dissertation proposal – Page 8 – Love Your Dissertation

December 11, 2016December 11, 2016

Could unrealistic assumptions about getting a PhD be preventing you from getting your dissertation proposal approved?

When we enroll in a Ph.D. program, we’re making some assumptions about what a doctoral degree means and what it can do for us.

I made many assumptions about what it means to be in a doctoral program, some of which actually turned out to be true. For example, I assumed I was capable of doing the work, and luckily, I was, although at times I had doubts. I assumed I could complete the degree in the allotted amount of time. Fortunately, I did, barely, if you count the one-year extension I was granted. I also had an assumption about the value of a doctoral degree to my employer, which sadly turned out to be false.

Are you inadvertently holding yourself back because of your unrealistic assumptions? Here are some assumptions you might not realize you are making.

Assumption 1: You need a Ph.D. to succeed.

If you want to teach at the university level, I agree, you need a doctorate or other terminal degree. However, a doctorate is no guarantee of success, whatever success means to you. And lots of people have been successful (and maybe even happy?) without earning a doctorate. Just saying.

Assumption 2: A Ph.D. will make you happy.

Along those lines, if you are sure that finishing your dissertation and earning your doctoral degree is truly what will make you happy, then go for it. But don’t assume that you will finally be happy once you finish. If you make your happiness contingent upon achieving some external condition, whether it’s getting a new car or a doctoral degree, I fear you will be disappointed. Once the celebratory buzz wears off, you will discover that you are still the same person. And the people around you will still be the same people. A Ph.D. is not a personality transplant, for you or for your loved ones. If you can’t be happy without a Ph.D., odds are you won’t allow yourself to be happy when you have one.

Assumption 3: A Ph.D. will make you wealthy.

I bring this up just to get it out on the table. If becoming wealthy is your idea of success, if becoming wealthy is truly what will make you happy, start a tech firm or be a stockbroker. Don’t spend the next 3+ years of your life and $50,000+ in pursuit of a doctoral degree, especially if you plan on incurring student loan debt. You might get rich (whatever rich means to you) if you have a Ph.D., but you might also get rich without one. For sure, it will be a lot harder to get rich with $50,000+ in student loans hanging over your head.

Assumption 4: You deserve to have a Ph.D. just because you want one.

This assumption goes to the heart of who you believe you are. Some people believe the world owes them just for being alive. That sense of entitlement has a comical tendency to skew their perceptions of reality. Luckily, academe usually weeds out these folks. If you are one of these people, whoops, sorry if I offended you. Consider this a reality check. However, if you really feel you are entitled to a doctorate, nothing I say will change your belief, so carry on.

Assumption 5: Your Ph.D. will effortlessly come to you.

This sounds like an affirmation I used to say to myself back in the 80s. Everything I need comes to me easily and effortlessly. I manifest piles of money. I am successful, wealthy, and loved. Affirmations are nice, but there’s a reason why we resort to them. It’s because life isn’t how we would like it to be, and resorting to magical thinking seems like less work than actually taking action to change things.

Do you have a sense of entitlement?

See Assumptions 4 and 5. In every generation, some of us tend to believe we are special and deserve to have whatever we want without necessarily earning it. I don’t think it has much to do with when we were born. A sense of entitlement is something we are born with that gets nurtured or stifled, depending on environment. Sadly, dissertators who feel they are exempt from the rules don’t learn from their mistakes. Essential feedback goes unheeded because of arrogance.

Can we attribute the sense of entitlement that some of us have to generational differences? For example, I read that Millennials tend to have an inborn sense of entitlement, instilled in them by their well-meaning Baby Boomer parents. Baby Boomers, on the other hand, expect to work for what they get (and we expect to get everything we work for!). I think this might be nonsense.

Who knows? I’m not an expert on generational cohorts and personality traits; I’m just someone who recognizes from firsthand experience the hallmarks of a sense of entitlement.

How can you know if you have an inborn sense of entitlement?

Here’s a thought: When you are struggling to understand some dense article written by someone long dead, if you feel an overwhelming sense of something like, Why do I have to read this stupid stuff!? I should be exempt! … take note. There’s your clue.

The point is, that pesky feeling that we are special, somehow exempt from the rules other people have to follow can blind us to reality. Some people call it terminal uniqueness. You are special (just like everybody else). But that doesn’t mean you deserve to have whatever you want, whenever you want it, without working for it.

If doctorates were so easy to earn, everyone would have one or two. You can earn yours, but only if you are willing to do the hard work required to achieve success.

If you are running into obstacles as you work on getting your dissertation proposal approved, maybe I can help. Check out my book.

December 5, 2016December 5, 2016

How to choose your dissertation methodology and method

When I was a doctoral candidate struggling to get my dissertation proposal approved, I was confused about what exactly I should propose as my research plan. I knew what my topic was, but I needed to be a lot more specific, and I also needed to justify every item on my plan. Where to start?

I read several of Creswell’s research design books and got even more confused. So many choices! So many terms that seem to mean the same thing but apparently don’t … words like approach, worldview, paradigm, theory, method, design, strategy, technique, tactic … it’s enough to make a poor dissertator insane.

