SDSU Department of Educational Technology
The comprehensive examination (also known as the "comps") evaluates your ability to integrate knowledge of educational technology, show critical and independent thinking skills, and demonstrate mastery of the field. The results of the examination evidence independent thinking, appropriate organization, high level writing competency, critical analysis, and accuracy of documentation.
The purpose of the comps is to encourage students who are nearing graduation to engage in a systematic review of their course work and become more familiar with the professional journals relevant to the field of Educational Technology. The exam also aids the faculty in identifying students who need additional course work or study before being granted the Master's degree.
The formal open-book exam is held once each semester, over a period of three days (on a weekend). Students are given three case-study questions and three query-based questions and are asked to answer one of each.
Each department faculty member contributes to a pool of exam questions. These questions draw on the content of several courses, not limited to those of the faculty member writing the question. The questions are query and case-based.
Case-study questions present a contextualized, real life or life-like problem or opportunity you are asked to address. Responses to case-studies often require both a practical solution to the specific situation and a justification of your solution based on principles and/or theory. They require you to bring diverse skills and knowledge to bear on the specific situation presented. Case-study questions might include drafting a project or product proposal for an e-learning division; designing or re-designing an educational or informational product or program for a company; or recommending an assessment or other process for a school district.
Queries, like cases, ask you to synthesize a broad range of knowledge, but without the need to relate it to a specific real or fictional situation. You might be asked to take a position on an issue having to do with curriculum development, performance management, distance learning, and the like, and justify your ideas with appropriate theory, principles, and practices from the literature in our field and from your own and others' experiences.
Be prepared for questions which require both macro-level and micro-level solutions.
Because the master's program encourages integration of skills, expect questions in one area to overlap complementing areas.
As you complete your responses, be aware that you are being graded on how well you analyze, synthesize, and evaluate the questions. In addition, your responses should reflect a high degree of professionalism. Therefore, you must type your responses in a word processing program, submit a document capable of high quality printout, with your student RedID number (and not your name), and reference your data. This last item is highly important, as noted below.
If you do not already own a computer, borrow or rent one for the exam. Familiarize yourself with whatever word processing software you'll be using so that the mechanics of editing don't get in your way. When the time comes to print your final copy, you may print out your response on the department lab printer...as long as the final result is out of the printer at the specified completion time.
Your responses will be coded to ensure anonymity. Exams are assigned to individual faculty members who rate each response on a one-to-five scale (1= low, 5=high). Any response receiving a score less than "3" is referred to another faculty member for a second score; the higher of the two prevails. You must achieve a combined score of 6 to pass the exam. Students who fail the exam are allowed to repeat it once.
the extent to which the response actually addresses the question;
conciseness and clarity of written expression;
organization and coherence of the response;
evidence of ability to apply concepts and methodologies taught in Educational Technology courses; and
the extent to which multiple vantage points from educational technology literature (theories, models, and research findings) are cited and integrated into your response.
You must have been advanced to candidacy in order to take the comps. Advancement to candidacy requires admission to the Department as a Classified Graduate Student, filing of an official program of study and completing at least 12 units of your official 30-unit program with a grade point average of at least 3.0. The faculty recommends that you take at least 20 units of course work before attempting the exam.
Use the exam as an opportunity for a comprehensive review of your work as an educational technology student. The comps provides you with an opportunity to organize your course materials and references to serve you in your future profession. To begin preparing, we recommend the following:
Obtain a copy of The Handbook of Research for Educational Communications and Technology (Jonassen, D.H., Editor). It broadly summarizes much of the recent research in most areas of our field. An excellent resource for review and to have by your desk as you work on the comps.
Review the APA (American Psychological Association) Publications Manual or other source for the details on how to use citations and references. The SDSU library has a nice APA job aid online. Or bookmark another source of APA style for citations and references such as http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/apa4b.htm#IF (citations) and http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/apa4b.htm#IIG (references).
Bookmark the APA Web citation and FAQ pages.
Review all of your course textbooks, articles, lecture notes, exercises, quizzes and exams. Organize electronic files so that you do not need to use complex search procedures to find a specific item. Don't forget to organize on-line resources, such as bookmarks.
Reserve machine time in the Instructional Media Lab (NE 275) if you plan to use a lab computer during the comps.
Browse, skim, and read journals relevant to the field. Some journals are listed below. This is not an inclusive list, but should give you a good starting point.
Work with other students in a study group or literature review group to help you gain insights on the many issues and current trends surrounding the field.
Create and solve your own comp questions. Find a real problem in an instructional setting... the messier and more multi-faceted the problem, the better.
Create word processing style sheets ahead of time with proper section headings and formats, including APA style for references.
Create an electronic database with reference information in APA format. Include the names of the authors, date, title, periodical, volume, number, pages, place of publication and publisher information.
Online:
SDSU Love Library holds the following Educational Technology-related journals:
Once you've gotten some basic information about the problem, take the problem apart. What aspects of the problem involve needs assessment? Media selection? Evaluation? Motivation? Subject matter analysis? Screen design? Management?
With those aspects of the problem identified, go through your course notes and readings. What models, theories, approaches, philosophies, techniques, or heuristics can you pull out which seem to apply to the problem? What would Gagnč do with it? What would Keller say about its motivational aspects? How would Scriven approach the evaluation component?
If you can practice these activities with three or four problems and generate an outline of your responses, you'll be well prepared. Clearly, this is a challenging task, and you will more easily meet the challenge if you can benefit from the insights and experiences of your fellow students. We strongly encourage you to form a study group to prepare for the exam.
Periodically we hold an orientation for prospective comps-takers. You can listen to this streaming audio archive of a recent comps orientation session with Drs. Bob Hoffman and Marcie Bober and EDTEC alums Robin Martin and Matt Brooks.
Want to download this semester's comps (available on the Friday of comps weekend at noon)?
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