Program Requirements

The foundational research project is supervised by the student’s supervisor plus two other faculty members, completed during Years 1 and 2 of the 5-Year Direct-Entry PhD program.

In Year 1, students form a 3-member faculty committee (their supervisor and 2 other graduate faculty members) and develop their proposal. Students defend the proposed project and complete a mini reading list exam in Year 1, then engage in data collection over the summer and through the fall of Year 2. They write up and defend their Foundational Research Project in Year 2. The Foundational Research Project gives students the time to develop the knowledge and skills they will need to complete a more ambitious research project that could eventually be part of their doctoral dissertation.

Proposal: The Foundational Research Project proposal should be in the form of a grant proposal to an agency that is in your field (SSHRC, NSERC, or CIHR).

The first step is to go to the relevant tri-council agency’s instructions for their primary research grants (I.e., choose either CIHR, NSERC, or SSHRC, depending on your research area) and read the section identified in this list:

• "Research Proposal" in the Attachments of a CIHR Project Grant: https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/53037.html
• "Proposal" in the Attachments of an NSERC Discovery Grant: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ResearchPortal-PortailDeRecherche/Instructions-Instructions/DG-SD_eng.asp#a3
• "Detailed Description" of a SSHRC Insight Grant: https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/instructions/insight-savoir-eng.aspx#detailed-description-detaillee

The proposal is limited to 20 pages (double-spaced) excluding references, tables, figures etc. The proposal should review the literature, state the rationale for the proposal, outline a set of experiments, justify sample size and statistics, and consider possible outcomes and their implications. The purpose of having this type of proposal is to provide you with training in writing grant proposals. It also puts a reasonable limit on the size of the proposal.

Mini Reading List Exam: The goal is for students to experience a smaller version of the oral reading list exam that occurs in Year 4 that focuses on their knowledge of the literature relevant to their Foundational Research Project. To that end, the reading list should be no more than 30 articles and chapters that relate to the project.

Project Write-up: The final write-up of the Foundational Research Project should not be longer than 100 pages including references, tables, figures, etc.

Defense: One hour should be set aside for the defense, with the student presenting the findings for about 15 minutes followed by about 45 minutes of questions and discussion with the 3 committee members.

PSY3000H: External Research Project

The external research project can be completed in any lab outside the student’s own supervisor’s or co-supervisor's. The project could be on a topic related to the student’s own thesis project or on a topic far removed from it. It is completed during Years 1 and 2 (4-Year PhD) or Years 2 and 3 (5-Year Direct-Entry PhD).

Note that if students in the 4-Year PhD program completed a Master’s thesis that was substantially psychological in nature and included empirical work, the Graduate Program will consider requests for an exemption from the External Research Project. When exemptions are granted, another content course (0.5 FCE) will be needed to be taken in its place. To request an exemption, please email the Graduate Director with a description of the completed project.

Students should submit the completed External Research Project approval form (Appendix 4) to the Graduate Office by the end of January of Year 1 (4-Year PhD) or Year 2 (5-Year Direct-Entry PhD), which includes a brief description of the project and requires the signatures of the student, supervisor and outside project supervisor. A paper in the format of a journal article, but no longer than 50 pages (including tables, references, and figures) should be submitted. Please note that this paper can include an experiment with results that did not reach the significance level. The most important thing about PSY3000H is the learning experience. The deadline for submission is the last Monday in April of Year 2 (4-Year PhD) or Year 3 (5-Year Direct-Entry PhD).

The student’s primary supervisor and the outside project supervisory should meet together with the student to discuss the outside project and to ensure that it fulfill both the student’s educational needs and be practical (i.e. can be completed within the allotted time period and is not so demanding that it prevents the student from conducting their own principal research). The outside project should on average not take more than 8 to 10 hours per week.

