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University of Houston-Victoria

Master's Comprehensive Examination

Study Hints That May Lead to Successful Answers

I polled the School of Education and Human Development faculty for some thoughts that they may have that would help you to study and to successfully answer your Master’s Comprehensive questions.

I then compiled their responses as follows, but remember that these are general thoughts and you should be aware that these responses may not be specific to the faculty member who will provide questions for your examination.

Some of your professors may give you a specific hint about your question, while others may only give you a general topic to prepare for your question.

Also be sure you communicate with your professors:

  • Some of them may give you lots of assistance before the final examination day
  • Others will provide a study guide with a selected list of readings
  • Others may actually discuss your answer to their question
  • Others may be willing to discuss any questions that you may have about their question.

The following are responses to my poll about what the professors expected on successful answers to their questions:

  • Answer the question that was put to you
  • Demonstrate your knowledge of experts and research in the field
  • Be able to discuss how your knowledge of various theorists and theories would be used in the day to day completion of your professional duties
  • Your comprehensive question will be holistic and will require you to respond both from a large view but also with specifics including cited authors, studies, trends and data to support your statements
  • Your writing should reflect professional views rather than personal opinion
  • Individuals with masters degrees should be knowledgeable about their profession and well informed about the world around them which should be evident in your response
  • Be able to identify a theory, the theorist associated with the theory, the premise behind the theory, along with techniques used with that theory and the population applicable to that theory
  • Be able to cite the information that you use to support your answers
  • The question requires you to demonstrate knowledge of the content and to make some logical inferences from these to a general situation.
  • Competence in standard English writing at a graduate level is assumed. Masters level students are to be able to write coherent sentences, to put these into well constructed paragraphs, and to develop a logical, comprehensive narrative. A few grammatical errors or typos are not much of a problem. But if they develop into a pattern or the constructions are of low quality, your professor may fail the response.

I hope this will help you in preparing for one of the culminating activities of your master’s level learning experiences.

Dr. Dennis Riedesel