The doctoral program focuses on the following learning objectives:

A. Develop scientific literacy. This includes a critical understanding of the scientific method, quantitative and qualitative research methods, and the ability to critically evaluate scientific literature.

Through coursework, research experience, and independent study, HBHE doctoral students should develop the ability to critique and synthesize relevant literature across disciplines, both theoretical and empirical.

With respect to theory, students should acquire broad knowledge of the social and behavioral sciences, apply higher order theoretical perspectives to real world problems, and extend and elaborate theories in new directions.

With respect to empirical skills, doctoral candidates should be able to read critically across a span of methodologies, discern which quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods best apply to a given set of research problems, and be able to adapt existing measures or develop new measures as appropriate to the research context. Most importantly, students should be able to integrate content, theory, methods, and measurement to determine how they can be applied to study specific research questions.

B. Understand the history of theoretical knowledge in health behavior and health education, and in public health and social sciences more broadly. Understand how these historical developments reflect broader changes in political and cultural values, and scientific ethics.

Whatever substantive area, population, or research approach a student focuses on in the dissertation, all students should reach candidacy schooled in theories and methods of individual behavior change, community context, the social patterning of health problems, and the socio‐structural influences, opportunities, and constraints affecting individual and population health.

Through coursework and independent study, all students should also gain an appreciation of the roots of what we do today, how the field has evolved, how the field has expanded, and where it is going next. In particular, they should come to appreciate how the content and scope of theories have evolved to include individual behavior, community environments, and socio‐structural conditions.

C. Demonstrate the ability to synthesize and apply scientific knowledge to develop new conceptual models and/or research hypotheses. This includes justifying new question(s) with existing literature, selecting appropriate methodologies for their examination, and indicating potential contributions of the proposed research.

In their preliminary examination, dissertation prospectus, and dissertation research, students must be able to develop and defend their own conceptual models and connect methods, measurement, and interpretation to these models.

In preparing for the preliminary exam all doctoral students will initiate a literature review that evaluates and integrates the public health and social science literatures regarding a particular problem of their own interest; this review will be further developed for the prospectus, and will eventually become an essential component of the dissertation. In their reviews, students should cover theoretical and empirical work. Doctoral‐level literature reviews are not anthologies, listings of previous research, or encyclopedia entries. Instead, they should demonstrate that relevant literature has been read with a critical eye and connections made in ways that uncover missing pieces in the literature or yield new syntheses. The reviews should reveal mastery of the state of the literature in an area, including distinguishing established relationships from hypotheses and speculations, and discerning the implicit and explicit theories and assumptions on which articles rest. Students should demonstrate their ability to “see the forest from the trees”, i.e., to discern what findings in the field have been more significant than others, and where future complications lie. Literature reviews should naturally lead to the development of research agendas for filling in gaps, asking new questions, extending theories or constructs, and building on scientific findings. The doctoral‐level literature review should be innovative, and serve as a prefacing mechanism for future work, identifying and justifying anew research question(s), and hypotheses. The literature review should be of sufficient scope to lay the foundation not only for the dissertation, but also for the student’s emerging and more long‐term research agenda.

The review should indicate the potential scientific contributions of the proposed work, indicating how the new knowledge would enhance or reinterpret previous knowledge; inform new interventions or policies; and promote health through social or behavioral change.

D. Acquire professional skills in the production of their own ideas. This includes developing skills in scientific writing, oral communication, grant‐writing, teaching, and scientific service.

Doctoral students should develop skills in collegial exchange, including reviewing the work of others in a constructive manner in group and written contexts. In addition, all students should develop academic leadership skills, writing and editing skills, and presentation and publication skills. Doctoral students should learn about the proposal and grant writing processes and build related skills in scientific review, research ethics, and the development and management of budgets. Doctoral students must become certified in appropriate Program for Education and Evaluation in Responsible Research and Scholarship (PEERRS) modules, which include at a minimum: Foundations of Research Responsibility, Research Administration, Conflict of Interest, and Human Subject Protection. Doctoral students should learn the fundamentals of curriculum development, and develop teaching and mentoring skills. Finally, students in the program should develop job seeking and interviewing skills.