Program Design Concepts
There are six program design concepts that are an integral part of the doctorate program.
- Signature Pedagogy is the pervasive set of practices used to prepare scholarly practitioners to think, to perform, and to act with integrity. It challenges assumptions, engages in action, and requires ongoing assessments and accountability
- Laboratories of Practice are settings where theory and practice inform and enrich each other. They address complex problems of practice where ideas formed by intersection of theory, inquiry, and practice can be implemented, measured, and analyzed for the impact made.
- Problem of Practice is as a persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a professional practitioner, the addressing of which the potential to result in has improved understanding, experience, and outcomes
- Scholarly Practitioners blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice. They use practical research and applied theories as tools for change
- Inquiry as Practice is the process of posing significant questions that focus on complex problems of practice and the ability to gather, organize, judge, aggregate, and analyze situations, literature, and data with a critical lens
- Dissertation in Practice is a scholarly endeavor that affects a complex problem of practice
The doctoral dissertation represents the candidate’s contribution to the educational knowledge base. The dissertation should display mastery of, and the ability to apply research findings to, new analyses, syntheses, interpretations, and other research methods and procedures in order to contribute to the improvement of practice in leadership. The purpose of the dissertation is to produce knowledge, insight, materials, and/or new methods in the candidate’s field of specialization. It may replicate and extend an earlier study for the purpose of correcting errors, eliminating shortcomings, and enhancing or clarifying it. The dissertation must be meaningful and provide evidence of familiarity with existing research in the field.
The student is responsible for certifying that the dissertation has been prepared in accordance with the regulations in this guide and that it is the student’s own work. The text should be proofread and free of grammatical errors and typos. For support with editing, students may contact the Writing Center. The dissertation author bears ultimate responsibility for meeting all of the formatting and style requirements set forth by the University and the dissertation committee. It is extremely important that the author carefully review and proofread the dissertation before the final submission. If format errors exist, the dissertation will be returned and this may delay graduation. After the dissertation has been submitted to and received by library staff, changes will not be permitted.
The overall dissertation format is standard, with the dissertation having four chapters that are completed in three blocks.
- Chapter 1: Moving from a Problem to a Problem of Practice
- Chapter 2: Review of Knowledge and Action: Literature Review
- Chapter 3: Methods and Designs for Action: Methodology
- Chapter 4: Description of Findings and Recommended Actions
The reference list for the completed dissertation is placed after Chapter Four and before any appendix. Documents, tables and figures whose importance to the text is tangential may be handled as appendix material.