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Policy, Organization, Measurement, and Evaluation (POME)
Our Approach
The POME Approach to Graduate Study
POME’s approach to graduate study begins by helping students to form a cohort whose members support each other throughout their graduate experience. Students in POME then combine coursework with a wide range of other opportunities designed to provide them with the knowledge and experience to make important contributions to educational research, policy and practice.
The Cohort Model
Students do much of their most important learning with and from one another. For that reason, POME faculty have designed first year coursework and activities that help incoming students form a close cohort. All first-year POME students enroll in the yearlong POME Seminar. This seminar provides a “home base” for the first-year cohort. In the first semester, students have an opportunity to meet with all the program faculty (whenever possible, at the faculty member’s home) for an informal discussion of the faculty member’s research and other topics of common interest. Throughout the year, students begin to develop ideas for research topics and questions related to their own interests. The seminar also helps students gain an understanding of the nuts and bolts process of obtaining an advanced degree.
Coursework
Formal coursework constitutes one important part of graduate study in POME, especially in the first two years. Courses introduce students to the key concepts and ways of thinking that historians, sociologists, and economists employ to understand and investigate problems of school improvement and equity. Courses also acquaint students with the state of empirical research on important problems and topics: How good is the research? How much guidance does it offer for policy and practice? Where are the research frontiers where new, important work could be done? And finally, courses provide training in the design and conduct of high-quality research. POME students develop deep competence and confidence in both quantitative and qualitative research methods.
In addition to taking courses offered by POME faculty, students take courses appropriate to their interests in other programs within the Graduate School of Education and in other University departments such as Public Policy, City and Regional Planning, Sociology, Political Science, Ethnic Studies, and Anthropology.
Faculty Advising
One-on-one faculty advising is a crucially important aspect of graduate study and an important complement to formal coursework. When we admit students to POME, we assign them two faculty advisors we think will be a good fit with their background and their expressed interests. These advisors are responsible for ensuring that students get off to a strong start in the program. Over time, students establish relationships with a wider range of faculty and eventually form a committee of faculty to guide them through the final stages of graduate study and the dissertation. Students will make the most of their graduate study if they seek out conversations with faculty about ideas that interest them, work they are trying to develop, issues they are confronting, and nuts-and-bolts advice they need to move them forward.
Research Groups
POME faculty make an effort to engage students in ongoing research activity as soon as possible and urge students to take advantage of opportunities to begin shaping and honing their own research interests. Research Groups led by faculty provide one such opportunity. Typically, these groups include students at all stages of graduate study and provide a forum for students to develop and receive feedback on their own work. Students may enroll in a Research Group for credit as often as they wish throughout their graduate study, and such groups have become an important source of intellectual community among students.
Other Research Apprenticeship Opportunities
Mentored research experience equips POME students to pursue their own independent research. Students develop research experience by serving as Graduate Research Assistants (GSRs) in several venues that include our policy research center (Policy Analysis for California Education, or PACE), the Berkeley Evaluation and Research Center (BEAR), and various faculty research projects.
Opportunities to Teach
Many POME students aspire to careers in higher education. They envision taking up positions that involve teaching in programs that emphasize policy research, organizational studies, professional education and educational leadership, research methodology, and other areas of specialization. Such students may take advantage of opportunities for teaching experience in the School’s undergraduate minor, its programs of professional education, graduate courses in educational statistics, and even in other University departments.
Supporting Progress: Milestones toward the Degree
All students in the Graduate School of Education complete certain “milestones” as they make progress toward the degree. As they progress through the milestones, students increasingly develop, clarify and communicate their own areas of interest and expertise. They rely on courses, research groups, research experience, and faculty advising to move forward. For POME students, the milestones take this form:
1st Year Oral Exam. The first year oral exam provides an opportunity for students to integrate and demonstrate what they have learned across their first year courses. This exam establishes students’ foundational knowledge. Students prepare for the exam in the POME Seminar and in informal study groups.
Outline of program. After their first year, students begin to specify their particular interests and complete a plan of study. The Outline of Program provides an opportunity for students to identify their proposed areas of specialization and to indicate how their courses prepare them for work in those areas.
Prequalifying papers. Students develop two papers demonstrating that they are ready to undertake the independent work of the dissertation. These papers typically include at least one example of empirical research and may also include a literature review, a conceptual essay, or a paper focused on methodological issues.
Prequalifying oral examination. Students make the transition to the work of the dissertation by participating in an oral examination in which they demonstrate their knowledge of their areas of specialization and indicate the kind of contribution they are prepared to make. The oral examination also provides an opportunity to discuss plans for dissertation research and to seek the advice and support from committee members.
Dissertation proposal and dissertation. Students prepare a proposal that identifies the purpose of the dissertation research and develops a plan for completing it. In a proposal review meeting, the student meets with his or her faculty committee to sharpen the research questions and research design. When the proposal review is completed, the student is ready to proceed with the final project of graduate study.
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