Understanding the Problem of Practice: An Analysis of Professional Practice Ed.D. Dissertations

• In Event: 58.063 - Developing Practitioners

Abstract

As new professional practice doctoral programs have been launched across the country, there has been a need to reconceptualize the dissertation experience of these programs to clearly distinguish it from the Ph.D. dissertation. In response to this need, we used document analysis to better understand 1) what dissertations in one professional practice doctoral program have looked like, 2) the nature of the problems of practice our students have studied, and 3) the reported impact the study of these problems have had in their local contexts. Based on our findings, we developed four guidelines for deriving problems of practice to assist doctoral students across the nation in framing Ed.D. dissertation studies to better differentiate them from Ph.D. dissertations.

Authors

• Vera Wei Ma, University of Florida

• Nancy Fichtman Dana, University of Florida

• Alyson J. Adams, University of Florida

• Brianna L. Kennedy, Utrecht University