The department offers a dual Ph.D./M.P.H. degree in collaboration with the Master of Public Health program in the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health at KU Medical Center. The degree incorporates efficiencies in the elective and research requirements of both departments. This is the first degree in the nation to combine an M.P.H. with the strengths of advanced study in applied behavioral science. Faculty and student research teams address issues in community health and development, child and youth health and development, disabilities and independent living, and healthy aging. Separate admission is required to both the Ph.D. program of the Department of Applied Behavioral Science and M.P.H. program of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health.

Admission to Graduate Studies

Admission Requirements

• All applicants must meet the requirements outlined in the Admission to Graduate Study policy. 

• Bachelor’s degree: A copy of official transcripts showing proof of a bachelor's degree (and any post-bachelor’s coursework or degrees) from a regionally accredited institution, or a foreign university with equivalent bachelor's degree requirements is required.  

• English proficiency: Proof of English proficiency for non-native or non-native-like English speakers is required. There are two bands of English proficiency, including Admission and Full proficiency. For applicants to online programs, Full proficiency is required. 

Admission to the Dual Degree: Ph.D. in Behavioral Psychology and Master of Public Health

For admission in the fall semester, please view the application deadline and all required application materials on the Graduate Admission page of our departmental website.  Students may be admitted for the spring semester, but there is no filing deadline.

Note: Although students may be applying for the Ph.D. track, students must also submit a separate application for the MPH. Each program (the MPH and Ph.D.) will review the corresponding application separately and will notify students of their admission decision individually. It is possible to be accepted into one program without acceptance in the other.

Information below details the admission criteria for the Ph.D. program.

Eligibility criteria for admission to the Ph.D. program follow Graduate Studies’ admission policy. To be considered for admission to graduate status in the program, a student must hold a bachelor’s degree. Non-native speakers of English must meet English proficiency requirements.

For admission to the Ph.D. program with full graduate standing, the department recommends that applicants complete 12 credit hours of undergraduate or graduate course work in behavior analysis, behavioral science, psychology, education, or related fields, and 6 hours in experimental methods, research design, or statistics.

Among the department’s application materials is a list of department faculty members. Please review faculty members on the department's website and the descriptions of their research, scholarly, and professional interests. Applicants should select any faculty members whose research interests in an area of public health match their own. These faculty members review the applicant's materials. An applicant is accepted when one of the faculty members consents to admit the student. This faculty member becomes the advisor of record.

How to Apply

Applicants will submit an application online through the SLATE system. Begin by visiting graduate admissions and select "Apply." Applicants should select the start term and create an account (if they are a first-time user) or log in (if they are returning to continue an application).

1. On the application's "Program Information page," select "Social and Behavioral Sciences" from the Academic Area of Interest.
2. Under "Academic Program," search for "Behavioral Psychology (PhD)” if applying to the doctoral program or “Applied Behavioral Science (MA)” if applying to the MA program.

Fill out the online application and attach the required documents. Required documents to attach with the online application minimally include the following:

• Personal statement
• Vita
• 3 letters of Recommendation
• GRE (optional, but recommended)
• Copies of official transcripts. Student advising reports or documents titled “unofficial document/transcript” cannot be accepted for admission review. (Official transcripts with degree conferral will need to be obtained if accepted into the program). Note that former/current KU students are not required to provide copies of KU transcripts for application. A copy of the official transcript must be provided if a degree was earned outside of KU.
• List of faculty members with whom the prospective student is interested in working

GRE scores are optional and can be sent directly to the Graduate School. 

Dual Ph.D. M.P.H. Degree

Department of Applied  Behavioral Science and Department of Preventive Medicine

Offered by the Department of Applied Behavioral Science (Lawrence) and the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health (KU Medical Center, Kansas City and Wichita). This dual program is the first in the nation to combine the strengths of advanced study in applied behavioral science with a Master of Public Health (M.P.H.) degree. It results from a unique collaboration between two units: the Department of Applied Behavioral Science, offering a Ph.D. in Behavioral Psychology; and the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, with its M.P.H. program.

Course Requirements for Dual MPH/Ph.D. Program:

Please note, listed below are the minimum course requirements for the dual degree. Those obtaining a Ph.D. degree in the Applied Behavioral Science program complete M.A. coursework and degree requirements. It is possible to enter the Ph.D. with an M.A. from another university. If that is the case, students will work with the program to waive M.A. equivalent coursework and the M.A. Thesis requirement at the departmental level.  

 Some courses have been approved to fulfill requirements in both the MPH and PhD programs.

Course List

Code	Title	Hours
Coursework Required for the MPH
PRVM 804	Community Health Assessment, Intervention, and Advocacy	3
PRVM 827	Public Health Administration	3
PRVM 830	Environmental Health	3
PRVM 845	Health, Society, and Culture	3
PRVM 891	Public Health Practicum	3
PRVM 893	Public Health Capstone	3
PRVM 875	Management of Public Health Data	3
PRVM Elective Course		3
Coursework satisfying both MPH and Ph.D. Requirements
ABSC 710	Community Health and Development	3
ABSC 735	Within Subjects Research Methodology and Direct Observation	3
ABSC 861	Principles of Behavior Analysis	3
Coursework Required for Ph.D.
ABSC 746	Introduction to Behavioral Science	3
ABSC 799	Experimental Analysis of Behavior	3
ABSC 800	Conceptual Foundations of Applied Behavioral Science	3
ABSC 841	Ethical, Legal, and Professional Issues in Applied Behavioral Science	3
ABSC 875	Practicum in Community Health Promotion	3
ABSC 876	Practicum in Community Development	3
ABSC 899	Master's Thesis in Applied Behavioral Science	9
ABSC 807	Design and Evaluation of Community Health Promotion Methods	6
ABSC 862	Behavioral Community Approaches to Addressing Social Issues	3
ABSC 891	Research in: _____	3
Research and/or Intervention Practicum
BIOS 704	Principles of Statistics in Public Health	3
or BIOS 714	Fundamentals of Biostatistics I
or PRVM 800	Principles of Epidemiology
Teaching Requirement
ABSC 941	Teaching and Conference	6
or LA&S 792	Topics in: _____
Total Hours		81