PSY3001H: Professional Psychology

This course provides a practical overview of facets for a successful career in academic or non-academic psychology. Topics include research ethics, open science, writing skills, and publishing processes. Guest panelists will provide tips on topics such as navigating graduate school, academic and non-academic jobs, and applying for funding. The primary requirements are participating in class and panel discussions, with the occasional brief assignment. This course is evaluated as credit/no credit (CR/NCR). Half of the course covers topics relevant to a successful graduate student experience and must be completed in Year 1. The other half of the course prepares you for career trajectories and must be completed in Year 3. Students in Year 1 should intend to attend the first 6 lectures and Students in Year 3 should intend to attend the second 6 lectures.

PSY4000H: Doctoral Research Project

PhD Supervisory Committee: It is a good idea to establish your thesis committee by the end of Year 1 (for 4-Year PhD) or Year 2 (for 5-Year Direct-Entry PhD). This committee comprises your supervisor and two other graduate faculty members whose knowledge of your research area will be useful to you. If your supervisor does not have their primary appointment in the Department of Psychology (at St. George, UTM, or UTSC), it may be required that two other members of your thesis committee must be chosen from graduate faculty who do. If you are uncertain about this requirement, please ask the Graduate Administrator. You will work closely with your committee in determining the direction and nature of your research, and they will be largely responsible for evaluating the quality of your work, so choose them carefully. The signed committee membership form (Appendix 6) should be submitted to the Graduate Office in May of Year 1 (for 4-Year PhD) or Year 2 (for 5-Year Direct-Entry PhD). Your supervisory committee should meet no later than the last Friday in September of Year 2 (for 4-Year PhD) or Year 3 (for 5-Year Direct-Entry PhD).

Supervisory committees should then meet at least every six months to track and monitor your progress. Feedback should be provided to you, highlighting accomplishments, strengths, and areas where improvement may be needed. Each time your committee meets, you should complete a PhD Student Committee Meeting Report Form and submit it to the Graduate Office.

It is recommended that a final supervisory committee meeting is held between the PhD Reading List Exam and the Final Oral Examination. In this meeting, you would present your committee with the complete findings and the general outline of the thesis. The purpose of this meeting is to seek the committee members’ feedback to help finalize the writing of the thesis and prepare you for the Final Oral Examination. It is common to pair this meeting with the Reading List Defense (see below), in which case you should ideally reserve 2.5 hours to allow sufficient time for both the Reading List Defense and the PhD Supervisory Committee Meeting.

PhD Proposal: The PhD proposal is limited to 20 pages (double-spaced) excluding references, tables, figures etc. The proposal should review the literature, state the rationale for the proposal, outline a set of experiments, justify sample size and statistics, and consider possible outcomes and their implications. Preliminary data can be included in the proposal, but the proposal is meant to typically precede collection of the rest of the data for the PhD thesis, so that committee members’ feedback can be incorporated in study design. Students in the 5-Year Direct-Entry PhD program can incorporate their Foundational Research Program work into their proposal background. The proposal should also include a planned outline of the final thesis, separating major sections – usually different studies – as chapters.

The PhD Proposal should be in the form of a grant proposal to an agency that is in your field (SSHRC, NSERC, or CIHR). The purpose of having this type of proposal is to provide you with training in writing grant proposals.

You can find detailed instructions for the relevant section (identified in the following list) of the granting agency that you choose to target for your proposal:

• “Research Proposal” of a CIHR Project Grant: https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/49560.html
• “Proposal” of an NSERC Discovery Grant: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ResearchPortal-PortailDeRecherche/Instructions-Instructions/DG-SD_eng.asp
• “Detailed Description” of a SSHRC Insight Grant: https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/instructions/index-eng.aspx?fid=ig_instr#detailed-description-detaillee

The deadline to submit your proposal to your supervisory committee is the second Monday in January of Year 3 (for 4-Year PhD) or Year 4 (for 5-Year Direct-Entry PhD). The supervisory committee should meet to discuss the proposal no later than a month after it was submitted. The proposal can be accepted as is or modified. If the proposal needs to be modified, the modifications should be enumerated in a list for the student to complete. The proposal approval form should be submitted to the Graduate Office by the second Monday in May of Year 3 (for 4-Year PhD) or Year 4 (for 5-Year Direct-Entry PhD).

