Aim/Purpose
The purpose of this study is to introduce an instrument that contains a set of exercises intended to help doctoral students align the key sections of their dissertation document. The ...exercises are developed after providing cognitive analysis of the factors that make aligning these key sections challenging to many, and after discussing pedagogical tools that can be used to address these challenges.
Background
Writing doctoral dissertations is a formidable endeavor for numerous students. Among the myriad challenges that are faced is the issue of aligning key sections of the dissertation document. Students often struggle with conceptualizing the alignment among different sections of the various chapters of their dissertation. In this study, we introduce here an instrument that includes a set of exercises to help address the challenges of alignment in chapter one, before the issues spiral and addressing them becomes complicated.
Methodology
This paper reviews literature that discusses the underlying challenges that face the writing of doctoral dissertations in general and the alignment of the key sections in particular. It analyzes the cognitive factors that contribute to the challenges and examines the pedagogical tools that can be used to address these challenges. The review of the literature, the analysis of the cognitive, and the examination of pedagogical tools lead to the introduction of an instrument that is designed to help address the challenges of aligning the key sections of doctoral dissertations.
Contribution
This paper presents an instrument with a set of exercises that are intended to help students align key sections of their doctoral dissertation document. This alignment step is crucial to the successful completion of dissertation documents and is best tackled early in the writing. Delaying alignment or worse, ignoring alignment altogether, can complicate the issue and lead to numerous extra steps and delays. Our developed instrument here can be used to tackle this issue of alignment from the beginning and throughout the writing and completion status of dissertation documents.
Findings
Students are often faced with challenges when aligning the key sections of a doctoral dissertation. They struggle with conceptualizing the alignment process. They often write each section separately, and independently of other sections of a chapter and a dissertation. However, sections of the dissertation document are interrelated, and each section affects the writing of other sections. For the successful completion of the dissertation, the sections need to be aligned, and it would be best if these issues are tackled from the beginning of the writing and throughout the writing of the dissertation.
Recommendations for Practitioners
A methodological approach to aligning the sections of a doctoral dissertation is crucial for the resulting treatise to be coherent and present a unified purpose that threads through each chapter consistently.
Recommendations for Researchers
We recommend that doctoral students follow the exercises we introduced in the instrument provided in this paper or take other similar approaches. With-out such an approach, aligning the key sections of a doctoral dissertation will be challenging, the dissertation writing process will be more complicated, and the time necessary to complete it will lengthen.
Impact on Society
The findings of this research will help doctoral mentors/advisors as they guide students in aligning key sections of their doctoral dissertations.
Keywords
doctoral dissertation alignment, aligning sections of a doctoral dissertation, doctoral dissertation challenges
In the past, whereas much attention has been paid to exploring doctoral dissertation writing as a whole or the move analysis of results section, there is a dearth of studies examining how the ...problems keep posing for doctoral EFL students in writing such a section. The current study focused on students' problems when they write the results section of their dissertations in the fields of education and chemistry, and investigated the degree to which students' understanding was in line with that of their supervisors through semi-structured interviews with ten pairs of supervisors and students. The results showed that (1) disciplinary differences played an important role in writing the results section; (2) supervisors and students in the same discipline understood the purposes of writing the results section to a certain extent, but the overall result varied in different disciplines; (3) there was a lack of agreement between supervisors and students regarding the reasons for the students' problems, especially in the field of chemistry; and (4) students, regardless of discipline, tended to attribute their problems to limited language proficiency while their supervisors provided reasons other than that. In light of the findings, the pedagogical implications for writing instruction are discussed.
•The study explored students' problems in writing the results section.•Disciplinary differences played an important role in writing the results section.•Supervisors and students within the same discipline had a similar understanding of purposes.•There was incongruence between the chemistry supervisors' and students' understanding of problems.•Students tended to attribute their problem to English language deficiency.
As more and more literature shows, EFL doctoral students often encounter problems when writing the discussion section. The majority of past research on advisors' or students' perceptions centered on ...students' problems when writing the dissertation on the whole. However, the problems of the discussion section were seldom addressed. Based on interviews with nine advisor-student pairs from natural and applied sciences and social sciences in Taiwan, this study explored the problems encountered by students in writing the doctoral dissertation discussion section. The results showed that (1) compared with their advisors, students' overall understanding of the purposes of writing the discussion section was inadequate; (2) there was to some extent a gap between advisors and their students in terms of understanding students' problems in writing the discussion section; (3) both advisors and students within/between each group (i.e., natural and applied sciences/social sciences) gave different explanations regarding students’ writing problems; and (4) the understanding of genre was enacted differently across disciplines. The implications are discussed.