The chart shows four quadrants with a buffet of choices. Quadrant 1 shows some “worldviews.” Quadrant 2 shows some methodologies (research designs). Quadrant 3 shows some research strategies (approaches), and Quadrant 4 shows a list of methods (tactics). For best results, choose ONE element from each quadrant.

When I was a dissertator, I assumed I was supposed to work through these elements in sequential order; I saw the word worldview and immediately froze in terror. It took me a long time to get past that first quadrant.

In the following paragraphs, I offer a slightly different approach, based on my experience and the experiences of other dissertators whose papers I have edited. Maybe this simplified approach to choosing your research methodology and method will help you quickly get your proposal approved so you can start the fun part of your dissertation journey—collecting your data!

Quadrant 1. First, according to Creswell (2009), we have to identify our overall approach—our worldview. Are you a postpositivist researcher? Are you a constructionist? Are you all about participation and advocacy? Or are you a down-to-earth pragmatist? What does all that even mean?

Quadrant 2. Next, we are required to choose a methodology. Methodology is the overall research design. You have three methodological options: quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods (which is a combination of qualitative and quantitative). You might be perplexed: Should you do a quantitative study (focused on numbers), a qualitative study (focused on words or images), or should you do both (mixed methods)? You have to choose one. How should you make that important decision?

Quadrant 3. Within each methodology, we are also expected to choose some sort of approach or strategy. For example, if you chose a quantitative methodology, you have to decide between experimental, quasi-experimental, or non-experimental approaches. Which one would be best for your study? If you chose a qualitative methodology, you could select from five classic strategies: phenomenological, ethnography, narrative, case study, or grounded theory. (I know—I was like, what? What bizarre buffet did I just accidentally get invited to? I don’t speak this language!)

Quadrant 4. Finally, we must choose our research method—the actual tactic we will employ to collect data. Should you collect primary data or use secondary data? If you collect our own data, should you survey people? Would you interview people? Would you observe people? Some combination of these tactics? So many choices! Should you just close your eyes and throw a dart? Should you consult a psychic or an astrologer? Are the planets properly aligned? Maybe the Magic 8 Ball has the answer.

Nope, apparently not. What is a frustrated, confused dissertator to do?

Start with Quadrant 4

Instead of taking the quadrants in order one at a time, from Quadrant 1 through Quadrant 4, I suggest you consider starting with the methods (tactics) in Quadrant 4. This strategy worked well for me. I had no clue what my philosophical research worldview should be, but I knew that I needed to talk to people about my research topic. That meant conducting some interviews.

Method is the way we conduct our research. Method encompasses the what, who, where, and when of the study. The tactics are the blueprint for your study. Now, practically speaking, how are you going to get ahold of some data? You have essentially three choices. You can survey people, you can talk to people, or you can observe people, or any combination thereof. For example, you might survey a group of people before and after an event. Or you could interview people about their perceptions of the event. Or you could observe people’s behaviors during the event. Or you could do all of the above.

Now consider Quadrant 2

Once you choose your tactical-level method, it easy to determine which overall research methodology encompasses your method. If you are talking to people, that will likely generate text data—in other words, words—and that is by definition a classic qualitative methodology. In contrast, if you are sending out a survey that requires respondents to click numbers to indicate their level of agreement with some statements, that method will generate numerical data, which by definition is a classic quantitative study. If you have a combination of both words and numbers, then you have chosen a mixed-methods methodology.

Which one should you use, qualitative, quantitative, or mixed method? The correct answer is, whichever one answers your research question most effectively. Are you really asking, which one is easier? That depends. Are you a number person or a word person? Do you want to challenge yourself, or do you just need to get this thing done? Are you wondering which methodology is faster? Quantitative, usually.

Now you are ready for Quadrant 3

Now that you know your research methodology, you can determine which subcategory from Quadrant 3 is most relevant for your study. Quadrant 3 is a refinement of your methodology choice from Quadrant 2. Your choice of methodology is important, because it leads logically to your method—and vice versa. They need to align logically. You can’t proclaim your intention to use a survey to collect numerical data and then call that a qualitative methodology. Likewise, you can’t say you are going to conduct interviews and call that quantitative. According to Creswell (2009), you have five traditional options for qualitative methodology and three main options for quantitative. Remember, the best choice is the one that best answers your research questions.

Back to Quadrant 1

Finally, we come back to Quadrant 1. What is all this stuff about worldviews or paradigms? What is a philosophical worldview? That question is not too hard to answer: A worldview is a mindset, a basic set of beliefs or assumptions about how things are. A way of thinking about things. Like Republican versus Democrat, sort of, but less fraught.

The worldview we choose provides the philosophical foundation for the strategy and methods we will use for our research. Using Creswell (2009) as our guide, we have four choices when it comes to worldviews or paradigms: Post-positivism, constructivism, advocacy/participatory, and pragmatist. It should (eventually) become apparent to you that the first term in Quadrant 1, postpositivism, usually refers to quantitative ways of finding out stuff, and constructivism usually refers to qualitative ways of finding out stuff. That is a simplification, but for our purpose, it works.

