Comprehensive Exam

All MA in Criminal Justice students must have a “capstone” experience in accordance with the standards established by the national Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. If you are a Traditional student, you have the option of choosing to do a Thesis or to take the Comprehensive Exam after completing your coursework to satisfy this requirement. All students in the Online or Combined Advanced Degree Program (formerly 4 + 1 Program) must satisfy this requirement by taking the Comprehensive Exam after completing all course work.

You apply for graduation the semester that you will be completing your coursework, and the exam is given some time during exam week or shortly thereafter.

The Comprehensive Exam is graded Pass/Fail. The MA Committee marks the exams. If a student fails the exam, they will have another opportunity to take a new exam when it is administered the following semester. The Comprehensive Exam will be given three times a year, at the end of the Fall, Spring, and Summer semesters, whenever there are students who will have completed all their coursework at the end of the semester. Students will have a maximum of three opportunities to take the exam, but will need to wait a semester in between taking each exam to allow time for them to be better prepared for the re-takes.

You will be allowed to refer to books and notes from any of your MA classes when taking the exam. These materials can be stored electronically on a memory stick, but you will not be allowed to access the internet during the exam.  You will have four hours to complete the exam to make sure you have time to provide thoughtful, detailed answers; to proofread your answer; and to make sure you have provided in-text citations in APA format to support your assertions. The four hours will also allow time for you to take a short break while taking the exam. The questions will test your knowledge of what you learned in:

Contemporary Issues in Criminal Justice
Contemporary Developments in Theory
Research Methods I and II
CJ Policy Analysis

You can bring in materials from your electives as they may provide additional details on some issues.

ALL STUDENTS SHOULD KEEP THEIR BOOKS AND NOTES FROM THESE CLASSES SO THAT THEY WILL HAVE THEM WHEN THEY ARE STUDYING FOR THE EXAM. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU WILL NOT HAVE ACCESS TO ONLINE COURSE MATERIALS AFTER YOU COMPLETE A COURSE UNLESS YOU HAVE SAVED THEM.

Remember it is only four hours so you will not have time to look everything up and read about it. Your materials are there for a back up and a source for specifics AND CITATIONS.

The exam will allow you to choose one of two programs, policies, or issues and ask you to discuss the one you choose or a solution you propose, provide theoretical justifications for why it should work, and describe a plan for how you would do a process and an outcome evaluation. Click the link below to see a sample of the exam. Your exam will be the same format, but focus on different issues.

Sample Exam