Our team recently examined the 2012 doctoral dissertation research in our field. This article continues a series of annual reviews of rehabilitation doctoral dissertation research. In 2013, there ...were a total of 22 doctoral dissertations completed from identified doctoral programs in rehabilitation counseling. Dissertations were organized by research topic, methodology used, model, and statistical analysis, and an annotated bibliography was provided. The analysis also included institutional productivity and trends in employment outcomes for doctoral graduates. Findings of the current analysis demonstrated that majority of the studies consisted of quantitative descriptive research designs. Compared to analyses from previous years, in 2013 advanced statistics were used at the highest rate since 2005. The proportion of dissertations focusing on professional issues topics was greater than any of the prior reporting periods. Implications for the practice of rehabilitation counseling, education, and future research are discussed.
•Both dissertation writers and their supervisors are expected to display expertise in dissertations.•There is insufficient time in a doctoral program for most L1 and L2 students to develop embodied ...expertise for their dissertations, including academic language development.•Supervisors may also lack expertise.•The Imposter Phenomenon may cause debilitating anxiety on the part of dissertation writers.•Awareness of the normality of these responses can help reduce stress.
By the time L1 and L2 doctoral students complete their dissertations, they are expected to be experts in their areas and methods of inquiry and in the academic discourse in which they represent their work. Likewise, their supervisors are expected to be expert guides and managers of their students’ work throughout the process. However, a review of the literature on expertise indicates that neither students nor supervisors, especially inexperienced ones, necessarily embody the expertise that is expected of them. Therefore, they must learn to perform like experts, with students displaying the expertise of scholars and supervisors managing students’ projects in ways that convey and encourage displays of expertise. Raising students’ and supervisors’ awareness that these performances are a normal part of an academic life can help prevent the debilitating anxiety that comes from expectations that are set unrealistically high.
Aim/Purpose: Our study explores the perspectives of international doctoral graduates on (national) dissertation assessment in China.
Background: In the absence of national standards or in the ...presence of impractical ones for assessing doctoral dissertations, these factors have inevitably led to what Granovsky et al. (1992, p. 375) called “up to standard rejected” and “below standard accepted.” Improving upon this debate, this study examines the lived experiences of seven doctoral graduates who have completed their doctoral degrees in a leading university in China.
Methodology: An interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) method was used, which entails seven participant observations, seven semi-structured e-interviews, and 29 external reviews.
Contribution: In the present study, we addressed the issue of doctoral dissertation assessment standards with a view to enhancing understanding of the quality of doctoral education. It emphasizes the strengths of this aspect in China and critically describes the weaknesses based on the experiences of doctoral graduates in China.
Findings: Among the major findings of this study are: (a) the external review of the dissertations presented in the literature review appears to be extremely unique in comparison to the countries discussed in the literature and the countries of the participants (Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, Tanzania, and Yemen); (b) the national assessment strengthens higher education on a macro level, but is detrimental at the micro-level; and (c) while external reviews appear credible as a policy towards the standardization of doctoral dissertation assessment, this credibility evaporates when one considers the quality of reviews provided and the motivation of reviewers to pass or reject a dissertation, including the supervisor’s exclusion from this process.
Recommendations for Practitioners: Students seeking a doctoral degree or dissertation should become familiar with the A-Z detail of the requirements for the degree and thesis. In addition to meeting this overt requirement, their efforts must also be directed to meet the covert requirements, including the requirements of the external reviewers, their supervisors, and the country’s laws. There is a necessity for external reviewers to rethink their decisions and attempt to assess objectively, putting aside their personal views and preferences. There is a need to re-examine the flexibility granted to external reviewers for making decisions regarding doctoral degrees.
Recommendation for Researchers: Future research should consider involving an increased number of parties in the conflict between doctoral students, supervisors, and external reviewers.
Impact on Society: The Chinese government allocates substantial resources for doctoral studies for both international and local students. The spending of government funds on a doctoral student for four years or more, and then the degree is decided by an external reviewer, is uneconomical on the level of financial capital and human capital. Doctoral students are also human beings, and it does not seem logical that one should judge the quality of their efforts over the course of three or more years by reading the doctoral dissertation once. While they were pursuing their doctoral degrees, they kept their families apart, they lived alone, struggled to make it through hardships, and were easily destroyed.
