The interdepartmental graduate specializations in applied developmental science are available as electives to students who are enrolled in the master's and doctoral degree programs in the departments of Agricultural and Extension Education; Agricultural Economics; Anthropology; Audiology and Speech Sciences; Communication; Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education; Crop and Soil Sciences; Educational Administration; Family and Child Ecology; Food Science and Human Nutrition; Geography; History; Kinesiology; Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian and African Languages; Marketing and Supply Chain Management; Political Science; Psychology; Community, Agriculture, Recreation and Resource Studies; Sociology; Statistics and Probability; Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media; and Zoology; in the master's and doctoral degree programs in the School of Music; in the Educational Specialist degree program in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education; in the Master of Social Work degree programs in the School of Social Work; in the Master of Science in Nursing degree program in the College of Nursing; and in the graduate–professional degree program in the College of Human Medicine.

The College of Social Science administers the specializations.  The specializations are supervised by an interdisciplinary faculty coordinating committee representing the graduate programs involved.  Students must meet the requirements of both the degree program and the specialization.  Students should work closely with their academic advisors to ensure that meaningful experiences that are directly related to applied developmental science are included in their degree programs.  With the approval of the department or school and college that administer the student's degree program, the courses that are used to satisfy the requirements for the specialization may also be used to satisfy the requirements for the student's degree program. 

American society is faced with pervasive and burgeoning problems of individuals, families, and communities.  Issues of child and youth development, of economic competitiveness, of environmental quality, and of health and health care require creative research and the design, deployment, and evaluation of innovative public policies and intervention programs.  As a consequence, there has been increasing societal pressure for universities, and for the scholars within them, to design and deliver knowledge applications addressing these problems.

One of the most fruitful areas for such knowledge application involves examining the problems of individuals and communities across the life span.  These applications require the ability to understand and assist the development of individuals who vary with respect to cultural and ethnic background, economic and social opportunity, physical and cognitive abilities, and conditions of living.  Infants at biopsychosocial risk, gifted children or those with developmental disabilities, adolescents considering health–compromising behaviors, single– and dual–worker parents, the frail elderly, ethnic minorities, and impoverished families are just some of the populations requiring applications of knowledge based on the work of scholars in fields such as criminal justice, human nutrition, medicine, and psychology.  There is a need within those fields for scholars who adopt a development perspective to their science.

The five components of applied developmental science are described below:

Developmental systems theory deals with the continuities and discontinuities of development, i.e., with the process of change.  There is a temporal component to individual, family, institutional, and community experiences.  Some aspects of development remain stable over time; other aspects change.  Systems theory provides an approach to modeling stability and change, and to the identification of factors that causally influence organizational processes.  The temporality of change has important implications for research design, service provision, and program evaluation because it is dependent upon use of longitudinal methods and keyed by multivariate models of the developmental process.

Competence in diversity involves issues related to diversity, whether that diversity is generated by culture, gender, age, socioeconomic status, disability, race or ethnicity, or community.  All of those factors potentially affect individual differences among persons, families, communities, and neighborhoods and potentially contribute to program successes and failures.  Competence in diversity refers to a set of academic and interpersonal skills that allow individuals to increase their understanding and appreciation of cultural differences and similarities within, among, and between groups.

Contextualism involves the centrality of context in terms of individuals, families, and family functioning.  Context exists at all levels—biological, physical/ecological, social–cultural, political, economic, etc., and invites systemic approaches to research and program design and implementation.  Contextual variables such as poverty, family size, birth order, single parenthood, supplemental child care, parental psychopathology, unemployment, and workplace stress all help to set the context within which individuals, families, and social groups behave and develop.

Asset building emphasizes identification of assets so that the capacity to act is strengthened at the most basic level possible, whether that level is the individual person, or a local school, human service agency, neighborhood, or community.  Applied developmental science stresses normative developmental processes as primary prevention rather than remediation.  It rejects deficit model approaches to individual and social preventive–interventions.  Universities exist to disseminate knowledge through instruction.  From an applied developmental science perspective, asset building requires the learner (community) to be implicitly involved in the development of educational programs so that there is an explicit match between educational materials and needs of the consumer.

University–community partnerships stresses the principle that models for community intervention must be tested in the community setting in full collaboration with community partners.  In short, communities must participate as full partners in the design and evaluation of community programs.  From this perspective, application of knowledge generates new questions that demand generation of new knowledge (i.e., new approaches, new strategies, new program designs).  The activities of applied developmental science span a continuum of knowledge generation to knowledge application which includes, but is not limited to, research on the applicability of scientific theory to human growth and development in ecologically valid contexts; the study of developmental correlates of phenomena of social import; the construction and utilization of developmentally and contextually sensitive assessment instruments; the design and evaluation of developmental interventions and enhancement programs; and the dissemination of developmental knowledge to individuals, families, communities, practitioners, and policymakers through developmental education, written materials, the mass media, expert testimony, and community collaborations.

All of these five components converge to a research environment that values longitudinal designs by which one can track individuals over time, assess normative trends, evaluate different contextual influences on intraindividual change as well as normative trends, and assess the dynamic bi–directional processes that regulate organization of individual, dyadic, family, and social systems.

