Doctoral Degree without a Dissertation?

[Malarkey]

I was shocked at a meeting at my institution to hear someone say that there is a debate in higher education as to whether the dissertation is really a necessary piece for doctoral degrees (in psychology). I have never heard this before, and it stuck me as a severe type of apostasy.

Has anyone heard of such a thing before? Doctoral degree in social sciences without a dissertation.

[Puget]

I think something got lost in translation here-- I'm in psychology and there is no such debate. Perhaps they were talking about "stapled dissertations", i.e., a set of published journal articles? That's done in many science programs including some psychology, and doesn't mean there isn't a dissertation just that you don't have to do stupid reformatting when each "chapter" has already been published.

Or perhaps they were talking about the PsyD (technically a "doctoral degree")-- that is a practice degree that has never required a dissertation (and is problematic in various ways, but that's a different conversation).

[Malarkey]

No, they were very clear in saying they (administrators) are thinking of exploring ways to eliminate dissertation work altogether, for a doctoral degree in psychology. It's mind-blowing to me, and I seriously doubt that the APA will tolerate such nonsense. And yes, it's a "PsyD", which is still a doctoral degree, albeit one that focuses on clinical work rather than research, and APA does require a dissertation (or am I in a delusional belief about that?).

[downer]

If you start typing in psy d to Google, one of the first auto complete options is

psy.d program without dissertation

and a bunch of results come up. So it is definitely a thing.

[Malarkey]

If you start typing in psy d to Google, one of the first auto complete options is

psy.d program without dissertation

and a bunch of results come up. So it is definitely a thing.

Hmmm...a cursory glance at those results appear to all be for online programs that do not lead to licensure. I shall have to examine this more closely. Why even call it a doctoral degree if it lacks a dissertation. Must be a for-profit college thing.

[downer]

Licensure is separate from the doctoral work, even for a PhD in clinical psychology. You can be licensed with a Master's degree.

[Parasaurolophus]

I haven't heard of this specifically, but I do know someone in psych (a well-established researcher at an Ivy!) whose dissertation was three ten-page papers (based on a single instance of data collection) stapled together.

I also know someone (not in psych) who didn't really write a dissertation, but instead submitted a translation of someone else's book.


Those are the closest instances I've heard of, however.

[Malarkey]

Licensure is separate from the doctoral work, even for a PhD in clinical psychology. You can be licensed with a Master's degree.

True, but that's a different type of licensure.

APA would not look kindly on accrediting institutions where doctoral degrees do not involve a dissertation, and lack of APA accreditation would make it virtually impossible to become a licensed clinical psychologist.

The devil is in the details, I suppose, so has anyone heard of doctoral degrees in clinical psychology that do not involve dissertations but which still leads to licensure to practice as a clinical psychologist in the United States? I thought that recent (a few years ago) changes to internship matching meant that matches now require that students come from APA accredited institutions, and that the APA requires dissertation work as a part of the doctoral degree.

[mamselle]

Other sciences likewise only require three publishable/published papers as the equivalent of a dissertation.

As I recall, someone explained it to me by saying that the students were increasingly expected to publish each chapter of their dissertation separately, anyway: in the interests of getting their work out more quickly, it was decided that, if coherent enough, they didn't need an overarching lit review, methodology section, etc. because those things would appear at some level of detail in each paper already.

The change happened gradually, I think, starting maybe 15-20 years or so ago; at least, that was when I was temping in an engineering department as an EA and asked the question myself.

Evolutionary academic behavior, apparently, results in interesting forms of speciation among disciplines.

M.

[Puget]

A PsyD is totally different from a PhD and as far as I know has never required a dissertation involving empirical research, though they generally have a "capstone paper" or some such and some may call it a dissertation to make it sound fancy. If it did require a real program of research and dissertation, how would it be different from a clinical PhD?

I looked up the APA standard which is:
"Demonstrate the substantially independent ability to formulate research or other scholarly activities (e.g., critical literature reviews, dissertation, efficacy studies, clinical case studies, theoretical papers, program evaluation projects, program development projects) that are of sufficient quality and rigor to have the potential to contribute to the scientific, psychological, or professional knowledge base."

So a dissertation is only one thing on the list of possible ways to demonstrate this. A lot of things can be "other scholarly activities".

And yes, many PsyDs are for-profit programs. Even the ones at traditional universities are generally unfunded and are cash cows for the university, like other "professional" grad programs. Many are in "schools of professional psychology" entirely separate from the A & S psychology department. I consider most of them pretty predatory and they are low-value degrees overall for the cost.  I spend a lot of time talking undergrads who want to go into practice and aren't particularly interested in research out of PsyDs and into MSW programs.

[Parasaurolophus]

I looked up the APA standard which is:
"Demonstrate the substantially independent ability to formulate research or other scholarly activities (e.g., critical literature reviews, dissertation, efficacy studies, clinical case studies, theoretical papers, program evaluation projects, program development projects) that are of sufficient quality and rigor to have the potential to contribute to the scientific, psychological, or professional knowledge base."

Huh! That's really interesting. It's such a wide variety of possibilities.

(I have a sister halfway through a psych PhD, and they definitely have to do a dissertation. IIRC it has to be based on a minimum of three separate studies.)