PhD Reading List Exam: You will be tested by your supervisory committee on your general knowledge of your area of specialization. The area is broader than your specific research area but not so broad that it includes an entire major area of psychology. The area could be defined as one that would be covered in a third-year undergraduate course. You should submit a reading list to your committee for approval. The list should consist of original research articles, reviews, and texts in the field. The committee can suggest changes to the list that are reasonable. A typical reading list contains 75-100 articles or the equivalent in chapters. The list can be submitted any time after the beginning of Year 3 (for 4-Year PhD) or Year 4 (for 5-Year Direct-Entry PhD), but no later than the last Friday in September. The committee should give you feedback within two weeks after the list has been submitted. For students in the 5-Year Direct-Entry PhD program, items from their mini oral reading list exam as part of their Foundational Research Project can be included.

The Reading List Examination should be scheduled for 1.5 hours. The examination begins with a short presentation. If a PhD Supervisory Committee Meeting is also held in conjunction with the Reading List Examination, then a minimum of 2 hours should be reserved for the joint set of meetings; The recommended time for joint Reading List Examination and PhD Supervisory Committee Meeting is 2.5 hours for both meetings.

The approved reading list exam form should be submitted to the Graduate Office by the second Monday in January of Year 4 (for 4-Year PhD) or Year 5 (for 5-year Direct-Entry Ph.D.).

Graduate courses in the Program are scheduled in the Fall and Winter sessions, but not in the Summer session. However, the collaborative program with engineering, PsychEng, has one required course that is taken over the Summer. Courses are 0.5 FCE courses that occur, for the most part, in either the Fall or Winter sessions. All content courses are open to PhD students, and if prerequisites are required, it will be specified in the course description. The 4-Year PhD program requires the completion of two content courses by the end of Year 2; the 5-Year Direct-Entry PhD program requires the completion of four content courses by the end of Year 3. Courses are scheduled with area group meeting times and protected campus meeting times in mind.

Students enroll in courses (and can drop courses) through ACORN within the required deadlines, which are included in this Outline and will be communicated periodically by the Graduate Office. It is the student’s responsibility to adhere to these deadlines. More information about course enrolment can be found here.

Doctoral students who entered the program after September 2002 are subject to the policy on Timely Completion of Graduate Program Requirements. The policy specifies that:

“To achieve candidacy, students in doctoral degree programs must:

1. Complete all requirements for the degree exclusive of thesis research and courses such as ongoing research seminars that run continuously through the program; and
2. Have an approved thesis topic, supervisor, and supervisory committee.

Candidacy must be achieved by the end of Year 3 for all doctoral programs, except for the five-year doctoral program… For those exceptions, candidacy must be achieved by the end of Year 4 of registration.”

In our program, to achieve candidacy, students need to have completed their course requirements (including the External Research Project) and have formed a supervisory committee. Students do not need to have completed PSY4000H (i.e., had their proposal approved and reading list exam completed) in order to achieve candidacy.

The Final Oral Examination (FOE) is the capstone experience of your doctoral studies. General information about the FOE is outlined in the SGS Calendar, and all candidates and supervisors should read SGS's information concerning Program Completion. The instructions and forms for scheduling an FOE are included among the departmental forms.

Committee Composition

The FOE committee should consist of four to six voting members. Because quorum is four voting members, SGS recommends including at least six voting members to ensure the exam proceeds as scheduled.

The committee must include:

1. One to three members of the student’s supervisory committee (SGS recommends three)
2. Two non-supervisory external examiners who have not been closely involved in the supervision of the thesis (these members must have a graduate faculty appointment at UofT)
3. The External Appraiser (external to UofT)
4. A non-voting Chair appointed by SGS (The Doctoral Examinations Office will inform the graduate unit when a Chair for the examination has been appointed)

Timeline

At least 8 weeks prior to the FOE date:

