In proposal and dissertation writing, attention to detail matters.  As longtime dissertation chairs, one of the most common problems we see with students is a failure to learn from mistakes, and to pay attention to details that have the potential to scuttle their efforts.

When your dissertation chair or committee member provides you with detailed reviews, and makes specific suggestions for revision, they expect you to learn and not to repeat errors or problems that have already been discussed.  Nothing frustrates your chair and committee more than errors, omissions, or problems that have previously been discussed, but continue to show up in your drafts.  In short, we expect you to learn from your mistakes, and not repeat them…again and again.

We have developed a Dissertation Checklist that highlights common errors and problems that you must resolve BEFORE you submit your proposal or dissertation for review by your chair, committee members, or school/university level reviews.  Taking the time to check your work against this checklist prior to submission for review makes your committee happier, your success in the review cycle more likely, and the time it takes to go through the process shorter, saving you money and effort.

Click the link below to download the checklist.

Dissertation Check List

Psst…want a really good deal on a dissertation?  Low miles!

No, this is not a come on for one of those dissertation mills.  Rather, it is an invitation to consider an approach that relatively few doctoral learners consider – secondary data.  Secondary data originally developed for another purpose may have indeed have low miles, and it certainly can be a way to accelerate and accomplish your research far more quickly and easily than collecting primary data.

When considering research topics and research designs, most doctoral students decide to collect primary data.  Primary data are data that are proactively gathered for a specific research purpose. There are, however, challenges involved with gathering primary data..  Not only must a population and sample be identified clearly, but as researchers we must convince our target population to respond.

There is another approach, and it can be quite effective even though among doctoral students it is rarely used.  Few students take advantage of secondary sources of data, even when they are readily available.

To read more about how you can use low mileage secondary data to accelerate your dissertation, read our latest guide here:

Using Secondary Data

Most doctoral programs require a final, oral defense of the dissertation, and a successful defense is one of the last steps to completion of the doctorate. The defense or oral (terminology varies across universities) is an opportunity for the doctoral candidate to present their research, explain their choices in developing and conducting the research, present the results of the research, and explain what it all means and how it adds to knowledge about the chosen subject or problem. The oral defense also provides an opportunity for the candidate to discuss their work with mentors, committee members, and other interested individuals, and engage them in a discussion of the research. The oral can be a very positive event for the doctoral candidate as they move from the role of a student to that of a degree holding scholar.

The context for this event can vary across universities, but usually involves a slide presentation, Q&A session, and discussion with the committee. Candidates will want to prepare carefully for the oral, so as to present their research in a positive manner. Be prepared to answer questions, discuss limitations of the research, and defend yourchoices on method, design, interpretation, etc. Sometimes the defense is a bit adversarial, as committee members or other attendees may challenge the choices and interpretations of the scholar. It is best to be very well prepared for likely questions. Usually, however, the oral is a celebratory as well as substantive event for the scholar and committee.

We see a few common problems in dissertation orals. First, avoid excessively detailed presentation slides, and choose a limited set of slides to review important study results and prompt the discussion. Don’t feel the need to read every slide word for word. I advise candidates to use no more than about 20-25 slides, but this number may vary depending on university norms and complexity of the research. Second, take charge of the presentation and discussion–this is your show, and committees will usually like you to organize and manage it. Third, emphasize the results and what they mean. In the final oral, there is usually no need to provide a detailed review of the methods and design. Instead, hit the high points, and cut quickly to results, interpretations, and implications. Committee members are usually far more interested in the larger importance of the results and how they are positioned in the larger literature, than they are in the minutia of methods, design, and data collection.

Additional resources on the oral defense and related issues, including a detailed discussion of the oral defense, can be found in the Guides, Tools, and Worksheets section of this website. Good luck with your oral!

– Jim Goes

I have the good fortune to be serving a Fulbright fellowship in India this spring, and have recently enjoyed participating in the final dissertation oral defense for several Indian students. It’s very interesting to see how this process is conducted in different universities, and also different countries. My limited observation of the final oral process in India is that it is far more critical and somewhat adversarial than the average oral defense in US universities. However one one major element seems similar – the need to know your methods and be able to explain the process of data collection and analysis to the committee.

Many doctoral students seek help from methodologists and statisticians when developing and executing their research. I strongly encourage my students to seek the help of methodological or statistical experts when they need help. It’s far better to get help than to try to conduct an analysis where you don’t really understand the mechanics and how to interpret the results.

However, when the time comes for you to defend your work in the oral defense, it is critical that you have a good understanding of the method and design and why they were chosen, how the analysis was conducted, and what the results really mean. I have seen situations in orals where the student could not explain what they did or why the results turned out as they did. Not only did this hurt their credibility, in a few cases, a second oral or major revisions was required. When you reach this point in the process, be sure to know your methods, and be prepared to explain them.

We have posted several short guides to method and design selection in the “guides, tools, and worksheets” section of this website, and a full and detailed discussion of different method and design options can be found in the 2013 edition of Recipes for Success.

