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Online Reading: Electronic Textbook - The Research Road Map
The Research Road Map!
Here's the three-phase process -- just to give you the road map:
I. Steps on the Way to Completing the Doctoral Dissertation
These may be diagrammed somewhat as follows (please see Figure 1):
Actually, it might have been better (tho' "messier" to read!) if I'd drawn these shapes as overlapping or intersecting! Since, starting from the bottom up, each phase becomes incorporated into the next higher phase!
We used to have just two steps ... but we've added the bottom one (proposal) very recently. Let's look at the purpose/characteristics of each one:
- The Research Proposal (*** Please open this link and refer to: What Is a Doctoral Research Proposal at this point!)
- This is kind of a checkpoint for you, the dissertation candidate! "Do I have something workable here?" to bounce off your chair and committee!
- This way, you don't have to pre-commit to writing three formal, full-blown chapters until and unless you get a "thumbs-up" that your idea will 'fly!'
- It is like a "mini-paper:" not divided into chapters, but rather into subheadings (as shown in the proposal handout) that will eventually be expanded and incorporated into the first three chapters of your dissertation! Thus, it contains the key parts, or subheadings, of your prospectus (please see part B!)!
- No formal meeting is required; but it's highly recommended that you bounce this proposal off your chair and members of your committee, individually at first, and then in a meeting with all of them! This gives you a chance to work the kinks out of your research idea -- and lets you gauge how your committee members interact with one another, and with you!
***: In order for this course to be as relevant as possible to your needs, our end goal for EDR 720, Research Design, is for you to have ready a proposal that you can take to your chair and committee! You'll be working on it in phases with me and our other Web-based course partners, refining, expanding, and incorporating our feedback!!!
- The Dissertation Prospectus
- This consists of essentially the first three chapters of your dissertation. They are as follows:
- Chapter One introduces the study. It provides some background, or rationale, for WHY you chose the topic you did. Next, it highlights WHAT you will study: the Statement of the Problem, along with any/all related sub problems. It defines key terms, cautions about some potential limitations of your research, and finally forecasts WHO will benefit from your study, and HOW.
- Chapter Two contains a review of the literature. This would be a general-to-specific flow of past work that is pertinent to your topic at hand. I suggest that you end Chapter Two with a "Summary" subheading in which you briefly highlight the major themes of the literature that you've just reviewed *and* skillfully appear to "put on the brakes" at exactly the point at which prior work stops, and your study is perceived by the reader as the "logical next step in the research chain." This way, your literature review effectively bridges into your work -- and the all-important design/analysis "blueprint" chapter to follow: Chapter Three!
- Chapter Three: the "blueprint," or "grand plan" of how you intend to carry out your study and report your findings! You start by reminding the reader of WHAT you are doing: that would be Chapter One's Statement of the Problem (and yes, repeated verbatim!!!). Then, you get into an overall "blueprint," by way of your intended research design and procedures. Next you tell WHO you'll do your study with: population and sample; HOW you'll COLLECT data; e.g., survey or other instrumentation; and finally HOW you'll COMPILE/ANALYZE/REPORT these data to *answer your research questions!*
Look at the the following description of the Dissertation Prospectus
from another university.
Brigham Young University
Open the link below for some tips on writing your dissertation from the authors of Surviving Your Dissertation.
Dissertation Tips
Whew! That sure seems like a lot of detail! But I'd like for you to please reread the above and now take a 2nd look at the subheadings of your proposal handout ...
Do you see why we said, in Figure 1 and also in the related discussion, that key parts of the proposal go verbatim into the prospectus?
For instance, you'll notice that Statement of the Problem" appears in both of these.
Also, you will provide as much of a literature review as you've compiled to date in your proposal, and just expand, reorganize, and refine for the prospectus.
Finally, please note, towards the end of the proposal handout, how many key pieces of Chapter Three already appear (albeit in summary, abbreviated form) in the proposal:
a) design and procedures;
b) population and sample;
c) instrumentation;
d) data collection procedures.
***: THUS, THE PROSPECTUS CONSISTS OF 'GROWING OUT THE PROPOSAL!'
1. ADDING TO EXISTING SUBHEADINGS,
2. ADDING A FEW NEW SUBHEADINGS; AND
3. FINALLY REORGANIZING THE PAPER INTO THREE CHAPTERS!
***: Also, you will 'formally defend' your prospectus in a meeting before your chair and committee! This is known as a prospectus hearing.
This meeting may not take place until after you have received notification of passing your comps. However, you are strongly urged to begin laying the groundwork for this meeting by continuing to work with your chair and committee on developing and refining your prospectus throughout your studies! The ideal is to be ready for this prospectus hearing the split second you hear that you've passed comps! (well, maybe not quite that fast ... but you get the picture! dangerous to find that "the day after" comps has arrived and you don't yet know what you're doing for your dissertation!)
The purpose of a prospectus hearing is to ensure that your "research grand plan" is workable and doable!
Your chair and committee have an obligation to you (in most institutions, this is strictly considered a legal commitment!) that what they're sending you out to do is feasible, doable, etc.!
By "advancing you to candidacy, which happens via a vote at the end of this meeting, your chair and committee members are in essence contracting with you:
a) You carry out the study you've proposed -- of course, subject to any modifications or revisions that may come up in the course of the discussion at your prospectus hearing; and
b) You also agree to write it up and present it orally via a "dissertation defense"; and in turn;
c) Your chair and committee agree that if you do (a) and (b) above, you will be granted the doctoral degree!
