Ask Doctoral Advising

Last week, I wrote in a fairly lighthearted vein about gaining mentor approval of doctoral work.  In just 7 days since my last post, I have had a significant number of advising calls dealing with this same subject.  I suspect the ones who called me did not read my earlier post.  Certainly they would have been fully enlightened by that profound bit of advice, so it behooves me to revisit the topic this week in hopes of continuing to spread a key aspect  of Becoming Doctoral.

A doctoral-level project e.g. the dissertation is very different from writing a paper, even a very long and involved one, for a course.  The scope of the dissertation study by its very nature is complex.  Mentors and advisors continually tell learners to pick a topic that is doable, one that contributes to the scholarly discourse, yet can be accomplished in a reasonable amount of time.  Many learners have the mistaken notion that a dissertation should take no longer than a year.  While some finish in four quarters, there is no uniform timeframe.  Each study is unique and has its own timeline, depending on its scope.    Often learners refer to the old four-dissertation course model, which has not been in place for a year.  The new milestone model is far more effective in establishing and measuring timeframes. Those of us who advise psychology learners tell them that it is more realistic to plan on six to eight quarters to complete a dissertation.

As I have said before in my posts, the dissertation must be approved at many levels. Each member of the committee has the prerogative to make certain that the research is sound and that the document clearly and accurately reflects the study being undertaken.  When a chapter, a proposal or an entire dissertation has flaws, these must be corrected before the document is approved.  I frequently encourage learners to step back from their dissertation and ask themselves the following questions: would you approve something that does not represent accepted standards?  Would you let a document that is conceptually weak and/or does not make sense proceed?  How about spelling, grammatical or APA errors?  Would you let them slide?

 I constantly remind learners that once their dissertation is uploaded, the whole world can read it.  The dissertation is usually one’s first foray into research of this type.  We know that learners do not intentionally want to be identified with substandard scholarship.  Capella is a fairly new institution and we, its faculty and staff, want our school to be known for mentoring scholars who can compete on the global stage.  We want our learners to present work that they and we can be proud of.  All of our reputations are on the line—those of the faculty, staff and Capella as an institution of higher learning.  Most important, though, is your reputation—you, the learner.  Why anyone would expect anything less puzzles me.