What research experiences are important in a doctoral program?
First, you want research experiences in which you receive adequate support from your mentor or advisor and gradually are allowed to become more independent on the project. Second, you want research experiences that expose you to programmatic research (i.e., a line of research that unfolds over several projects). Participation on funded research projects (e.g., funded through NIH or the U.S. Department of Education) allows you to experience the particulars of working with grant funding. In addition to learning to do research yourself, you may want experience managing others as they work on research projects. For example, if your advisor has undergraduate or master’s students working in the lab, you may have an opportunity to supervise their work. These experiences will be beneficial later as you manage your own research projects and research lab. Third, you may want to participate on research projects that use varying research methodologies-for example, a project that relies on qualitat
