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Help With Your Dissertation

Difficulty of Getting Constructive Feedback on Your Dissertation

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I learned early on as a faculty member that it was pretty easy and efficient to judge the work of others. You can easily spot issues with dissertations (and all research for that matter). Why?

There is no such thing as a perfect study. Every piece of research I have ever done, reviewed or read has issues. The only question turns on whether the research is good enough to pass through the scrutiny of a Ph.D. committee or the scrutiny of a journal review panel.

It really does not take much time to spot problems which you can always proclaim – as a faculty advisor – are “fatal flaws”. Of course, – there is really no such thing as a flaw which is fatal – it is just an issue that needs to be addressed in the review process.

When you hear a faculty member say that the study has a “fatal flaw” what is the underlying truth here? The underling statement is:

I do not have the time to think through the problem and help you solve it.

Why not you ask? This may seem like a cheesy cop out, but the truth in the pudding is that it takes a great deal of thought to suggestion solutions to many of the problems that are flagged. Some of the problems you may be having are the same problems your professor is having with their own research.

When a faculty member declares that a dissertation proposal has a fatal flaw they do not have to torture themselves with working on how to solve the “flaw.” It is most likely the case that they can not even solve the “fatal flaws” in their own research.

Robert Rodgers, Ph.D.
Consultations

Help With Your Dissertation

Why Do Doctoral Students Find it So Difficult to Get Help With Their Dissertations?

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When entering into a Ph.D. program the hope is that feedback given on dissertations will be timely. Rapid turnaround will be the rule and the custom. After all, it is difficult to complete a Ph.D. program when months go by and you do not know where you stand.

Is your dissertation good enough? Is it passable? Does it need to be re-written before it is defended?

These questions are seldom answered. Few firm commitments are made about when a student can expect to finish.

My personal involvement with serving as chair and committee member of countless Ph.D. programs is that students hear mostly about what is wrong with their work, but slow to hear what they need to do to fix their dissertations so they can be successfully defended.

This negative approach actually embodies the belief template of the academic culture. The focus is on what is wrong. The tendency is to criticize. The custom of the culture in academic life is to judge harshly – always. It is not a good life for those with tender hearts.

This is what happens in the review process of academic papers. One way to look at the process is simply to acknowledge that you are being indoctrinated into a culture that is light on positives and heavy on judgment.

If you are a person that needs to be nurtured and held – you best find another profession.

Robert Rodgers, Ph.D.
Consultations

Dissertation Committees

Who Reads Dissertations?

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There is a preconceived anticipation that Ph.D. students hold about their committee’s involvement with their dissertations. Students anticipate that each committee member will thoroughly review each chapter of their dissertation. They will make constructive comments that will help the student improve the presentation and tighten up the presentation.

In an ideal world perhaps this is true. In a world that is not found in our galaxy perhaps. But from my personal experience serving as a committee member on countless dissertations, committee members who actually read dissertations are the exception rather than the rule.

Robert Rodgers, Ph.D.
Consultations

measurement error

Measurement Error

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Perhaps the most significant barrier to discovery in science is measurement error. A single measure of any construct – it really does not matter what you are measuring – is tainted with measurement error.

The idea of measurement error is relatively easy to understand if you are trying to measure psychological states like greed or guilt or depression. Everyone can agree that the measurement of such vague constructs is difficult and bound to miss the mark by a wide margin.

Measurement of even physical constructs has measurement error. If you and I measure the length of a football field, I may come up with 102 yards. You may come up with 99 yards.

Once you acknowledge the huge role measurement error plays in all of the sciences, you will honor the importance of using more than one variable to measure whatever construct you have decided to measure. When you us more than one measure of your construct – you can actually correct for the attenuating effects of measurement error. The role of error which is uncorrected masks the true relationship.

I suggest that whenever possible, design you dissertation so that each construct has more than one measure. And incidentally, if you are interested in publishing the results of your dissertation, using multiple measures of the same construct is expected by most reviewers.

Robert Rodgers, Ph.D.
Consultations

sample size

Design of Rigorous Studies

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With a large sample- you are virtually guaranteed of getting significance.

Many students are glued to the idea of significance testing. They want to design a dissertation that will lend itself to being “rigorously tested” using statistical analyses.

Statistical testing is anything but “rigorous.” If you design a study with a large sample – you are virtually guaranteed of getting significance. If you design a study with a small sample, your chances of finding significance are slim indeed. Now that does not sound very rigorous does it?

To make matters worse – the large sample study may show significance but the size of the effect could be very, very small. The small sample study will not show significance, but the size of the effect could be huge. It is the size of the effect that counts.

What if you want to design a study with a small sample? Present it as a qualitative study. In my book of “rigorous” designs, the qualitative study beats the quantitative study every time.

Robert Rodgers, Ph.D.
Consultations

 

Choice of a Disseration

The Problem with Most Dissertation Proposals

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You have decided to earn a Ph.D. You are ready to devote your time and energy to revealing new discoveries to the world of science. As you immerse yourself into the process of learning research skills, you are probably amazed at how much time and trouble doing a single study takes.

With this realization, you may be thinking that if you are going to have to spend 1-2 years doing a dissertation, it might as well be a study that makes a significant contribution to the field – a study that will make a name for yourself. What does this mean?

It means for most people that you carve out a very large research question that will take more than 2 years to complete. How about 6-8 years?

I made one helpful suggestion to every one of my Ph.D. students that made it possible for them to complete their programs. Here is my speech.

“You have developed some interesting – might I say intriguing ideas here. How long do you suppose it will take to finish your dissertation?

Here is the typical answer.

“Probably a year – maybe a year and a half”

“If this were my program of research, it would take me 8 years. Did you plan on hanging around that long as a Ph.D. student?”

Every student I ever worked with took on too many questions. They do a great job of laying out a 5-10 year program of research.

As I see it – you have 3 studies here. Why not choose one for your dissertation and delay the other two for later?

I am discussing this as a faculty member. This is also what I did as a Ph.D. student. This is what most people do from my experience. If you want to finish your Ph.D. program, you have to focus on one and only one question to ask.

It sounds simple. Believe me – it is not simple. It only looks simple after you are finished.

Robert Rodgers. Ph.D.
Consultations

dissertation proposals

Stuggling to Formulate a Dissertation Proposal that Will Change the World?

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There is a universal theme that I have identified with preparing a dissertation proposal. Everyone I have helped as a faculty member and through this website initially pitches a proposal that embraces 2, 3 or even 4 dissertations. When learning research everyone has ambitious ideas of what can be said and accomplished in a dissertation. Given the constraints and demands of scientific inquiry, all studies have to focus on a narrow question that can be empirically tested.

Why is it so difficult to shrink your ambition about what your dissertation proposal will say to the world? I suspect it is because people earning a Ph.D. degree want to make a large contribution to the world. You want to make a difference. In the case of science that is empirical in nature, the scientist has to take small steps that are deliberate and focused.

If your committee is giving your grief about your proposal it is probably because you have pitched a proposal to do a study that is much too ambitious, especially if you have any intention of finishing within a year or two.

What can you do about this problem? Think of your original proposal as 3 studies. Then, decide which of the three studies you really want to make your dissertation. You can work on the other two studies after you have earned your Ph.D. if you are so inclined.

Robert Rodgers, Ph.D.
Consultations