Quality Assurance and Assessment of Doctoral Programs: The Comprehensive Exams

Higher education, especially doctoral degrees, throughout colleges and universities has been in high demand and more schools are getting into this arena to fill the need. As such, understanding the needs of higher education institutions and current doctoral students has become especially important for success in the new millennium. Furthermore, understanding the common denominator of technology available to distance education students can assist administrators and faculty members appropriately design their admission, teaching and curriculum requirements. This document provides a review of the demand for doctorally qualified faculty members in tertiary education. Also, based on an assessment of doctoral students ’ Comp exam results1, the document provides the success rates on the Comp exams in the past eight years along with suggestions on how doctoral students can increase their probably of successfully passing their comprehensive examinations on the first attempt. The average scores of 968 doctoral students ’ (700 males and 268 females) Comp exams from an eight-year period are analyzed and discussed. Also discussed are the results of 85 alumni surveys and their level of satisfaction with the doctoral program. Recommendations are provided for the Doctoral Program offices to enhance their offerings as a result of the feedback from students. Initially, the document explore