Chapter 1: Beginning and end

A request. If you follow the blog by email, could you send me a quick email leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu or text 406-451-6412 and let me know? I am trying to determine how many people are following it. Thanks!
 

Chapter 1 is the official beginning of your proposal and usually the last chapter written, it is a very important chapter in that it sets up the reader to understand an overview of the study and to appreciate the need for it. Let’s start with an outline from the checklist: Introduction, Background, Problem Statement, Purpose, Research Questions and Hypotheses, Theoretical and Conceptual Framework, Nature of the Study, Definitions, Assumptions, Scope and Delimitations, Limitations, Significance, Summary. I am sure that the first thing you notice is that there are many sections, each of these will be quite short- think of them as concise summaries.  

Again there are many resources to help with each of the sections (see the writing center and research center). I am just going to talk about the area that students have the most problems with, the introduction. The introduction needs to build a concise case as to the need for the study. Start general (think demographics) becoming more narrow. Clearly point out the gap in the literature and how your study addresses this gap. Also, mention the social change implications of the study. By the end of the introduction, the reader should be convinced that your study is the next logical step in the progression of the topic. They should know what type of study you are doing (e.g., survey, interviews) and how this method adds to filling the gap in the literature. 

You have a draft of the first 3 chapters, then what? First give yourself a cheer and celebrate, then begin the rewriting process. Rewriting?? Yes, you have done a first draft, hopefully including all of the necessary parts, but it is rough, and needs a lot of polishing. I suggest reading through the draft in full, make notes to yourself (I use track changes) and mark areas that are not complete, that may not be clear to someone reading it for the first time, or that needs more support with citations. Then start at the beginning and read each sentence aloud, is there a way to make it clearer, more concise? Picture your grandmother who knows nothing about psychology reading it, would she understand that sentence? Check for any pronouns (they, he, and she), is it clear who the pronouns are referring to? Check your plurals versus possessives (this makes me crazy when they are wrong): plurals (e.g. “girls”) do not have an apostrophe, possessives do have an apostrophe (e.g., “the girl’s bike;” “the girls’ bikes”).  

Do you know a former English major? Someone who is a great writer? If so, ask them to read through your paper and offer suggestions.  

Let’s consider for a minute, accepting criticism. No one likes to be criticized, but it is part of life and particularly part of academia. Instead of taking it personally, remember you are a student, isn’t part of that learning new things? Don’t you want the best paper and project that it is possible to have? The only way it will happen is to listen to criticism. Let’s assume for a moment that you have just received an edited draft from your committee member, how to you handle this? I suggest reading through their comments then setting it aside for a few hours- to a day. Think about them, instead of reacting. When you are calm and ready, start at the beginning and take each comment as a learning experience. Fix it, then look for similar issues in the paper and fix those. Go on to the 2^nd comment, etc. I look at comments and suggestions as a challenge, can I fix these and have the person read the paper again and not find any issues? When you are done with your revisions read through the paper one more time (at least) and make sure it reads well.

Next time we’ll take a look at the URR step and proposal defense.

The Care & Feeding of Committee Members

 

What is appropriate behavior for a dissertation student toward his or her chair and committee member? In a traditional brick and mortar program you would see the behavior modeled by students further along in your program, but it is difficult at an online school to know what is normal.

The reality is it varies tremendously, so the first bit of advice I have for you is to ask what your chair and committee member prefer. If your chair does not suggest it, ask for a phone call to get you started, and discuss how your chair likes to structure their class and what their expectations are of students. What are they expecting from you in the first quarter? How will they decide if you should get a “U” or an “S” in the dissertation course? How would they prefer for you to address them? 

In advance, think about how you like to work… are you independent and good at personal goal setting? Then perhaps ask if you could send them your draft once a month (or whatever the 2 of you agree is appropriate). Are you a person who has a hard time structuring your time and goal setting? Then ask for help as to what is realistic. You might want to set up regular meetings or times when you will need to submit drafts. Talk to your chair about your needs, and how they can be accommodated. 

