The Cognitive Studies Ph.D. program provides students a comprehensive academic experience and active research apprenticeship within a community of scholars and researchers who are actively engaged in building a cognitive science of education. Students receiving a Ph.D. from the Cognitive Studies Program are expected to be nationally competitive for academic positions or positions in non-academic research settings. The core of Cognitive Studies graduate training is the research apprenticeship.
Students participate actively in research from the beginning of their graduate careers.
The expectation for the early years is that students identify and begin to develop an area of research expertise in close consultation with their advisors. Students have typically accomplished this by becoming active collaborators in their advisor's ongoing projects. Over the course of their graduate career, students gradually assume more responsibility and independence in their research activities, eventually culminating in the design and execution of a successful dissertation. In addition, Cognitive Studies students can also take courses offered at Carnegie Mellon University through a joint-enrollment program. This requirement can be satisfied through regularly offered methods and statistics courses or through independent studies focusing on methodologies important to the student's research.