Assignment 5: Team Assignment

DPS vs. Traditional Doctoral Programs

A Comparison of the DPS Agile Approach and the Traditional Approach to the Dissertation Process

Team 3: Diah Schur, Gonzalo Perez, Mike Egbert, Novelle Maxwell-Sinclair

Introduction

Doctoral programs require dedication, discipline, tenacity, and a passion for your field of study. Many students, who embark on a doctoral program, intrinsically possess qualities like those mentioned; thus providing the impetus to enter into a doctoral program. However, even with the student’s zeal, retention and completion rates are an issue of shared interest for students, professors and school administrators. Recognizing this, some of the major factors that impact completion rates, including work-life balance, were studied to understand if an alternative approach to the dissertation process could address and positively influence retention, completion rates and the student’s ability to better manage work-life balance. This report reviews the traditional approach to the dissertation process compared to the Doctorate of Professional Studies (DPS) Agileapproach.

Traditional Approach

Traditional doctoral programs are designed to provide extensive expertise in a specialized field. In most cases, candidates are trained to pursue a life in academia as a professor or researcher. However, many do not follow this path. In most cases, completing such a degreeis anunnerving process, requiring a high level of commitment to learning, required coursework, research, self-study and ultimately, preparing the dissertation. In most cases, these traditional programs require students to commit to their studies on a full time basis.Consequently, most of these candidates spend up to ten years earning their degree.“The analysis of baseline program completion data (CGS, 2008) revealed that 20% of the students who complete Ph.D. degrees in ten years do so after year seven.” [5]This commitment combined with the overall structure of these programs result in many students not completing the program.

Source: Council of Graduate Schools
Completion and Attrition Program Data

In the first two to three years of a traditional doctoral program, candidates generally take courses to satisfy their degree requirements and gain a broad knowledge of the field. They choose an advisor and write a dissertation proposal, and they develop a working relationship with other professors in their department. Additionally, most traditional doctoral students also work as teaching assistants for one or more undergraduate or graduate courses, and some work as research assistants.

At the end of the second or third year, traditional doctoral students complete a thesis, take comprehensive exams or both. The thesis and/or exams demonstrate their qualification to continue with doctoral work.

In years four through six, fewer courses are taken and the focus is on writing the dissertation, which constitutes a new and meaningful contribution to knowledge in the field of study. At this stage, students are expected to become experts in their fields. For many, this is grueling and pressuring, and most students spend much of these years alone in the library, conducting extensive research. Throughout this time, students work closely with their advisor and others in their department to revise and refine their dissertation.After completing the dissertation, students are required to present and defend their work before a faculty committee.

So with this traditional, waterfall-like approach to the program and dissertation process, students found themselves doing a significant amount of upfront planning and completing pre-dissertation requirements. Ultimately, they sacrifice time writing the dissertation which at this stage becomes a huge, overwhelming task. There just has to be a better way!

Doctor of Professional Studies (DPS) Agile Approach

DPS provides professionals an opportunity to pursue a doctoral degree while maintaining full time employment. This is a unique approach to facilitate working professionals who want to do research in an industrial setting; thus it is considered to be a research doctorate equivalent to the PhD. [7,8]

DPS Agile Approach is neither a pure professional doctorate (DPS), nor an academic research doctorate (PhD), but is a combination of the two. DPS Agile synergizes both industrial practices as well as rigorous research. In the DPS program, a learning-teaching community is very prevalent and comes from each student’s industry background and faculty’s expertise; thus collaboration, cohesion, and knowledge exchange amongst students and faculty grow tremendously. [9]

Students come from fairly different professional backgrounds and experience. The DPS Agile Approach does not implement a course structure common in traditional doctorate program. Team-work plays a major role in this program. A team will consist of students from different background, thus they all would contribute to the learning process based on each individual area of expertise.

