Ph.D. in Kinesiology - New Mexico Tech

SPECIFIC COMPONENTS
Department of Human Performance Dance and Recreation
College of Education
• The General Examination. The general examination will ascertain that the student has sufficient
foundation in the general discipline of Kinesiology and that the student has sufficient command
of an area of inquiry so as to justify moving forward with a proposal for a dissertation project or
projects.
• Written Portion of the General exam: The doctoral student may elect to use his or her
dissertation review of the literature as the written portion of the general exam.
Alternatively, the student may elect to provide written responses to questions
developed by the student’s committee that are designed to examine the students
general knowledge base in the broad discipline of Kinesiology. The review of literature
should involve a critical appraisal of the extant literature on a focused topic. The review
of literature should demonstrate the student’s ability to think critically and should
contribute to the research question and design.
• Verbal portion of the written exam. Regardless of whether the students chooses to write
a review of literature or answer questions from the committee, the student will be asked
to demonstrate their command of the discipline and their area of interest in the format
of a verbal presentation and question and answer examination.
• The Dissertation: In addition to the review of literature as described above, the student
dissertation should also include the following elements that will serve as a basis for student
outcomes.
• Preliminary findings. The dissertation should demonstrate a line of inquiry. As such,
students will be asked to describe findings from previous relevant studies that have
come out of their laboratories. This component reflects the students’ ability to
participate in the research process and their ability to think critically insofar as the
findings should contribute to the development of the research question and design.
• Final study, including introduction, methods, results, and discussion. The final study
should be under the direction of the PhD student. This section of the document will
demonstrate that the student is capable of independent research, and as such will also
provide further evidence of the student’s ability to think critically.
• Summary and Conclusions. This section of the document will encapsulate the entire
dissertation experience of the doctoral candidate; requiring the student to discuss the
breadth of his/her findings in the context of current theory. This section provides
evidence of the student’s critical thinking skills.
• The Final Exam: The final exam (a.k.a. Dissertation Defense) will be the last step in the students
academic degree program. During this exam students will demonstrate an ability to interpret
findings and relate them to a sound theoretical framework.
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