Odds are your project will be one of these two worldviews. However, it’s best to choose your worldview based on the research problem you have identified. So, for example, if you plan on getting down and dirty with your data, like going undercover into A.A. meetings to find out how the members manage to “govern” their organization with no bosses, or interviewing LGBTQ teens with a goal of helping schools build inclusive communities, then the advocacy/participatory paradigm is the worldview for you.

The fourth worldview, pragmatist, is a smorgasbord hodgepodge of whatever you want it to be. I recommend you steer clear of this worldview—it’s difficult to pin down, because it can encompass just about any approach you can cook up, and reviewers won’t understand it. You’ll waste a lot of time defending your choice.

Dissertators sometimes want to implement the most complex study they can, as if that will prove something. You don’t have to prove anything. I encourage you to keep it simple from the beginning. If you want to get your proposal approved in the least amount of time, go with what works: either postpositivism (quantitative) or constructivism (qualitative), depending on your research problem and your propensity toward numbers versus words.

Now you’ve covered all four quadrants, from general to specific. Make the easier choices first—tactics and methodology, and then work your way to the approach and worldview, using peer-reviewed guidance gleaned from the literature in your field. With these research elements in place, you’ll soon get your dissertation proposal approved and be on your way to collecting data.

Reference

Creswell, J. W. (2009). Research design. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

November 26, 2016November 26, 2016

Narrow the scope of your project to get your dissertation proposal approved

Scope is the definition of the edges of our study. We could study the whole world. Hey, why stop there? We could study the entire universe! That would be a broad scope for a social scientist. I don’t recommend biting off that much topic. In fact, I suggest narrowing the scope of your project—a lot.

Scope is what you have after you’ve set your delimitations. What are delimitations? Hey, thanks for asking. Delimitations are restrictions we purposely implement to reduce the breadth and width our study. For example, we might delimit our study to one local geographical area or to one subset of a population.

Here’s my story. When I set about studying academic quality in for-profit vocational programs, I planned to talk to students, faculty, administrators, and employers. After some iterations (and replacements of committee members), I settled on a phenomenological approach to exploring academic quality through the perspectives of these four groups. How cool, I thought!

“Not so fast,” said my new Chair. “Do you realize what a monumental data analysis task you are creating for yourself?”

“I can do it,” I stubbornly replied.

I was enthusiastic until I started writing up my research plan in my dissertation proposal. As I forged through my plan, I began to see what I nightmare I was in for if I had four groups to compare. I was running out of time in my program. How on earth would I be able to synthesize the results of qualitative interviews from four groups of stakeholders in less than six months?

When I hesitantly suggested we cut out employers, my Chair said, Why not just study faculty? As long as you can explain why they alone are being studied, one group is sufficient for a doctoral project. Hallelujah. I made the decision to cut back to just one group, faculty. It was the moment when things began to fall into place.

I narrowed the scope even further. I could have interviewed faculty who taught at private nonprofit and public institutions, in addition to faculty who taught at for-profit institutions. That would have been a different study. I delimited my study to only for-profit faculty. I could have tried to find faculty in different cities. I didn’t have the resources to do that, so I delimited my study to only one metropolitan region. I could have done a mixed-methods survey to expose the definitions of academic quality generated by my small qualitative sample to a larger quantitative sample. That project was too big for me, and more to the point, not necessary, so I delimited my study to one qualitative approach with one small sample of faculty.

If you think about it, in the sense I just described, our problem and research questions are delimitations, and those delimitations define the scope of our study. We identify the boundaries we’ve placed on our research in terms of who we are studying (our sample) and how we are studying them (our methodology and method). Your reviewers will likely ask you to justify your delimitations. Why did you choose that place, those people, rather than other places and other people?

Too broad a scope is a problem I often see in the papers I edit. I get it. It’s tempting to want to get your arms around all facets of a problem. It’s like we feel obligated to throw in the kitchen sink to earn the doctorate. You may want to challenge yourself, take the road less traveled, yada yada. That’s great, and we applaud you, you trail blazer, you. But just so you know: It’s not necessary to earn the degree. Your narrow, well-defined study will be more likely to receive approval than a vast panoramic study of the entire Chinese supply chain, or the U.S. public school system, or whatever.

Reviewers don’t always catch a poorly defined scope. Here’s an example. Let’s say you want to study the experiences of Oregon high school students who failed the high school exit exam. Perhaps your own experience with racial discrimination prompted your interest in the topic. You plan to describe the test failure experiences of students of color, disabled students, and English language learners (ELLs). However, in your literature review, you focus primarily on the group with whom you most strongly identify: the students of color and barely mention the disabled and ELL students. Then, in the last few paragraphs, you add another group to your plan: low socioeconomic status students, without remembering to mention them in your problem, purpose, and research questions. It’s so easy to fall prey to scope creep!

That’s why I recommend, when you describe the problem for a doctoral dissertation, keep the focus and scope tight and narrow. Later you can study other groups. If you didn’t limit the scope in your proposal, and somehow that got by your reviewers, you can still attempt to manage the scope when you write your manuscript by defining your terms and describing your study’s limitations with strict clarity.

If you need some help, check out my book.