The interdepartmental graduate specializations in applied developmental science are designed to provide a knowledge base that will facilitate the work of graduates who pursue careers in educational, agency, institutional, and governmental organizations that are integral to preventive–intervention programs, longitudinal studies of human development, and developmental evaluation.  Specifically, the specializations are designed to:

1. Provide an opportunity for graduate students to obtain a comprehensive and contemporary academic experience in the field of applied developmental science.
2. Help graduate students with an interest in applied developmental science to become sensitive to their professional obligations and responsibilities.
3. Develop an intellectual environment that will foster the growth of research and teaching in the area of applied developmental science, as well as sensitize students to issues related to the rich diversity of human ethnic and racial populations, to social problems and social policy issues related to human development, and to the variety of contexts within which human development occurs.
4. Increase public awareness of the benefits of university–community partnerships to solve problems of social living and human development.

A student who is enrolled in one of the master's, Educational Specialist, doctoral, or graduate–professional degree programs referenced above and who wishes to complete the requirements for an Interdepartmental Graduate Specialization in Applied Developmental Science must petition the admission committee for the specialization for acceptance.  To be considered for acceptance into the specialization, the student should have completed the Graduate Record Examination including the Subject Test in the student's discipline.  To be accepted into the specialization, the student must have had academic preparation in experimental design and statistical analysis.  If in the judgment of the coordinating committee the student's academic preparation is inadequate, the student may be required to complete some courses in addition to the courses that are used to satisfy the requirements for the specialization.

Although separate interdepartmental graduate specializations in applied developmental science have been developed for master's and doctoral students, a given student may receive certification of completion of either the specialization for master's students or the specialization for doctoral students, but not for both of the specializations.  If a student has completed some of the requirements for the specialization that is available to master's students, but is subsequently admitted to a doctoral program and plans to complete the requirements for the specialization that is available to doctoral students, the requirements that the student has completed may be counted toward the requirements for the specialization that is available to doctoral students.

The student and the major professor select a guidance committee that will oversee the student's program of study for the specialization. In the event that a guidance committee has responsibility for overseeing a student's master's degree program, that same guidance committee may also oversee the student's program of study for the specialization, provided that the membership of the committee has been expanded to include at least one additional person who is a member of the applied developmental science faculty and who will represent that faculty on the committee.  The same guidance committee that has responsibility for overseeing a student's Educational Specialist or doctoral degree program may also oversee the student's program of study for the specialization, provided that the membership of the committee has been expanded to include at least two additional persons who are members of the applied developmental science faculty and who will represent that faculty on the committee.  For those students who are enrolled in master's degree programs that do not require that a guidance committee be established to oversee the student's program; for students who are enrolled in the graduate–professional degree program in the College of Human Medicine; and for master's, Educational Specialist, and doctoral students for whom guidance committees will be established for the sole purpose of overseeing programs of study for the specializations, the coordinator for applied developmental science will be responsible for establishing the students' guidance committees.

Students who are pursuing interdepartmental graduate specializations in applied developmental science are strongly encouraged to participate in twice monthly seminars with members of the applied developmental science faculty and other students who are pursuing the specializations.  At those seminars, faculty and invited guests address issues related to design, methodology, statistical analysis of longitudinal data, evaluation, and techniques for building community–university research collaborations.

Requirements for the Interdepartmental Graduate Specializations in Applied Developmental Science

Master's Students

The student must:

1. Complete 18 credits of course work as specified below.
2. Complete a field research experience during at least one semester at an approved applied developmental science–community partnership site.  This requirement may be met by completing one or more courses that have been approved by the student's guidance committee or by completing an alternative experience approved by the coordinator for applied developmental science.

In addition to meeting the requirements referenced above, the thesis of a student on Plan A must reflect the integration of the student's discipline and applied developmental science.

Doctoral Students

The student must:

1. Complete 18 credits of course work as specified below.
2. Complete a field research experience during at least one semester at an approved applied developmental science–community partnership site.  This requirement may be met by completing one or more courses that have been approved by the student's guidance committee or by completing an alternative experience approved by the coordinator for applied developmental science.
3. Pass a written comprehensive examination in applied developmental science.
4. Complete a dissertation that reflects the integration of the student's discipline and applied developmental science.

Students who are enrolled in the Educational Specialist degree program in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Special Education and students who are enrolled in the graduate–professional degree program in the College of Human Medicine must meet the requirements for the specialization that are specified for master's students on Plan B.

Required Core Courses

The courses that are used to satisfy the requirements for an Interdepartmental Graduate Specialization in Applied Developmental Science must be approved by the student's guidance committee for the specialization.  The courses should be selected within the context of the student's educational and career goals and with the goal of demonstrating competence in developmental systems theory, research methods, and quantitative and qualitative analytic methods.

GROUP A:  HUMAN DEVELOPMENT EMPHASIS
The courses listed below treat human development from a multidisciplinary perspective.  The student must complete a minimum of three courses totaling at least 9 credits.

GROUP B:  STATISTICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL EMPHASIS
The courses listed below treat methodology and statistics applicable to research in applied developmental science.  The student must complete a minimum of three courses totaling at least 9 credits.