Standards needed? An Exploration of Qualifying Exams from a Literature Review and Website Analysis of University-Wide Policies

Abstract

While known by many names, qualifying exams (QEs) function as gatekeepers to graduate student advancement to PhD Candidacy, and if not carefully examined, may inadvertently contribute to inequities in scientific training and therefore impede development of a robust and diverse biomedical workforce. Our research identified the need for more evidence-based research on QEs, which are nearly universal as a major doctoral training milestone across US institutions of higher education. Our findings indicate a wide variety of QE formats, often lacking the establishment of explicit expectations and evidence for specific formats. This lack of understanding of best practices coupled with insufficient clarity has a real potential to disadvantagedoctoral students, particularly first generation, underrepresented minority (URM), international, and/or other trainees who are not privileged or socializedto navigate training environments with vague landmarks such as the QE. An external evaluation of peer institutions' published QE requirements and internal institutional QE requirements at a research-intensive institution inform our discussion of common practices in QEs for doctoral training. The lack of evidence for best practices and the need for to evaluate the implementation and effectiveness of QEs are discussed.

Bringing a Lens of Equity to Geoscience Qualifying Examinations

“…Unfortunately, for many programs, limited to no data exists on differences in outcomes by gender identity, race, citizenship status, LGBTQ + identity, first‐generation student status, or many other identity axes. This is a result of either a lack of data collection (McLaughlin et al., 2023) and/or statistically small sample sizes of underrepresented groups. As the geosciences are one of the least racially diverse scientific fields (Bernard & Cooperdock, 2018; Dutt, 2020), and women, non‐binary people, and disabled people remain underrepresented in certain geoscience subfields (Gonzalez, 2009; Ranganathan et al., 2021), it is vital that geoscience graduate programs assess their qualifying examinations as a potential point of failure of the academe for marginalized groups.…”

“…To best serve the geoscience community, qualifying examinations must be undertaken and assessed through a lens of equity (McLaughlin et al., 2023). It is vital to consider the messaging and resources provided to students before, during, and after the examination as sources of inequity.…”