[Puget]

I looked up the APA standard which is:
"Demonstrate the substantially independent ability to formulate research or other scholarly activities (e.g., critical literature reviews, dissertation, efficacy studies, clinical case studies, theoretical papers, program evaluation projects, program development projects) that are of sufficient quality and rigor to have the potential to contribute to the scientific, psychological, or professional knowledge base."

Huh! That's really interesting. It's such a wide variety of possibilities.

(I have a sister halfway through a psych PhD, and they definitely have to do a dissertation. IIRC it has to be based on a minimum of three separate studies.)

That's because it is a PhD and not a PsyD. A PhD in psychology, like in any other field, requires a dissertation of original research. A PsyD on the other hand is a "professional" degree, like an EdD. APA accreditation covers both clinical PhDs and PsyDs, and is about standards for training practitioners, not researchers. So the research standards involved in a PhD are about it being a PhD, not about APA accreditation.

[Parasaurolophus]

I looked up the APA standard which is:
"Demonstrate the substantially independent ability to formulate research or other scholarly activities (e.g., critical literature reviews, dissertation, efficacy studies, clinical case studies, theoretical papers, program evaluation projects, program development projects) that are of sufficient quality and rigor to have the potential to contribute to the scientific, psychological, or professional knowledge base."

Huh! That's really interesting. It's such a wide variety of possibilities.

(I have a sister halfway through a psych PhD, and they definitely have to do a dissertation. IIRC it has to be based on a minimum of three separate studies.)

That's because it is a PhD and not a PsyD. A PhD in psychology, like in any other field, requires a dissertation of original research. A PsyD on the other hand is a "professional" degree, like an EdD. APA accreditation covers both clinical PhDs and PsyDs, and is about standards for training practitioners, not researchers. So the research standards involved in a PhD are about it being a PhD, not about APA accreditation.

Oh, I think I misunderstood: the APA standards you were quoting were for a PsyD?

[Puget]

I looked up the APA standard which is:
"Demonstrate the substantially independent ability to formulate research or other scholarly activities (e.g., critical literature reviews, dissertation, efficacy studies, clinical case studies, theoretical papers, program evaluation projects, program development projects) that are of sufficient quality and rigor to have the potential to contribute to the scientific, psychological, or professional knowledge base."

Huh! That's really interesting. It's such a wide variety of possibilities.

(I have a sister halfway through a psych PhD, and they definitely have to do a dissertation. IIRC it has to be based on a minimum of three separate studies.)

That's because it is a PhD and not a PsyD. A PhD in psychology, like in any other field, requires a dissertation of original research. A PsyD on the other hand is a "professional" degree, like an EdD. APA accreditation covers both clinical PhDs and PsyDs, and is about standards for training practitioners, not researchers. So the research standards involved in a PhD are about it being a PhD, not about APA accreditation.

Oh, I think I misunderstood: the APA standards you were quoting were for a PsyD?

They are the same for both, because APA is in the business of approving programs for clinical training, not research. It might be best to think of clinical PhD programs as more like an MD/PhD, where there is clinical training on the one hand (and that's the part APA cares about) and research training on the other (which you need for a PhD like any PhD). In this analogy a PsyD is like the MD alone (though of course way less prestigious and lucrative!). 

APA is all about licensure for practice, so they only care about research in so far as it helps prepare future clinicians to be "evidence based". APA plays no role in non-clinical psychology PhDs, and is not really focused on training clinical researchers either.

In fact, there is an alternative/additional accreditation body now, Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS) which was founded precisely because of frustration that APA was not focused enough of rigorous clinical science. PCSAS only accredits clinical PhD programs that adhere to a clinical science model (i.e., research-intensive).

[Parasaurolophus]

I looked up the APA standard which is:
"Demonstrate the substantially independent ability to formulate research or other scholarly activities (e.g., critical literature reviews, dissertation, efficacy studies, clinical case studies, theoretical papers, program evaluation projects, program development projects) that are of sufficient quality and rigor to have the potential to contribute to the scientific, psychological, or professional knowledge base."

Huh! That's really interesting. It's such a wide variety of possibilities.

(I have a sister halfway through a psych PhD, and they definitely have to do a dissertation. IIRC it has to be based on a minimum of three separate studies.)

That's because it is a PhD and not a PsyD. A PhD in psychology, like in any other field, requires a dissertation of original research. A PsyD on the other hand is a "professional" degree, like an EdD. APA accreditation covers both clinical PhDs and PsyDs, and is about standards for training practitioners, not researchers. So the research standards involved in a PhD are about it being a PhD, not about APA accreditation.

Oh, I think I misunderstood: the APA standards you were quoting were for a PsyD?

They are the same for both, because APA is in the business of approving programs for clinical training, not research. It might be best to think of clinical PhD programs as more like an MD/PhD, where there is clinical training on the one hand (and that's the part APA cares about) and research training on the other (which you need for a PhD like any PhD). In this analogy a PsyD is like the MD alone (though of course way less prestigious and lucrative!). 

APA is all about licensure for practice, so they only care about research in so far as it helps prepare future clinicians to be "evidence based". APA plays no role in non-clinical psychology PhDs, and is not really focused on training clinical researchers either.

In fact, there is an alternative/additional accreditation body now, Psychological Clinical Science Accreditation System (PCSAS) which was founded precisely because of frustration that APA was not focused enough of rigorous clinical science. PCSAS only accredits clinical PhD programs that adhere to a clinical science model (i.e., research-intensive).

Right, I think I've got it now. Thanks!