RCDC Roots & Wings Roundtable I: Roots Session Preparing Doctoral Students for Impactful Research through Qualifying/Comprehensive Examinations

Increasingly, social work researchers face an imperative to address the “wicked” multi-level problems and grand challenges of our time. This roundtable discusses how to optimize preparation of our doctoral students to be effective contributors in these scientific pursuits and in translating findings to policy, practice, and/or community impact. This roundtable brings together featured participants and audience members to explore strategies for using qualifying (or comprehensive) exams as a pedagogical tool toward preparing for high impact research careers. Speakers will provide relatively brief comments on the following topics toward a common foundation for a very active Roundtable conversation with the audience.

• Identification of select competencies needed to produce or engage with teams in high impact research in the contemporary research landscape.
• Evaluation of different pedagogical goals and types of PhD examinations with audience consideration of their merits/limitations in preparing for impact-oriented research.
• Review of key findings from a GADE survey focused on the current state of PhD exams vis a vis 1) the purpose, structure, and content of exams and 2) preparation to use scientific evidence in contributing to evidence-based practice and policy that advances social work’s equity and social justice aims for impact science.   
• Presentation of examples of how PhD exams can be used to better prepare students to produce rigorous scholarship from both student and faculty perspectives