Giving Thanks

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, let's take a moment to think about how that relates to your dissertation. As a dissertation student, you have come so far in your education! The doctorate is considered the terminal degree, meaning, there are none higher than that. Just making it to the point of working on the dissertation is a great achievement- take a moment and realize how far you have come!  

Less than 4% of the population has a doctoral degree, you are very privileged, you are bright and capable, or you would not have gotten this far. Think of all of the faculty who have given you their time, effort, and wisdom to help you get here… they stretch out far beyond graduate school… all the way to high school, elementary school, and kindergarten. Send them blessings. 

Think about all of your classmates and friends who have helped you reach this point. All of the people who have shared your frustrations and your joys, who have been there for support. Send them thanks. 

And finally, think about your family members who have given up so much for you to achieve this goal. They have given you time to work, held you in crisis, and celebrated with you in your accomplishments. They may be your cheerleader, or your silent supporter, but you know they are behind you. Take a moment to let them know you appreciate them. 

I hope you have a wonderful holiday!  

Next time I will continue discussing data issues. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Would you like to be a guest writer? Send me your ideas! leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Data Collection Problems and Resolutions 1

Things happen in the real world when you are conducting a study, as the researcher it is your responsibility to both recognize the issue and resolve it. Over the next few posts, I will discuss some of the most common issues that may arise. 

Confidentiality breach. Imagine that you are doing a program evaluation. You will survey participants before the program begins and again after the program. In order to match each person’s pre and post program survey, you will have them write their names on each form. Somehow during the data collection a few surveys get left behind. This is a breach of confidentiality. Someone else could see the responses and know who wrote them. In a program setting, that may not seem a serious offense, but consider if it was one’s supervisor that saw a derogatory comment about him or herself. 

What to do? First, as soon as the loss is realized, get the surveys back in your possession. Second, report the breach to your committee and the IRB. They may want you to notify the individuals involved, but let them make that decision. You also may want to consider not using names in studies, instead ask people to pick a number or phrase that they will enter on the pre survey and remember for the post survey.

Next time, we will give thanks. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu

Scientific method

Research is based on the scientific method and an understanding of the method allows for a better grasp of the requirements for your dissertation research. What are the parts of the scientific method? 1) Formulation of a question. 2) Hypotheses. 3) Prediction. 4) Testing. 5) Analysis. Let's take a look at how these fit within the dissertation requirements. 

1) Formulation of a question. This step is why are required to do a thorough literature review, so you understand where the gap exists in the literature and why the study is needed. This step forms the basis of your problem statement and research questions. 

2) Hypotheses. Notice that these are formed before you do the study, this is an important aspect because you are laying out where you are going before the study is ever started. You are not allowed to change these once the proposal is approved- so spend some time on them.  

3) Prediction. In the dissertation this is done through your theoretical framework. Your theory should lead to specific predictions, which may or may not be the same as the hypotheses. 

4) Testing. This is first related to your research method, which you must lay out in advance, and you must have permission to change once the proposal has been approved. A key issue here is that it must be replicable, meaning someone else should be able to do the study based on your detailed description. The second part of this step is when you go out and collect your data.  

5) Analysis. Merely collecting the data is not enough, you must also make sense of it- this is the analyses portion. Along with this comes fitting your results in to the literature and making sense of it based on your theory – did it come out as predicted? If not, why not? 

Next time, I will discuss some data collection issues. Do you have an issue or a question that you would like me to discuss in a future post? Send me an email with your ideas. leann.stadtlander@waldenu.edu