Doctoral Program Degree Requirements

Minimum Graduate School doctoral degree requirements:

•  For all doctoral programs except the doctorate in nursing practice (DNP), students must complete, including the dissertation, at least 90 credits of graduate work beyond the bachelor’s degree, at least 40 of which, excluding dissertation credits, must be in the major. A minimum of 48 of the required 90 credits must be completed at Ball State University.

•  For all doctoral programs, except the doctor of audiology (AuD) and the doctorate in nursing practice (DNP), a minimum of 10 credits are required for the dissertation. A maximum of 24 dissertation credits may be counted toward a student’s program of study.

•  For all doctoral programs, except the doctor of audiology (AuD), students must complete a rigorous research component. Students will be expected to demonstrate competency with research tools applicable to their major areas. Such tools include additional languages, statistical methods, computer science, and research techniques. The required research tools will be determined by the student’s doctoral committee and included on the student’s program of study.

Departmental doctoral degree requirements may include, but are not limited to, the following:

•  Cognates—Candidates may be required to have one or more cognate fields, each of which may consist of either 15 credits or 24 credits.  For the 15-credit cognate, 9 credits must be taken at Ball State University; 12 credits of the 24-credit cognate must be taken at Ball State University. Programs will determine the format of cognates that are applicable for their course of study and the courses that will be taken. The candidate, the program director, and the student’s doctoral advisor will determine how the cognate appears on the candidate’s program plan.  In cases where programs want cognates to appear on the students’ transcripts as a separate credential, the cognate curriculum must be approved through the normal curriculum process and appear in the Graduate Catalog.

•  Internship—Candidates in some doctoral programs may be required to take a full-time internship at an approved site.

•  Additional Language—If an additional language is required, the selection is made by the student and the committee and must be approved by the director of the student’s doctoral program. Additional languages typically contain a significant body of available materials in the student’s field of research or are essential to the student’s career objective or to a field of study in which the student will participate as part of the doctoral program. For international students, non-native languages other than English will be accepted at Ball State University if they meet these criteria. See Policies Related to Doctoral Degree Completion for specific guidelines concerning additional languages.

Candidates must meet any additional program requirements established by the academic unit responsible for each doctoral degree.