• The supervisor should find a suitable External Appraiser and contact them to confirm their participation in the FOE, including the date/time, their responsibilities as an External Appraiser, and how they will be attending. We offer a $100 CAD honorarium to the External Appraiser and will reimburse their eligible travel expenses, if they choose to attend the FOE. Regardless of whether they attend the FOE, the External Appraiser must submit a written report, usually in the form of a 2- to 3-page letter, to the department two weeks before the FOE date. The student should not have any contact with the External Appraiser until the exam begins.
• Please note that SGS will reimburse the External Appraiser’s travel expenses up to $500 CAD. Expenses incurred above that are the responsibility of the supervisor. Supervisors should keep this in mind when relaying information about travel expense reimbursement to the External Appraiser. The student submits a request to the Graduate Office to schedule the FOE. The request must include:
  • PhD Final Oral Examination (FOE) Request Form
  • Thesis Approval Form, signed by all committee members (included in the FOE Request Form document)
  • External appraiser’s CV
  • Abstract (as a separate document; formatted correctly)
• The Graduate Chair approves the external appraiser. The Graduate Office will submit the External Appraiser and examination committee to SGS for the approval of the Vice-Dean and will schedule the exam date and location with the SGS Doctoral Exams Office.

6 weeks prior to the FOE date:

• The student submits an electronic copy of the thesis to the Graduate Office. If the thesis is not available a minimum of 6 weeks prior to the exam date the exam may be cancelled.
• The Graduate Office will send the examiners a confirmation of the exam (date, time and location and other details) and distribute the thesis. 

2 weeks prior to the FOE date:

• The appraisal is due to the Graduate Office. The Graduate Office will forward the 1) program, 2) abstract and 3) appraisal to the exam committee. The Graduate Office will also send an FOE announcement to all members of the program, including the abstract.

2 days prior to the FOE date:

• The Graduate Office will forward a final reminder to the exam committee.

After the FOE:

• The student will have one week (as it stands/in its present form), one month (editorial corrections) or up to three months (minor revisions) to make any revisions to the dissertation. The student must submit their final, approved thesis online via ProQuest.
• Once corrections have been reviewed, the supervisor (or convener of the exam subcommittee for minor modification) will confirm in writing to the SGS Doctoral Exams Office (sgs.doctoral@utoronto.ca) and the Graduate Office (psy.graduate@utoronto.ca) that corrections have been made.
• The Graduate Office does not require a hard or electronic copy of the final dissertation.

*Please note that FOEs may be held remotely, in-person, or as a hybrid of the two.

Each year in early December and in late May, the Graduate Committee meets to evaluate graduate student progress. The December evaluation is only for students whom the faculty is concerned about, whereas the May evaluation considers each graduate student individually, regardless of standing.

At the end of each meeting, students will be allowed unrestricted continuation, allowed probationary continuation, or denied continuation. Continuation decisions are based on research proficiency and potential, performance in courses, and participation in the academic aspects of the department (e.g., area meetings, colloquium). Although the major emphasis is on research potential, the Graduate Committee also reviews students’ course work grades.

All students will be informed in the summer term of their progress as evaluated by the Graduate Committee. Likewise, students of concern will be informed in mid-December of their progress as evaluated by the Graduate Committee. Guidance will be provided as to the changes that need to be seen. Any shortcomings noted should be taken seriously and rectified as soon as possible. Failure to demonstrate satisfactory performance prior to the subsequent Graduate Committee student evaluation meeting, either in December or May, is sufficient reason to deny continuation. In other words, two consecutive negative evaluations (that is, failure to meet the goals set out in the first negative evaluation) could be grounds for dismissal from the program.

Students whose work is considered unsatisfactory may be placed on academic probation. Probation is a warning that unless performance improves, candidacy will be terminated. In such cases it is essential that the student be informed as to the reasons for this judgment and the grounds on which probation might be lifted. To ensure that this happens, within four weeks of being placed on probation, the student must discuss the terms of probation with the supervisory committee. The program will exercise the final judgment regarding the quality of the student’s work at the subsequent evaluation meeting and decide on the basis of this quality whether probation will be lifted. It is hoped that this procedure will help clarify, for the student and supervisory committee, the objectives that are to be aimed for by the student.

During the probationary period, the student must meet with the supervisory committee at least once every three months to discuss the progress being made. It is the joint responsibility of the supervisor and the student to ensure that this is done.