The first year of study, the program focuses on three most major areas of study that every professional in this area should know. The second year of study, the program will focus on the emerging areas of the study. The third year of study, student is expected to be close to the dissertation finish line. The process would be: [10]

End of Year 1 to early Year 2:

  1. Select a suitable research problem
  2. Literature review
  3. Submit idea paper
  4. Begin research

Summer of Year 2 to end of Year 3:

  1. Select a research approach
  2. Conduct the research and interact with advisor updating with iteration
  3. Status report
  4. Committee meetings and defense

Unlike the traditional approach, DPS Agile Approach would guide students to focus on their research interest from the beginning of their first semester under the guidance of faculty advisors. Therefore, as they go further to the second year and third year, the dissertation draft would mature along the way as well. A summary of the DPS Agile approach is as follows:

  1. Start small with any simple thing that can work, incremental, and constant testing. A mapped function within the dissertation process is: start with idea paper, further develop the paper based on this idea, and continuously and constantly defend and develop it.
  2. Team work is a major important aspect of this study approach. Working in a team will increase the success of completing the program. Team members would support each other and learn from each other.
  3. Clarification of dissertation topic and progress will be a continuous process. This is a Socratic method to get clear understanding through confrontational dialogue. Wikipedia: Socratic Method is “...asking a series of questions surrounding a central issue, and answering questions of the others involved. Generally this involves the defense of one point of view against another and is oppositional.” [11]
  4. Maintaining repository of ideas, thoughts, data, etc. about the chosen dissertation topic.
  5. Express the ideas in writing to get a better understanding of the topics, and to enable the development of the dissertation draft.
  6. The use of writing tools and presentation.

Comparison of the Traditional and DPS Approach

Traditional and DPS approaches differ in many areas. The traditional approach to a doctorate is focused on extensive academic expertise in a highly specialized/vertical field. The traditional approach can last 7-10 years versus 3-4 years for the DPS approach. A traditional approach aligns itself with a waterfall process versus an agile process.

PhD students are typically pursuing an academic career as either a professor or professional researcher, whereas DPS students are typically engaged in a full-time profession that is not connected to academia, but to the private sector. The waterfall approach is more aligned to traditional as it is very structured with a step by step approach, lasting many years following the framework (i.e., not very agile). The latter is a major reason why traditional approaches are difficult to retain students that are not interested in a career in academia and need to work full time. The commitments toa traditional approach can demand so much time that working a full-time job would cause many to drop out, affecting completion rates.

Traditional approaches tend to be individually driven. Compare that to the DPS approach where team work is a major part of the up-front learning’s before the dissertation phase. Teaming with people that have the same demands (life-work balance) and objectives in obtaining their doctorate degrees is a wonderful support system, enabling students to share and rely on each other to remain accountable; keeping the end goal in sight (i.e., encouraging each other). As a result of teaming, all learn a true velocity in terms of productivity, as work can bedivided up into smaller chunks that can be worked on by all team members. The DPS approach does not adhere to a rigid framework found in traditional doctorate program (i.e., waterfall vs. agile).

The following is a high-level breakdown of comparativesbetween a traditional and DPS approach to a dissertation:

Traditional Approach / DPS Agile Approach
Highly academic-research focused / Professionally focused with research
Professors / Researchers / Private sector professionals with non-academic careers
7-10 years / 3-4 years
Rigid framework / Adaptive and agile framework
Waterfall driven / Agile driven
Individually focused throughout / Team driven
Work-life balance difficult / Work-life balance better managed
Produces lower retention and completion rates / Improves retention and completion rates

Conclusion

As a consequence of analyzing poor retention and completion rates for students perusing post-graduate studies in a traditional doctoral program, the DPS Agileapproachwas developed; thus providing a positive impact on retention and completion rates, as well as enabling students to achieve their doctorate degrees;some of whommay not have been able to complete their doctorates using the traditional approach.

We have examined bothapproaches, compared each approach and have shown how each approach could meet specific objectives. However, there exists a common denominator with both the traditional and DPS approach; that being the student’s passion to do post-graduate studies in their field of expertise, as well as a desire to make a contribution in their field. These qualities drive the reason students want to complete a doctoral program. Introduction of the DPS Agile approach has provided an alternative to the traditional approach; enabling higher retention and completion rates, and providing an alternative approach to those students who would not be able to complete in a traditional approach.

References

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5] Council of Graduate Schools. (2008, September). Ph.D. completion and attrition: Analysis of baseline demographic data from the Ph.D. Completion Project. Retrieved from [PDF].

[6] Hitt, E. (2009). Finding a partner for your Ph.D.

[7] USNEI, US. Department of Education, Report on Graduate Postsecondary Education—Research Doctorates,

[8] Sloan Career Cornerstone Center, Research Doctorates,

[9] A Research Doctorate for Computing Professionals—A Ten Year Experience. Fred Grossman, Charles Tappert, Joe Bergin, Susan M. Merritt

[10] Agile DPS Dissertation Process, Power Point Presentation, Charles Tappert

[11] Wikipedia on Socratic Method

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