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Practitioner Dissertation Criteria and Rating Scale Overview
Dissertation Criteria and Rating Scale Crosswalk
The purpose of this document is to provide a practical overview of the Dissertation Criteria and Rating Scale. The document provides information on two levels of the scale: baseline information is provided for each tab of the Microsoft®Excel® document, derived from the revised dissertation process; and summary detail is provided for the domains contained therein, summarized from the criteria in the scale.
Tab 1: Concept Paper Review
The concept paper review is a review of a basic outline of the foundations of a candidate’s dissertation research. This review is conducted as an evaluative assessment for DOC/721R. At this point in their respective programs, candidates need only develop an outline that details three elements: problem formation, contribution to knowledge, and an initial discussion of the relevant scholarship that delineates and contextualizes the proposed study, which correspond to the first three subdomains of the scale. At this stage, candidates are assessed on their capability in developing a feasible, appropriate study for doctoral-level inquiry.
Problem Formation
Criteria address the ways in which the research background has been articulated, how a need for inquiry has developed from this background, why this inquiry is needed, and how the researcher is proposing to undertake this inquiry. Accordingly, elements from subsequent sections of the rating scale may be present in this domain, but they should be summative accounts. This domain also addresses the alignment of the research design to the question, thus the study’s feasibility and appropriateness.
Tab 2: Committee Review - Literature
The candidate’s dissertation committee, because of their expertise in the field of inquiry, assess that the candidate’s treatment of the literature is adequate to doctoral-level inquiry. At this level, the candidatemust have exhaustively reviewed, synthesized, and situated the literature corresponding to the study’s topic, its methodological approach, and its potential contribution to the discipline.
Literature Review
The domain that addresses the study’s literature review contains several elements related to content and form: coverage of the content literature, coverage of the methodological literature, synthesis of the literature, a treatment of the dissertation’s significance in relation to the literature, and the rhetorical narrative developed via the review. In short, literature reviews are expected to show evidence of candidates’ awareness of the literature related to their study, and the literature that describes and supports the decision to utilize their method of inquiry. These elements should be synthesized into a cogent narrative that provides a comprehensive background to, argues the need for, and situates the proposed research in the discipline.
Tab 3: Quality Review - Proposal
All candidates submit their dissertation proposals for a quality review by appointed faculty. This review ensures that the candidatehas clarified the research questions and hypotheses he or she is using to guide the study, and developed a method and approach to inquiry that appropriately responds to the problem, the question, and the literature.
Design and Logic
Criteria focus on the detailed account of a proposed study’s design. Subdomains also focus on the appropriate application of a research tradition to the proposed area of inquiry and the comprehensive alignment of the study’s design, intent, and intended outcomes.
Tab 4: IRB Review
Largely because of the difficulty in assessing ethical components in proposed or completed research, application of this tab is largely the purview of the Institutional Review Board (IRB). These criteria are assessed via evidence from the proposal, and the IRB forms that must be completed by all candidates prior to data collection.
Ethics in Reporting
Criteria focus on the appropriate use and reporting of informed consent, strategies for ensuring participant confidentiality, and the clarity, safety, and transparency of procedure in the research design and protocols.
Tab 5: Quality Review - Final
The final quality review centers on the data analysis and interpretation components of the study. The review is conducted by appointed faculty and qualified external reviewers to ensure that the highest levels of intellectual rigor are maintained in the systematic process of analyzing and contextualizing data in terms of the study’s design. As such, a candidatecannot defend his or her dissertation until successfully completing this quality review.
Sources of Evidence
Criteria center on the description of the study’s data sources, how collection processes were engaged throughout the research, the larger context in which data collection took place, and the ways in which these procedures supported the research design and intent.
Measurement and Classification
Criteria address the presence, accuracy, and clarity of a researcher’s structuring and organizing data. Elements assessed include coding structures, descriptive statistics, scales, data reduction techniques, and member checking regarding researchercoding and classifications.
Analysis and Interpretation
A general set of criteria are applied to all dissertations regarding data analysis and interpretation.These criteria center on the nature of the evidence that supports any outcomes or claims, the presence of some inquiry toward disconfirming evidence, congruence with the research questions and outcomes suggested from the evidence, linkages between interpretation, previous research described in the literature review, and the contributions of the present study.
Quantitative Study Analysis and Interpretation
For quantitative research, the scale enhances these criteria with additional emphases on the presence and accurate utilization or interpretation of descriptive and inferential statistics, statistical testing, effect indices, and considerations of possible compromises to the study’s validity.
Qualitative Study Analysis and Interpretation
For qualitative research, the scale enhances these criteria with additional emphases on the clarity and transparency of interpretation processes, warranting for claims grounded in concrete examples from the data, and greater contextualization of the claims, due to the subjective nature of qualitative inquiry.
Generalization
This domain addresses the intended scope of a study’s generalizability, the depth of the researcher’s discussion of the study’s population and context, and the logic applied to any claims of generalization.