We are thrilled to announce publication of the 2013 Edition of Dissertation and Scholarly Research: Recipes for Success.  Our new edition offers fresh content and more than 200 new references from reliable sources. Each section of the book has been updated to provide practical, actionable guidance for every phase of dissertation development, and is supported by continuous updates and direct links to new resources on our companion website: www.dissertationrecipes.com.

Recipes is a bestselling guide to writing your dissertation (5 star ranking on Amazon). The 2013 edition of Recipes offers students and faculty a comprehensive, up-to-date, user-friendly text that explains clearly how scholarly research is created, evaluated and, disseminated.  While the text has been extensively revised, some things have not changed. Understanding quality research to become excellent consumers and producers of research continues to be the focus, leading to in-depth understanding of academic inquiry. Using a workbook approach rich in tools, templates, frameworks, examples, and hard-won lessons from experience, Recipes continues to provide easy to navigate processes for crafting issues and ideas into research and results. Whether you are just considering doctoral study, already in a doctoral program, working to develop and complete your dissertation, or mentoring doctoral students, you will find Recipes a key ingredient in your success as a doctoral learner.

For regular visitors to dissertationrecipes.com, we are offering a discounted price on the new edition for purchases made from our publisher’ website.  See the “Buy the Book” link on www.dissertationrecipes.com for details.

As always, we welcome your interest, comments, and suggestions.

What is power in statistics, and how does it relate to the size of my sample?

This is a common question we hear from doctoral students doing quantitative analysis in their research. They may know who they want to survey or interview, but selecting the size of the sample is a mystery.  In this case, the tool to help you is power analysis.

Power analysis is a method to determine how large a sample is needed for statistical judgments that are accurate and reliable, and how likely the selected statistical test is to detect effects of a given size in a particular situation.  We just added a new resource to our library that steps you through the basics and points you to additional references on this very useful statistical tool.  You can find it here:

http://dissertationrecipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Power-AnalysisX.pdf

What is the difference between a statistically significant result and a meaningful result?

Most doctoral students are exposed to the standard canon of quantitative research methods – null hypothesis testing using statistical inference.  Using a variety of different test methods, one can test hypotheses to determine whether or not relationships between variables exist, within a reasonable degree of error, and thereby whether or not a null hypothesis can be rejected or fail to be rejected.

While this sort of hypothesis testing is ubiquitous in research, a statistically significant result does not always equate with a meaningful result.  Particularly in large samples, statistical significance in a tested relationship can be present even while the effects of the variables on each other are minor, even trivial.  In such cases, we need a better approach to determine not just whether statistical significance is present, but whether the effects are sufficiently large to be important.

We have just added a resource to our “guides, tools, and worksheets” library that explores how measuring and reporting effect sizes can provide a stronger interpretation of a relationship between variables than the usual “p-value” approach in inferential statistics.   You can find the discussion here:

http://dissertationrecipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Effect-SizeX1.pdf

What is Phenomenology?

Phenomenology as a research design is growing in popularity, particularly among doctoral learners.  Departing from the traditional positivistic nature of most survey and quantitative research, phenomenology explores the lived experiences of individuals and groups, and can provide a means to uncover deep understanding of these experiences from the perspective of the individual actor or the group.  While many doctoral students gravitate towards this design, it can also be challenging to design and execute an effective phenomenological study–perhaps even more challenging than more traditional designs.

We recently added a resource to our “guides, tools, and worksheets” collection that provides a basic overview of phenomenological research, and can help you decide whether or not this design is appropriate to address your topic or problem of interest.  The following link will take you directly to this writeup.

http://dissertationrecipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Phenomenological-Research.pdf

How do you know what to believe?

This is one of the most common questions we receive from doctoral students.  Advances in online communications have led to a web that is awash in opinion, advocacy, distortion, and questionable “truths”, much of which is stated or implied as “common knowledge”.  Yet, how do we really know what knowledge is common, what can be accepted as true, and how can we wade through opinion and belief to get at the real facts?

Most doctoral programs require dissertation writers to primarily use peer-reviewed sources in the development of their proposals.  This most frequently takes the form of refereed journals of established quality.  However it is not always clear which sources are peer reviewed and which are not.  Moreover, what do we do about questions or problems that have received little or no credible research?  How are we to judge the sagacity of what we read?

We’ve recently added several resources to our website targeted at this concern:

Scholarly Research Versus Fact Finding

What is Common Knowledge?

Critical Review by Coutts

Many doctoral students, particularly those opting for a qualitative methodological approach, use interviews in gathering their data.  There is a variety of different ways to use interviewing in your research, and these are well reviewed in various methods texts.  However there is often not a lot of guidance in these texts about some of the basic mechanics of being successful in your interviewing.

We just added a resource in the Guides, Tools, and Worksheets section of this website that provides some practical guidance on effective interviewing, based on our own research and our work with doctoral learners who use interviews.  If you are planning on interviews as a part of your research, you might find this useful.  Here is the link:

http://dissertationrecipes.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/InterviewingpracticesX.pdf