Survey of Practices in Health Promotion and Education Supervision of Theses and Dissertations

There have been no published studies documenting current practices regarding graduate student research supervision by faculty in health education programs. Documenting current standards for such supervision may help programs gauge their practices against a national sample. This study assessed practices utilized by U.S. universities and colleges for faculty to supervise theses and dissertations in health education programs. Requirements of committee composition, graduate faculty status, faculty rank, years of service, and publication record were assessed. Funding, publication expectations, and training of faculty were also examined. Surveys (n=137) were sent to department heads, directors or program coordinators of graduate programs (62.7% response rate). The majority of institutions required faculty to earn graduate faculty status before they could chair a thesis (80.3%) or a dissertation (82.4%). Fifteen percent required faculty training before chairing a thesis and 25.9% required training before chairing a dissertation. The majority (92.4%) reported no maximum number of committees on which a faculty member could serve. One-third of respondents were either very dissatisfied or dissatisfied with current guidelines for supervision, while 17.3% were somewhat satisfied or partially satisfied. A need exists for health education programs to more systematically prepare junior level faculty to guide thesis and dissertation work. (Contains 5 tables.)