by Augie Morado
The Department of Counseling and
Higher Education at NIU offers doctoral students in its Ed.D. in Community
College Leadership program the option to submit a “dissertation of practice”
rather than a conventional, monographic dissertation.
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According to the Community
College Leadership page on the Department of Counseling and Higher Education’s
site (pictured above), the dissertation of practice, also called “dissertation in practice,” “takes
an innovative practice-based approach to research.” Although the page says
little else at the moment about this genre, it is an intriguing alternative to
the traditional dissertation that virtually all doctoral candidates submit. In
this month’s post, I will define the dissertation of practice further and discuss
what it means for candidates in the Community College Leadership program.
Ed.D.
vs Ph.D.
The Doctor of Education (Ed.D.)
differs from the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in that the former is focused on
preparing students to solve practical problems related to pedagogy, whereas the
latter tends to emphasize theory. Storey
et al. (2015) point out that universities in the past have had a tendency
to conflate the requirements of their Ed.D. and Ph.D. programs – in other
words, making the Ed.D. requirements match those of the Ph.D., including the
capstone project: the dissertation. However, given that the Ed.D. and Ph.D. are
intended to prepare candidates for different career paths – i.e., for the Ed.D.,
leadership and administrative positions in schools – it seems unreasonable to
expect that the final requirement for the Ed.D. should match the Ph.D.
What
Is a Dissertation of Practice?
Duquesne University’s School of
Education defines the dissertation of practice as
scholarship focused
by a lens of social justice on a problem of practice that is addressed by a
design for action that yields generative impacts on the practice of educational
leadership. (Dissertation
in Practice, n.d., p. 2)
Storey et al. (2015) supplement
this definition with a list of criteria for what an effective doctoral
candidate in education should be able to do by the time they complete their
program. From the previous two definitions, they echo things such as the importance
of “equity, ethics, and social justice” in solving practical education problems
as well as other things such as maintaining relationships with people in the
communities that Ed.D. grads are working in.
The dissertation of practice can
take a number of forms. It could be a portfolio of one’s published scholarly
work, a performance of one’s work (e.g., “music, visual arts, drama”), or the
sum of one’s practice through professional work and/or internships, to name a
few (Storey et al., 2015, What
Makes a Professional Practice DiP?).
What seems most important about the dissertation of practice,
regardless of its format, is that it solves a problem in an organized way.
Duquesne’s School of Education offers a three-step process: first, identifying a
Problem of Practice, a problem that exists currently in a professional setting
(as opposed to a theoretical problem such as a Ph.D. candidate would address);
second, developing a Design for Action, an empirically based plan for
addressing the issue; and third, discussing Generative Impacts, specific ways
in which scholars and the real-world communities impacted by the research will
generate and share knowledge (pp. 6-7). Storey et al. (2015) also
emphasize the significance of generating and disseminating “new significant
knowledge,” not unlike a conventional dissertation (What Makes a Professional Practice DiP?).
Conclusion
I think it is important to stress
that the dissertation in practice does not make the monograph dissertation
obsolete; after all, the latter is still overwhelmingly the most common
capstone project at the doctorate level. However, given the unique focus on
timely, practical problem solving, the dissertation in practice offers
candidates in the Ed.D. program a chance to conduct original research while
also building professional and personal relationships with the students,
families, teachers, and administrators in the settings where they work. As NIU
continues to develop its Community College Leadership Ed.D. program, more
likely than not, the ways in which students approach the dissertation in
practice may evolve as well. In the meantime, we at the Thesis and Dissertation
Office will keep in touch with the College of Education to better understand
the needs of their students and to better serve them as a result.
Finally, please continue to stay
safe this summer! We’re available remotely via email (Thesis@niu.edu), and we hope we will be able
to see you again in Fall 2020!
References
Community College Leadership. (n.d.). https://www.cedu.niu.edu/cahe/academic/higher-education/edd-community-college-leadership.shtml
Duquesne
University School of Education. (n.d.). Dissertation in practice. https://www.duq.edu/Documents/education/_pdf/DEFL/Dessertation-in-Practice-DU.pdf
Storey,
V., Caskey, M. M., Hesbol, K. A., Marshall, J. E., Maughan B. D., & Dolan,
A. (2015). Examining EdD dissertations in practice: The Carnegie Project on the
education doctorate. International Higher Education Teaching and Learning
Association, 5. https://www.hetl.org/examining-edd-dissertations-in-practice-the-carnegie-project-on-the-education-doctorate/