Also ask your committee member when they would like to see a draft. Many will prefer that you wait until the proposal has been approved by your chair, unless you have specific methodological or content issues on which you want their advice.  

A few general bits of advice, be polite, ask questions when you need help, no one expects you to know everything. A “thank you” for good advice, prompt response, etc. means a lot to faculty (think of it as positive reinforcement, they will tend to repeat the good behavior).  

This is important: No one will know you are having problems, unless you say something! Typically, if they don’t hear from you, the faculty’s assumption is that you simply don’t care or aren’t working on the paper. There are many people who can help if you run into problems. If you have writing issues, contact the writing center. They have editors that will work with you. If one of your committee members advises you go to the writing center then listen and try not to be defensive. They are trying to save you time and tuition money! If you have committee issues, contact your program coordinator or program director. Be assertive, it is your money and time being spent, however, always be professional in interactions with faculty and administrators. Emotional responses are never a viable solution. 

Faculty are people too, with busy schedules and family obligations, it is not realistic to expect immediate feedback. However, if you have not heard from a faculty member at all within a couple of days of sending an email, write and double check that they received it. Ask if they can give you an estimate of when you might get a response. Again, be polite and professional.  

Remember, every faculty member who reads your paper is allowed 10 business days. I know it is hard to wait, but go on to the next stage. If you are waiting to get feedback on your prospectus, then go ahead and start on Chapter 2. If you are waiting on your proposal approval, work on your IRB application and power point for your defense. There is always something to work on. If you can’t find anything else, do an update in the literature and see if anything new has come out that could be helpful.

What do you do if you are having problems with your chair? First, write out an email outlining the issues, say how you would like it to be resolved- be very professional- no emotional response. Often it helps to take on some of the responsibility. It is a good idea to let it sit for a day to make sure that you are not being impulsive. As the health psych program coordinator, I am always happy to read such email drafts and give suggestions. Here is an example of a an appropriate email: 

Dr. X,

I am concerned that it is often taking 3 weeks for you to review my proposal drafts; the delay is really slowing my progress on the paper. Is there anything I can do to make this process go a little faster? If it would help, I could just send you a couple of pages at a time. Ideally, I would like to be able to get a response on my writing within a few days to a week. Do you have any further ideas? 

If you feel that you don’t get a satisfactory response, the next step would be to contact your program coordinator or program director and ask for help.  

One final bit of advice, keep a record of when you submit papers to faculty, when you get a response, and their comments. It is a record that may come in handy in the future (this is where a research journal comes in handy!). 

Next time, we will finish up the proposal with Chapter 1. 

C.3, Research Methods: The heart of the paper

Chapter 3 is the most important part of your proposal; it will detail what you are actually doing in the study. Let's start again by seeing what is in the template and checklist, note that each of the research methods has a different set of requirements.  

I suggest beginning your draft by writing down each of the requirements for your study: 

Qualitative

Introduction, Research Design and Rationale, Role of the Researcher, Methodology, Instrumentation, Data Analysis Plan, Issues of Trustworthiness, Ethical Procedures, Summary 

Quantitative

Introduction, Research Design and Rationale, Methodology, Instrumentation, Threats to Validity, Ethical Procedures, Summary 

Mixed Methods

Introduction, Research Design and Rationale, Role of the Researcher, Methodology, Instrumentation, Data Analysis Plan (for both quantitative and qualitative), Threats to Validity, Issues of Trustworthiness, Ethical Procedures, Summary 

There are many resources for these sections in the writing center and research center; I am going to concentrate on the ones that lead to the most issues for students: Methodology and Ethics. Naturally, every study is very different, but a few general comments can be made.  

Remember that your Methodology section should be written in enough detail that someone could replicate your study exactly based on your description. Some things to consider, how many people will participate? You need a rationale for the number, whether it is from a power calculation for quantitative studies (Google "power analysis calculator" for info) or convention for qualitative ones (cite your sources). 

How will you recruit participants? You want to use flyers? Where will you post them? You will need to include the flyer in the appendix. You want to recruit from an online support group? Which ones? What will you say about the study? Include that info in the appendix. You will need written permission from any groups that agree to help you, those letters will go in the appendix. 

