GPAs and completion trends.

2. Results from internship sponsors survey and internship completion trends.

3. Advisory committees' ratings of candidates' written proposals submitted by students prior to conducting the M.S. project or thesis.

4. Advisory committees' ratings of projects and theses as presented in the candidate's oral and written defense of the M.S. project or thesis.

5. External review of a sample of student projects and theses by reputable scholars in the field (data collected at least once every three years).

These measures are reviewed annually on a formal basis, and informally throughout the year.

Indirect Measures

1. Annual evaluation of student adequate progress by IPT faculty

2. Exit interviews and student surveys. (reviewed annually)

3. Review of students' progress in having their work accepted for professional publication and presentation at national conferences. (reviewed annually)

4. Occasionally our students enter professional and student design competitions, and their success in these competitions can provide indirect evidence for evidence of student learning.

Learning and Teaching Assessment and Improvement

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Several regularly-scheduled faculty development events provide the opportunity to feed interpretations of direct and indirect evidence back into the improvement of teaching and mentoring:

• Semi-annual Student Progress Review meetings: Course completion information, grades, instructor observations, other-faculty observations, course project quality, and major project quality may be used to assess the progress of a student in each of the curricular areas.
• Faculty presentations at regular Faculty Forum meetings: Faculty members may summarize data across students to detect trends in student progress in different curricular areas and make recommendations for change.
• Review of exit interview results by the Department Chair at Faculty Forum meetings: This event gives the Chair an opportunity to summarize for the faculty what has been reported by exiting students, including job placement information.
• Review of course-specific evauations at Annual faculty Stewardship Interviews: This event allows the Chair to discuss course- and project-realted outcomes with individual faculty members to improve teaching and set goals.
• Student Advisement training for faculty given at Annual Conference: Training given yearly at Annual Conference may disseminate improved advisement guidelines.
• Student advisement interviews: At advisement meetings with students, faculty members can observe student self-assessment on progress and combine that with evidence gathered at other events and advise/prescribe course plan modifications.
• Regular job placement tracking reports: This event will occur as an agenda item at at regular Faculty Forum meetings to report changes in alumni employment and track changing trends in employment patterns.