Future Research: In the future, more interviews may be conducted with respondents belonging to a variety of universities in China, including Chinese students. Additionally, supervisors and external reviewers (if available) should be included. Last but not least, including decision-makers in Chinese higher education can give future research more credibility.
Little is known about counselor educators’ experiences of gatekeeping doctoral students. Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, we examined counselor educators’ experiences of gatekeeping ...doctoral students during the dissertation. Themes included (a) interventions, (b) prior student gatekeeping interactions, and (c) recommendations for gatekeeping during the dissertation. Implications and suggestions for research are provided.
BenchCouncil Distinguished Doctoral Dissertation Award is to recognize and encourage superior research and writing by doctoral candidates in the broad field of benchmarking community. This year, the ...award consists of two tracks: Computer Architecture track and Other Areas track. Each track carries a $1,000 honorarium and has individual nomination submission form and award subcommittee. For each track, all the candidates are encouraged to submit articles to BenchCouncil Transactions on Benchmarks, Standards, and Evaluation (TBench). Among the submissions of each track, four candidates will be selected as finalists. They will be invited to give a 30-minute presentation at the BenchCouncil Bench 2023 conference and contribute research articles to TBench. Finally, for each track, one among the four will receive the award. More information are available from https://www.benchcouncil.org/awards/index.html#DistinguishedDoctoralDissertation
Important Dates: Nomination deadline: October 15, 2023, at 11:59 PM AoE Conference Date: December 3–5, 2023 Online Nomination form: Computer Architecture Track: https://forms.gle/a2JnWq9A9Vkq5JXXA Other Areas Track: https://forms.gle/pHBDZzWGN4kjwRJu9
ÖZ: Türkiye'de sigortacılık son yıllarda dikkate değer bir büyüme performansı göstermiş, bu da onu araştırmacılar için önemli bir çalışma alanı haline getirmiştir. Sigorta alanında yazılan doktora ...tezleri, Türkiye’de sigortacılığın mevcut durumu ve gelişim potansiyeli hakkında değerli bilgiler sağlamaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Türkiye'de sigorta alanındaki doktora araştırmalarının mevcut görünümünü sunmak ve daha fazla araştırma yapılması gereken alanları belirlemektir. Bu amaçla sigorta alanında yapılmış olan 161 doktora tezi içerik analizi yöntemi ile incelenmiş; bu alandaki ortak temalar, araştırma eğilimleri ve araştırmada tercih edilen metotlar hakkında sistemli bir analiz yapılmıştır. Sonuçlar Türkiye'de sigorta alanında yapılan doktora tezlerinin ağırlıklı olarak iş geliştirme, mevzuat, sigorta sözleşmesi ve fiyatlama konularına odaklandığını göstermektedir. Tezlerde çoğunlukla nitel analiz yöntemleri tercih edilirken son yıllarda nicel ve karma analiz yöntemleri de kullanılmıştır. Ayrıca sigorta alanındaki doktora tezlerinin sayısı son on yılda önceki yıllara göre dramatik bir şekilde artmıştır. Çalışma, Türkiye'de sigorta araştırmaları alanında ilerleme kaydedilebilmesi için sigortacılık alanında uzmanlaşmış çalışmalara öncelik verilmesi, veriye dayalı ampirik çalışmaların artırılması, üniversite-sanayi işbirliğinin güçlendirilmesi ve yabancı dil yeterliliğinin teşvik edilmesi gerektiğini ortaya koymaktadır. ABSTRACT: In recent years, the insurance industry in Turkey has shown remarkable growth performance, which has made it an important area of research for researchers. Doctoral dissertation on insurance provides valuable information about the current state and development potential of the insurance industry in Turkey. The aim of this study is to present the current outlook of doctoral dissertations in the field of insurance in Turkey and to identify areas that require further research. For this purpose, 161 doctoral dissertations on insurance were examined by content analysis method and a systematic analysis was made on common themes, research trends and preferred methods. The results showed that doctoral dissertation on insurance in Turkey primarily focus on topics related to business development, legislation, insurance contract, and pricing. Qualitative analysis was mostly preferred method, while quantitative and mixed analysis methods had also been used in recent years. Moreover, the number of doctoral dissertations in the field of insurance had dramatically increased in the last decade compared to previous years. The study suggests that in order to progress in the field of insurance research in Turkey, there should be a prioritization of specialized studies within the field of insurance, an increase in data-driven empirical studies, a strengthening of universityindustry collaboration, and the promotion of foreign language proficiency.