How will the participants interact with you? An online survey? Where will it be posted? How will they access it? In person interview? Where will it be done? How long will it take? You will need to include any surveys and interview questions in the appendix. 

All participants will be required to sign a consent form, and anyone under 18 needs an assent form (parents sign the consent form). Any forms that the participant will see need to be in the appendix. 

There are many possible ethical issues; one of the most common scenarios is when you want to use people at your workplace. There are many concerns with this, read the information sheets on the IRB website. Similarly, if you would like to recruit vulnerable populations (some examples, children, elderly, ill people, prisoners, military), read the information sheets on the IRB website, and if you think your population fits these cases, send the IRB an email and talk to them (IRB@waldenu.edu). The IRB will help you work through issues. 

One final resource I want to mention, if you are having a difficult time working out issues with your methods or your analyses sections, Walden has methodological and statistical consultants. Here is the tricky part- students are not allowed to contact them directly, however, your chair or methodologist can contact them on your behalf. They are very knowledgeable and can help resolve those tricky issues. 

Next time we will take a look at the care & feeding of committee members.

The Pain of Writing

Writing is painful. Sorry, that tends to be everyone's reality. It is hard work to think through complex ideas and find the best way to present them so that someone else can understand them. I am not going to go into a lot of detail about writing specifics; Walden has an amazing writing center that is very happy to help you! 

A few general things though, first if you find it very hard to write, I recommend this book: 

Saltzman, J. (1993). If You Can Talk, You Can Write. Grand Central Publishing. 

As you can see, it is an older book, so it is available very cheaply on Amazon. It will reduce your anxiety and will help you get something down on paper. I strongly recommend reading your paper aloud; you will catch many errors. If nothing else, read to your dog or cat, they will find you fascinating! You will reduce the number of needed corrections by simply rereading your paper carefully.

Be prepared and open to many revisions. Your committee has much more experience in writing at this level, trust their guidance. At a doctoral level, revisions are simply part of the writing process. Professionals also have to rewrite their papers many times, keep in mind that the final article you see in the journal has little resemblance to where it started. As an example, a recent article that I wrote with colleagues went through 25 revisions (yes, I counted!). 

What should you look for in revisions? Read a sentence aloud and see if you can restate it more clearly. You want to be very precise in your meaning. Let me give you an example from one of my papers that I wrote with some colleagues. Here is the original draft of the first few sentences of the paper:

By 2020, one in six American citizens will be elderly or over 65 years old (U.S. Census, 1993). The number of oldest old individuals over 85 years old will reach 6.6 million in 2020 and is expected to triple by 2050 and reach 18-19 million (Administration on Aging [AoA], 2010). The rapid growth of the elderly and the oldest-old population is a growing concern to the healthcare system, as it must prepare to provide increased support services. 

Here is the final version: 

The 2000 U.S. Census (2001) reported 4.2 million people were over the age of 85 (1.5% of the population), this group has been designated the “the oldest-old” by demographers, and is the most rapidly growing age group.  Currently the cost of health service utilization for the oldest-old averages $22,000 per year compared to $9,000 for individuals 65-74 years old (Krause, 2010). 

What is different? The 2^nd version is much clearer, concise, and more to the point that the first.

One final issue, I think it is very important that you understand the dissertation from the faculty's viewpoint; it may explain much of their feedback to you. Throughout the dissertation process, and even after it is published, your committee's names are attached to it. When the URR (or IRB, etc.) criticizes a student's work, one of the first questions that is asked is "who is the chair?" The student is expected to make errors; the chair's role is to catch as many as possible.

Next time, we will move to Chapter 3, Research Methods.

The Lonely Task of Writing

By definition, writing is a task done alone, with minimal distractions. Such an environment can be difficult to find in a busy household particularly with small children. You will need to find a way to deal with these needs. Some suggestions from other students: find a space that allows you to close the door- even a large closet will work. Recruit or hire a babysitter for a couple of hours to allow you some writing time. Work early in the morning or late at night. Write during your lunch hour. Do you have other ideas? We would love to hear them.

