Ph.D. Curriculum
The doctoral program prepares students to provide intellectual leadership for the social work profession through advanced levels of scholarship, research, theory development, and policy analysis.
Overview
Students and advisers work closely together to design an individualized program that meets each student's learning needs and provides opportunities for students to participate in applied research. Students, in collaboration with their faculty advisor and others, engage in research, write, and publish in child welfare, aging, adult mental health, violence prevention and social services development and delivery.
The program is not geared to training practitioners and does not contain courses or content on direct practice skills; however, students interested in direct practice have an opportunity to advance the profession's knowledge base through research. The School of Social Work is host to several research and training centers that provide students the opportunity to pursue a wide variety of advanced research opportunities. Skills in teaching and curriculum development are also included in the program as many of the School's graduates move on to faculty positions in universities and colleges.
The Ph.D. program emphasizes mastery of student-determined and program-determined objectives rather than an accumulation of course credits. Degree requirements vary according to background and educational goals. Typically, 40 semester credits plus 24 required thesis credits beyond the M.S.W. are required. All students must also pass written and oral examinations and successfully defend a dissertation. Most full-time Ph.D. students complete required coursework in two years and can complete the entire program in four years.
Ph.D. Course Requirements
The courses required as part of doctoral studies in social work are composed of:
- core seminars in social work research, social welfare history, social welfare policy, and theory and model development
- a social work teaching course
- a supervised research practicum and practicum seminar
- supporting program courses
- statistics courses.
Students are also required to have teaching experience in the School of Social Work while in the doctoral program and to fulfill the computer skills requirement.
Required Social Work Courses
- SW 8851 - History of Social Work and Historical Research Methods
- SW 8855 - Social Policy Formation and Analysis
- SW 8861 - Theory and Model Development in Social Work
- SW 8863 - Social Work Teaching Methods and Educational Issues
- SW 8871 - Social Work Research Seminar I
- SW 8872 - Social Work Research Seminar II
- SW 8875 - Research Practicum
Course descriptions are available in the University Catalog.
Supporting Program Requirement
The supporting program consists of a minimum of 12 credits, selected in close consultation with the student's adviser, from graduate courses offered by other University of Minnesota departments. The supporting program may be a minor from another department or a coherent set of courses from more than one discipline related to social work. See the Graduate School Catalog for more information.
Statistics Requirement
Ph.D. students are expected to develop sufficient mastery of statistics to undertake multivariate analyses. Although no statistics courses are offered by the School of Social Work, there are several acceptable, approved sequences in other departments (e.g., Statistics, Public Health, Educational Psychology, Sociology). See the Graduate School Catalog for course descriptions.
Research Practicum
This two-semester sequence is taken in the second year of the social work doctoral program, after students have completed the required social work research and required statistics courses. The research practicum provides students with a supervised, hands-on, experience in an ongoing faculty research project. A seminar helps to integrate this experience with the content learned in research and statistics courses. The practicum includes two components: a research placement, and a concurrent research seminar.