DOCTORAL PROGRAM

1. Educational System and Length of Schooling

The Doctoral program for international students takes 3 years and the length of schooling is 3-6 years. In principle, government scholarship students shall finish their studies within the length of schooling prescribed by the China Scholarship Council. If beyond the prescribed duration, he/she may apply for prolonging the duration of scholarship or transferring into self-funded student according to the provisions of the China Scholarship Council.  

2. Training Mode

The Doctoral program for international students takes tutor-responsible system under the leadership of Supervisor Group. The tutor can give guidance to a Doctoral student on his/her own, or select an assistant tutor to help him/her.

3. Individual Training Plan

(1) Doctoral candidates in the International Graduate Program shall generally make their individual training plans before the end of the first semester after starting the specialized study, under the instruction of their tutors and Supervisor Group, and fill in the Individual Training Plan for PH.D Degree of Wuhan Sports University.

(2) The individual training plans for Doctoral candidates shall be made by candidates and their tutors together in accordance with the international student educational program of the discipline, taking educational conditions, research orientations and the personal characteristics of the candidate into consideration. Candidates are required to make arrangement for their learning, literature reading and literature review, scientific research, topic report, interim report, dissertation, academic activities and practice, etc.  

4. Course and Examination

(1) Courses for Doctoral candidates are divided into compulsory courses and optional courses. Compulsory courses consist of general course, basic course,  and specialized course.

(i) General course refers to Chinese Language and A General Introduction to China.  

(ii) Basic course has 2 subjects and specialized course (including seminars) has 3-4 subjects. Such kind of courses shall be selected from curriculum design of Doctoral Program of the specialty.

(iii) Optional courses can be chose from the Doctoral Program of the university or offered according to actual demands and school conditions.

Total credits	36 credits (international students)
Courses	18 Credits	General courses: 6 credits; Chinese Language(or passed HSK-5): 4 credits General Introduction to China: 2 credits.
		Basic courses: 8 credits (Sports Science Research Methodology, 4 credits) (Research Development in Sports Sciences, 4 credits)
		Specialized courses : 2 credits （Scientific Sports Training, 2 credits）, other specialized courses with a totle class periods of 216must be taken in order to get the scores
		Optional courses: 2 -4 credits (1-2 course)
Research	2 Credits	At least two accepted national or international conference papers are required. If not, 8 times of attending such conferences are required and reports of no less than 800 words are required.
Dissertation	16 Credits	Thesis proposal: 3 credits
		Dissertation: 13 credits

   

  （It is for reference only,the specific credit plans will be  formulated by the Graduate

School.）

(2) Courses for Master’s degree students take forms such as lectures, discussions, academic reports and self taught.

(3) Assessment and Grades

There are two ways of assessment: examination-oriented and participation-oriented. Normally compulsory courses take examination as assessment, while optional courses take examination or performance as assessment.

Scores of course examination shall consist of 40% of daily performance and 60% of final examination scores, or according to the teacher’s testing and evaluation system.

(4) Doctoral candidates in the International Graduate Program shall attend courses and examinations in accordance with their individual training plans. Those who cannot take the examination due to illness or other extenuating circumstances are required to go through the formality of examination postponement. Students who cannot take the examination due to illness must apply to Graduate Administrative Office of the school for examination postponement with the medical diagnosis from the hospital of WSU and related documents, and fill in the Application From for Examination Postponement. Then they can take examination of the course in next semester upon approval.

(5) Students who are absent from an examination without going through the formality of examination postponement will get a ZERO for the course. They may be allowed to resit once in the next academic year according to their attitude and the seriousness of the cases.

(6) Doctoral candidates in the International Graduate Program who have published a book or at least one research paper in a key journal in recent three years may apply for exemption from related courses; those who have taken a specialized course at the doctoral station of other universities or institutions in recent three years and have gotten a score of 70 or above may apply for exemption from that course provided that the content of the course is in accordance with the requirements of the current Doctoral Program of WSU.  

(7) Anyone who fails in an examination must retake the course; if it is an optional course, he/she may retake the course or reselect other courses on the condition that he/she has gone through the formalities of course selection.

(8) If a Doctoral candidate in the International Graduate Program has to postpone his/her course study due to certain reasons such as participating in research project ahead of schedule, he/she may apply for deferment of taking the courses. If he/she wants to take that course thereafter, the student is required to go through formalities of course selection again during the first three weeks of the semester.  

5. Academic Activity and Scientific Research  

Doctoral candidates in the International Graduate Program are encouraged to take part in academic activities and do scientific research, especially research projects in the charge of their tutors or related with their disciplines as much as possible. Doctoral candidates are required, in terms of research papers, to meet the following requirements before applying for a thesis defense:  

(1) Publish at least one research paper in academic journals issued by China or other countries, and write at least two research reports or conference papers, etc.  

(2) Wuhan Sports University shall be the first of affiliation on the published research papers.

6. Dissertation (thesis)

(1) Doctoral candidates in the International Graduate Program are required to complete the thesis proposal at any time between the fifth week of the third semester and the tenth week of the fourth semester, and take part in the thesis proposal report meeting after finishing all courses in the curriculum design and passing all examinations. Those who have extenuating circumstances can get a one-year extension for the thesis proposal report upon the approval of the school and the recording of Graduate Administrative Department.

(2) Doctoral candidates shall refer to at least 60 correlative literatures in accordance with the selected research orientations and the requirements of dissertations.

(3) The degree applicant should submit his or her final dissertation and abstract 3

months before the dissertation defense, and submit the application for doctor’s degree to the School. When the School (Center) Degree Evaluation Committee accepts the application, the School (Center) should hire 3 reviewers (including one outside reviewer) for those dissertations which have no need to attend, in accordance to the procedures, the double blind review. The reviewers should be experts who are familiar with the subject of the dissertations. Only when all the three review results reach “pass” or above, should the writer of the dissertation attend the dissertation defense. When only one review result doesn’t reach “pass”, re-review application could be submitted to the School’s Graduate Office through the tutor group. If the re-review result is “pass”, the writer can attend the dissertation defense; or the dissertation should be modified and the application for dissertation defense should be submitted half a year later.

(4) Thesis proposal shall include: significance of selected topic, structure of dissertation, main content and major views, the innovative new areas explored, data gathering, literature references consulted, and the main problems and difficulties when composing the dissertation.

(5) A dissertation shall be a systematical and comprehensive presentation and summary of a student’s achievement in scientific research, which can demonstrate his/her solid mastery of basic theories and well-structured knowledge of the discipline. The main body of the dissertation shall be no less than 50,000 words. Individual training plan, thesis proposal, abstract and the dissertation shall be written in Chinese for those Chinese-language-program students. Those English-language-program students should submit the English version and the topic and abstract of the dissertation should be translated into Chinese at the same time.