One way to structure your time, is to set goals for yourself for each week of the quarter, leading to a final goal for the term. Hold yourself to these goals. You can even break it down further and set a goal for each day. Consider, if you wrote just one page per day, in a quarter you would have written 90 pages! Some people set an alarm; they must sit and work on the paper for an hour, until the alarm goes off. The important thing is to develop some writing habits, making your dissertation a priority. Otherwise, it is just too easy to let the rest of your life take precedence. Your paper is not going to shout at you to write it. Your chair will probably not nag you. You have to make the decision that receiving your degree is important enough to set time aside every day to write. 

It is a great idea to form a dissertation support group; members could be other students at Walden, students in your dissertation class, or others you know who are in the dissertation process. Commit to supporting each other regularly, sharing your frustrations, and your joys. People who have not gone through the process, however well meaning, do not really understand the stress involved. Get some support!

To reduce your isolation, there is a new Capstone Writing Community that I wanted to share with you. Here is a copy of the email I received on it: 

The goal of the Walden Capstone Writing Community is to somewhat replicate the community of student scholars that I found incredibly valuable as I wrote my dissertation.  The capstone writing process is lonely enough at a brick and mortar university; based on some conversations I’ve had with students, the isolation can be even more overwhelming in a virtual environment. The community is a place to talk about research, writing, and the challenges of earning a doctorate without the pressure of “sounding smart” in front of content faculty or the formality of discussion forums in Blackboard.  It provides an opportunity to share questions and ideas with editors and fellow doctoral candidates.

A social networking site, accessible only by invitation, serves as the hub for community resources and initiatives. The community site includes videos, blogs, and discussion forums. I am logged into the site whenever I am at my computer, so I am frequently available live if students need a quick pep talk.  As the community grows, I will ask other editors to spend some time on the site to provide more informal contact, beyond the existing editor@waldenu.edu mailbox.   

I am most excited about our weekly meet-ups, where students can talk informally (live, via GoToMeeting) about writing struggles and successes, support each other in their projects, and hold each other accountable. We just held our first meet-up, and the response was quite positive.  The participants seemed excited to have an opportunity check in with each other.  As more members join, I anticipate holding multiple meet-ups per week, to accommodate busy Walden students’ schedules.   

This project is designed to be fluid and flexible.  The site includes a forum in which members can suggest resources and services, which I will do my best to provide.  As our numbers grow, I will be able to add features like discipline or program specific groups, live text chat, and integration with other social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).   

Any Walden doctoral candidate currently writing a capstone is welcome to join.  Clicking the following link will take students to an invitation to the group.  I will then be notified to approve the new member, and he or she will have full access to the community site. 

http://waldencwc.ning.com/?xgi=3xs8QjmI5KQGzU 

Please encourage any students to email me at kevin.schwandt@waldenu.edu if they have any questions.  

Thanks!

Kevin Schwandt, PhD

Dissertation Editor and Coordinator of Capstone Writing Initiatives

 

Next time we will talk about writing issues in general, and then we will move on to Chapter 3. 

Chapter 2, the Literature Review: Getting Started

Today, we begin to consider Chapter 2, the Literature Review. It often feels overwhelming to think about writing the literature review. Let's begin by checking the dissertation template and appropriate checklist (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods), available in the research center. These documents indicate that there are the following headings in chapter 2: Introduction, Literature Search Strategy, Theoretical Foundation, Conceptual Framework (as appropriate), Literature Review, and Summary and Conclusions. So I suggest starting by writing those in your draft.

 

Save the Introduction for later, since you are not sure where you are going yet. The search strategy means in which database did you look for articles, and what terms did you enter, to do so. Keep track of those as you go. I suggest starting with an outline; list the theories you have found in the literature that are relevant to your study. If there are philosophical or theoretical concepts list those. Next, let's start on an outline of the major part of the chapter, the literature review.