Thus, in the prospectus hearing, there is heavy, heavy focus on:
a) WHAT you will do (statement of the problem);&
b) HOW you propose to do it (elements of the "blueprint" chapter, Chapter 3!)
You begin with a formal presentation of the plan (again, with heavy focus on the pieces of Chapter 3). Then, your chair and committee members are invited to ask questions and/or propose suggestions. These are intended to improve the rigor, doability, etc., of your proposed research study!
This is a bit of a tangent, but I am sure you will appreciate the perspective it may give you when you are called upon to formally present your research plan. Open the link below to read about how even a stellar scientist, Werner Heisenberg (well known for the uncertainty principle in physics) had a difficult time with his dissertation process, particularly orals!
The Sad Story of Heisenberg's Doctorate
- The Doctoral Dissertation
Yes! The day does eventually arrive -- trust me! (Granted, it may seem like it never will, at times ... the research process may be variously arduous, repetitive, anxiety provoking, etc., etc.! We'll talk more about specific "bogged-down" or trouble spots as we go along!)
A dissertation contains the first three chapters, or prospectus. Thus, any revisions you make to the prospectus draft as a result of your prospectus hearing (please see Part B, above), get "plopped verbatim" into the front end of your dissertation itself!
***: PLUS -- NOW YOU HAVE ACTUALLY CARRIED OUT YOUR STUDY AND COMPILED YOUR RESULTS. SO - YOU ARE ADDING THE FOLLOWING TWO CHAPTERS TO THE (REVISED) PROSPECTUS IN ORDER TO 'TURN IT INTO' A DISSERTATION:
4. Chapter Four: Findings and Results. Here, you basically "answer each question" (e.g., research Sub problem) by repeating the question and then summarizing your answer. To do this, you may need to provide tables, graphs, charts, statistical indicators, etc., as 'summary evidence' (qualitative, quantitative, or both) for your "answer" to each "question."
***: BE CAREFUL! It's very easy to slip into the trap of "projecting too much" and cross the line into "Therefore, what could an administrator do with this?" or "Therefore, what would be expected to hold true for all first-year teachers regarding attitudes towards inservice training?"
These are fine but go in Chapter Five! (more on that below!)
Chapter Four should be "just the facts, sir/ma'am!" What did you find as the answer to each question, based upon YOUR study subjects, YOUR data, etc.!!!
5. Chapter Five: Summary, Conclusions, Recommendations, and Implications.
You're ready now to generalize or project what you found and tell the world how it is expected to be a better place as a result of your having done this research study! This really ends the dissertation document on a positive, "capstone" note!
- Summary - a real "Reader's Digest" overview of your whole dissertation itself, including the first 3 chapters and summary of your findings (answer to each question), as well. Good practice for eventually having to "distill down" into the abstract!
- Conclusions - these would be "global projections" from your study sample subjects/findings, to the entire population from whom your sample was drawn, and to whom you expect the results to generalize.
In other words - you couldn't possibly study every individual, school, unit, etc., that you are interested in. But you define those units to whom you expect your study to apply (population); draw a select number from them (sample) for your study; and then project the results back to the entire population.
Thus -- whether or not you use this terminology -- when you are looking at your findings and thinking, "Therefore it can be concluded that all administrators would ... " "all rural schools would be expected to ... " and similar statements, you are drawing conclusions based on your (sample- and study-specific) findings.
Such broad generalizations, or conclusions, should now be listed confidently in Chapter Five! under a subheading of the same name!
- Recommendations. I like to see 2 levels of sub-sub-headings here:
1. Recommendations for Practice; and
2. Recommendations for Future Research.
***: Be as specific, action-oriented, confident, etc., as possible!
That is: list-enumerate, under each one, what should/could/would an administrator do? teacher do? student do? future researcher do? differently or better as a result of your study!
- Implications. Please take out your proposal outlines and take a look at the description of "Significance of the Study." This is also the WHO will be BETTER OFF and HOW "guess-timate" that we referred to earlier.
Well, at that point, you hadn't yet actually done your study (prospectus stage: writing up your study), so of course you don't yet know what you will find, exactly!
But, undoubtedly based upon your own experience, practice, research, other course work, etc., etc., you could nonetheless make some educated (and probably accurate) guesses as to "who will be expected to be better off and how?!" for your prospectus and Chapter One.
Ah, but now, at dissertation stage, you have done your study. So you can say with even greater confidence who your expected benefits and beneficiaries will be!
Now's your chance to make any changes to your original Chapter One "Significance of the Study" guess-timate!
Think of it this way: Implications is the last major subheading of Chapter Five, and therefore of the entire dissertation.
REALLY END IT WITH A BANG! Picture yourself standing out at the horizon, looking out at the great expanse of our world.
Now ... tell that world, very positively and confidently, how it is better off as a result of your study!!
This is the idea of Implications!
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I sure hope this overview of the whole process was a helpful way to start! I like to have a feel for exactly where I'm going, and particularly the final destination, before I can more confidently focus on the stages!
Remember: our end goal will be for you to have a proposal, or Phase One, that you can work on and refine with us and then take to your dissertation chair and committee! So, hopefully, your Research Design experience is not an isolated course-credit hoop-jump but, rather, will let you get 1/3 of the entire journey under your belt - a product that will directly plug into your prospectus, and dissertation!
- - -
Next time, we'll zero in on the heart and soul of the whole thing (no, not the Ed.D. or Ph.D., tho' I'm not denying that those sure are satisfying "byproducts!!!") We're talking about the research idea/problem statement.
You are my joys and blessings and it is so great having you with us!!!
Count on my full and enthusiastic support every step of the way as you keep your eyes on the prize:
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