GUIDE FOR THE ASSESSMENT OF THE STUDENT'S CAPACITIES TO CARRY OUT INDEPENDENT RESEARCH AND FOR SELF-REGULATION
 
 

A. PHILOSOPHY OF THE EXAMINATION FOR CANDIDATURE TO THE Ph.D. DEGREE:

The examination for candidature to the Ph.D. degree:
Appraises the student's maturity in leading the research project.
Appraises the competencies acquired by the student to become an original, independent, critical researcher who uses the processes and preliminary results of the research in development.
Evaluates the protocol and report on the progress made in the research. Although suggestions can be made, the examination does not have the objective of modifying the student's research project.
 

B. ITEMS ASSESSED IN THE EXAMINATION FOR CANDIDATURE

1. Dominion of knowledge related to the student's research topic

Suggested questions*.
Describe the state of the art of the topic you chose to research. Describe the conceptual framework on which your research is based. Who are the principal authors and on what are the similarities and differences based? Which research questions, hypotheses and methodologies that you put forward do you consider to be the most creative and determinant to your research work? From the time you began your research, what new knowledge has been published in the scientific literature? What impact has it had on your thesis work? How is the temporality of the variables shown graphically?
Did your research arise from insufficiencies or contradictions in previous knowledge? If so, which? Explain why you chose the question your project is based on and how you constructed it? In the light of present knowledge, how would you evaluate the research question you originally put forward and the way in which you constructed it?
 

2. Methodological Competencies

Methodological strategies consider the chosen research design, identification of the population, calculation of the sample, the measuring techniques or instruments used or developed and the analysis plan.

Suggested questions*.
What other alternative strategies are there for approaching your research question? How do you justify the choice of your research design? What variables are you measuring? What variables have a potential confusing power? How did you operationalize your variables? What instruments and/or techniques did you choose? How did you determine their validity and reliability and/or calibration? How did you define your study population? How did you calculate your sample and why? How did you choose it?
What specific methodological limitations are there in approaching your research topic?
 

3. Competencies for leading research .

Suggested questions*.
What methodological problems have you found so far and what have you done to overcome them? Describe the steps (or procedure) you have followed or will follow to obtain information? What difficulties have you found or do you expect to find or potentially exist? Should they occur, how will you solve or have you solved the problems? How have you controlled the quality of the information or of the data obtained? Have you any results yet? What steps have you followed to analyze the results you have obtained so far? Describe the data analysis plan. What statistical tests will you apply? Are they any different to the test originally proposed? Why or why not? Does the progress made so far allow you to anticipate the fit of your hypotheses?
Independently of the degree of progress made, ask the student: What results do you expect to obtain? If your results can be generalized, to whom and why?
 

4. Intellectual qualities

This item evaluates aspects that allow an approach to the capacity of the student to contribute to the development of new knowledge such as complex thought, logical reasoning, capacity to construct new research questions, hypotheses or novel models, the identification of the scientific relevance of the research and multidisciplinarity.

Complex thought is defined as the capacity to identify and understand phenomena in an integral, unitary way; to simultaneously judge the multidimensionality and diversity of processes and recognize the impossibility of understanding and totally predicting the behavior of systems.

Logical reasoning: refers to the capacity to Infer rules or principles and to derive correct conclusions from the available information and results, as well as applying logic, the rules and principles to new situations and to problem solving.

Suggested questions*.
Mention what other disciplines your study topic has approached or should approach. Explain why. How have you collaborated or could collaborate with researchers from other disciplines? What other questions could you answer using multi and interdisciplinary research in your research line?

Has your project generated a new research line? Has your project generated other research projects and/or theses? What are the most important scientific contributions your project will make? Who could it benefit in the future?

What are the different processes involved in the phenomena being studied? What levels of organization and dimensions are involved in your research problem? What dimensions of the research problem were approached in your study and which ones could not be approached?

What conclusions does your research lead to or seem to lead to?

Given the experience, knowledge and results obtained during your research work, what new problems and research questions have you identified? What other novel hypotheses could you put forward? What would the main variables involved be? Which design and methodology could be used to approach these new hypotheses?
 

5.  General aspects
This item evaluates the candidate's oral and written communications skills and appraises his/her capacity to accept observations, recommendations or suggestions from the members of the candidature examination committee.

*The suggested questions can be aimed at evaluating the item without excluding other possibilities.