Master’s Capstone

Students complete an empirically based master’s capstone and pass an oral examination on it. With their advisor’s approval, empirically based scholarly works from other programs may meet this requirement.

Research Skill and Responsible Scholarship

The Office of Graduate Studies requires students to have training in responsible scholarship and research skills pertinent to the field of research. This will be met by:

• Satisfactory completion of either ABSC 735 OR ABSC 770
• Satisfactory completion of either ABSC 841 OR ABSC 851

One of the following:

• At least one submission of a first-author manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed journal, OR 
• At least two scholarly presentations at regional, state, or national professional meetings. 
  • The work for these must have been entirely completed at KU
  • No more than one may be a poster
  • At least one must have been presented by the time of the comprehensive examination; if the other has not yet been presented by the time of the comprehensive examination, it must be accepted for presentation at an upcoming meeting
  • At least one must list  the student as either first or presenting author 

Teaching Requirement

Graduate students receive training in the teaching and supervision of undergraduates. The requirement may be met in 1 of 2 ways. In the first, students serve as a paid half-time teaching assistant for 1 semester or as a quarter-time assistant for 2 semesters, assuming proportionate responsibility for class organization, lecturing, grading, and office hours under a faculty member’s supervision. In the second, students take LA&S 792 or ABSC 941, attend 3 brown bag lectures at the Center for Teaching Excellence, and present a guest lecture to the department. In both cases, students must also write a statement of teaching philosophy and obtain numeric evaluations of their teaching in their guest lectures.

Professional Seminar Requirement

Graduate students are expected to attend pro-seminar sessions when they are scheduled throughout the Fall and Spring semesters. Pro-seminars are typically presentations given by graduate students (see next paragraph), faculty members, and visiting scholars.

Doctoral students are required to present the results of their research at a department professional seminar meeting. The presentation is comparable to what would be presented at a professional conference. Students answer questions from their peers and the faculty in attendance.

Editorial Critiques

Students write 3 editorial reviews of published or unpublished journal articles, all of them empirical. The articles cover a range of topics and experimental designs. All 3 are graded pass-fail by the student’s advisor. Students may use editorial reviews from course assignments so long as the instructor and advisor approve doing so.

Comprehensive Examination

Students must complete the comprehensive examination by the end of the third year if entering the PhD program with a completed Master's obtained at another university, or within a year of defending their Master's in the Applied Behavioral Science MA program at KU. The examination has 2 components:

1. Program of Study Written Document. Students will generate a program of study document, developed in concert with their mentor, that includes: 

• A list of all graduate lecture/discussion courses completed in behavioral science and how the coursework fulfills ABAI accreditation standards 
• Up to 10 representative readings from each completed graduate lecture/discussion course
• Research interest statement (2-3 pages)
• Career plans statement (2-3 pages) 
• Up-to-date CV

2.Oral Examination. The program of study will be used by the comprehensive examination committee to generate relevant and individualized questions to ask during the oral examinations.  Questions will span all coursework and student-indicated research domains (those of personal interest to the student and relevant to their career trajectory). These questions will be posed during the oral examination. The oral examination will last two hours and is not open to the public. The defense is successful if a majority of the committee members vote to pass it.

Dissertation Proposal

In preparation for the dissertation, students will complete a departmental required written dissertation proposal and an oral discussion of the proposal. The proposal will include a) a thorough literature review and b) a research proposal. Students should follow specific instructions for these components as dictated in the student handbook. The dissertation proposal discussion will entail a one hour meeting with the dissertation committee.

Dissertation

In consultation with their advisors, students conduct an empirically based dissertation, typically based on the comprehensive examination proposal, and pass an oral examination on it. The defense is successful if a majority of the committee members vote to pass it. If students do not pass the dissertation defense, they may not defend it again for a period of at least 90 days. If the oral defense is failed twice, students have 30 days to petition the department for a third attempt. Failure to petition, or a rejected petition, will result in students' dismissal from the program. The dissertation defense will be open to the public.

At the completion of this program, students will be able to: 

• apply legal and ethical guidelines and professional standards as pertinent to behavior research and practice.
• interpret behavior in terms of the core concepts and principles of behavior analysis.
• understand the importance of social validity and broader cultural significance of behavior science.
• demonstrate independent scholarship in the context of basic, applied, or conceptual analysis of behavior.
• communicate behavior science through written and/or oral presentations within the field of behavior analysis.
• develop skills in critical analysis of research methodology, clinical practices, presentation of evidence, and discussion of behavior analytic concepts.

See Master of Public Health for Technical Standards.