The best way to start the literature review is to think of the broadest category of your variables and work down to the most narrow. Let's say that you are interested in older adults and their opinion of their health care provider (one of my own research interests). You would want to start with aging and the elderly, providing demographics, what constitutes "elderly," and discussing the importance of the age group. Then move to elderly and health care, showing why this is an important topic. Next, the elderly and their health care provider. Since this is the most narrow category and the key area of interest, you will want to discuss this in more depth. Particularly addressing how this area has been examined methodologically. This study is a mixed method one, so you will administer some surveys as well as interview participants. So next, you will discuss each of the survey instruments, examining their previous use with the age group, and in the context of health care. If anyone has examined the relationship of the surveys with health care providers, you will want to include this too. 

Here is the starting outline for the chapter, and my notes: 

A. Introduction

B. Search Strategy

C. Theories

             1. Theory A

             2. Theory B

D. Concepts/ philosophy (if appropriate)

             1. Info on mixed methods, philosophy behind it

E. Literature Review

1. Aging and the elderly, include demographics

2. Elderly and health care, why do we care about topic?

3. Elderly and their health care provider

                        a. Include methods used previously

b. Previous findings

c. What is missing from previous research?

d. What does my study add?

4. Survey instruments

a. Survey A

                                        1. Used with my age group?

                                        2. Used in health care research?

                                        3. Used in health care providers research?

b. Survey B

                                        1. Used with my age group?

                                        2. Used in health care research?

                                        3. Used in health care providers research

F. Summary and Conclusions 

You will refine this as you search the literature and bring in related areas; but to begin the chapter you now have some direction. Pick a topic and start writing about it. Use your research journal to keep track of your starting outline and any notes to yourself as you go. I am a big fan of track changes and including comments to myself as I write (e.g., "find more about this topic," or "check Smith et al. paper- did they say this too?"). 

I have a tendency to find interesting but tangential literature that can lead me far from my topic; the outline keeps bringing me back to task. Think of it as a map of where you are planning to go. 

I recommend adding in your references as you go, otherwise, you will spend several long frustrating hours later trying to track them down. Prevent plagiarism by never copying into your paper. Instead, read the passage you are interested in, and restate it in your own words (including your own old papers). You want to avoid quotes, saying it in your own words is always better. 

Next time, we'll consider the lonely task of writing, structuring your time, and getting help. 

 

If you would like to see how the study outlined above looks in journal form (shorter literature review than for a dissertation) see: 

Stadtlander, L., Giles, M., Sickel, A., Brooks, E., Brown, C., Cormell, M., Ewing, L., Hart, D., Koons, D., Olson, C., Parker, P., Semenova, V., & Stoneking, S. (2013). Independent Living Oldest-Old and Their Primary Health Provider: A Mixed Method Examination of the Influence of Patient Personality Characteristics. Journal of Applied Gerontology. (Available in Walden Library's Psychology/ Sage database)

Mailbag

How can I find a gap in the literature?

This is definitely one of the trickier aspects of research! My suggestion is to first, pick a major topic in which you are interested. Then start reading the literature about this area (take notes in your research journal). Pay attention to the discussion section; the author(s) will suggest areas that they have found to need more research. Once you have narrowed down your topic area, do searches with the term "review" as a search term. This will bring up articles that are just literature reviews of the topic. Pay special attention to what the author(s) suggest as areas still in need of research. Once you think you have found a gap, do searches to make sure no one has done the study you are considering. Write your search terms, databases used, and articles that you found helpful in your research journal.

 I need to do a PowerPoint for my defense, do you have any suggestions?

Typically, you will only have about 20 minutes for your portion of the defense (the rest of the hour is questions), so it is best to have 20 or so slides. It is usually best to just have key points on the slides, you can write out the rest and read it. For the proposal, concentrate most on the methods and analysis, with just enough theory and literature to put it into context. For the final defense, concentrate on c. 4 & 5, with enough of the proposal to put it into context.

I do have examples of quantitative and qualitative PowerPoint for both proposal and final defenses. If you would like to see one of these, just send me an email and tell me your type of study and what stage you are in the process.