Doctoral Dissertation Prize

JanThe Jean Piaget Society Dissertation Prize consists of a very generous $2000, plus meeting reasonable travel expenses for the Prize recipient to present an address based upon their dissertation at the Annual Meeting of the Jean Piaget Society.

Any doctoral dissertation completed within the preceding 24 months from the submission date originating from any country, from psychology or related fields that concerns the topic of knowledge and its development will be considered. Empirical research in cognitive or social cognitive development of children and adolescents, rigorous demonstrations of constructivist educational methods, evolutionary theory as it relates to development are some examples of the topics that may be submitted. The quality of the work will be paramount: the work need not have originated from the point of view of Piagetian theory, but the winning submission should address how the work furthers the ongoing study of the interdependence of knowledge construction and development.

Eligibility

A candidate must be a student, student member, postdoctoral researcher or new regular member of the Society for the current or upcoming year. Nonmembers may submit for the prize, but they must pay nonmember conference registration fees by the conference date. (A nonmember’s conference registration includes a one-year membership.)

Submission Rules

All materials submitted to the prize committee, and the presentation at the conference, must be in English, although the original dissertation may be in any language.

  1. Candidates must follow the regular procedures to submit to the JPS conference a work based upon their dissertations completed and approved in the 24 months preceding the submission deadline. The submission may be submitted either as a stand-alone paper or as a part of a symposium.
  2. In addition, candidates must submit to the prize committee an abstract of the dissertation not to exceed 2000 words. Send submissions to: Brian Cox, JPS Awards Committee Chair: brian.d.cox@hofstra.edu. Submissions are due by January 20th, 2025. 

Nominations for the prize can be submitted by a mentor or by the prize applicant themselves, but the prize candidate must submit a separate proposal to present their research at the upcoming Jean Piaget Society annual meeting.

Selection Process

Evaluation of prize applications proceeds in tandem with evaluation of conference proposals. The committee will first judge the submissions blind based on the 2000-word abstract. Approximately three submissions will be chosen as finalists. Finalists are chosen blind to author, institution, mentor, gender, ethnicity and country.

Then, to ensure that the doctoral dissertation is a completed work, and to facilitate judging its importance, finalists will be asked on short notice to submit the following to the prize committee:

  1. A pdf of the completed dissertation
  2. A pdf of a signed signature page for the final approved document;
  3. One letter of recommendation from someone who has read the entire dissertation (preferably a doctoral dissertation advisor or another dissertation committee member) to help the committee judge the significance of the work in the context of its discipline.
  4. A brief curriculum vitae of the candidate, to evaluate the place of the work in the totality of his or her work to date.

Upon receipt of the requested information from the finalists the committee will decide upon the winner of the prize.

The winner must be present at the annual meeting to receive the award.

We are aware that travel restrictions to the USA may be in place in some countries.  If the winner is from a country that has travel restrictions that prevent attending the conference in person, alternative arrangements will be made for the presentation of the winning dissertation.

Questions concerning the process should be directed to Brian Cox, Chair of the JPS Awards Committee, at brian.d.cox@hofstra.edu

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