Qualitative Dissertation Methodology. Nathan Durdella
Designing an Executable Qualitative Dissertation Methodology
While advanced research skills, realistic and achievable research goals, and a thoughtful research plan may define a dissertation study as executable, every project needs resources to support research activities. Time, talent, and money—these are the resources that you need to consider as you design your study. Of course, funded research in graduate school is often limited, but the good news is that support for research at this level usually relates to dissertation projects. In the next section, “Putting Together Your Qualitative Dissertation Advising Chair and Committee,” you can see an extended discussion on talent—working with a group of advising faculty to support your dissertation research work. A discussion of funding dissertation research is beyond the scope of this book—but my advice to you is to explore sources of support on and off campus—for data collection (digital audio recorders, digital video recorders, digital transcription machines, web and mobile apps, participant compensation, etc.), data analysis (e.g., software licensing and training, transcription services, etc.), travel, and editing (if needed). If you have the personal resources to support your dissertation work, then by all means access and use them—they can facilitate work in the field and office. In my own dissertation work, I relied on a combination of institutional support, part-time work off campus, and family members to help me.
As a graduate student, you may think that perhaps a more elusive resource than funding is time. Pressed by coursework, meetings, assignments, work, family, and personal commitments, when do you imagine writing and conducting research related to your dissertation? We all face this quandary—time is an extremely precious resource. Key questions to consider here are, What is your time to degree? Where are you at on your career path? How has your dissertation chair (or potential chair) circumscribed a project timeline? As a dissertation chair, I frequently share my expectations for progress with my students—with product deliverables and ritualistic ceremonies marking milestones. And students tend to work with me to clarify submission dates and negotiate timelines. You should do the same with your chair, ensuring that you collaborate on expectations for deliverables as you move through the research process. While program variation and individual circumstances often shape the length of time to complete a dissertations study, you can outline a tentative schedule to chart a course that guides your work from start to finish. If you just include major milestones in a timeline, you can help yourself set achievable goals for task completion. You can see a 3-year dissertation timeline template in Table 1.1.
Even if you work with a dissertation timeline and try to stick to a schedule to submit dissertation drafts to your chair and committee, you will almost certainly face challenges in developing and implementing your qualitative dissertation study. As you will see in subsequent chapters in the book, qualitative researchers often encounter a range of issues that slow or halt project work or fieldwork temporarily. At the proposal development stage of the research process, you could receive feedback from your chair or a committee member that requires extensive revisions or rewrites to drafts, or you could be questioned on how you frame conceptual or methodological dimensions of your proposed study. Later, as you implement your study, you may experience issues that arise in the field and translate into delays to progress in your research, including revising procedures in an institutional review board (IRB) protocol, difficulty gaining access to data sources or recruiting participants at a site or sites, updating data collection methods or instruments from patterns that emerge in the field, and processing data to prepare for analysis. In situations where you cannot completely control how your research work moves, you will need to adjust a timeline that you set or your chair and you agree on and account for interruptions to progress in your study.
Putting Together Your Qualitative Dissertation Advising Chair and Committee
While some doctoral program contexts structure dissertation advisor assignment to students—either directly assigning a chair or major professor to you, directly assigning a chair and committee to you, assigning you to a dissertation advising group with a chair and students, or appointing a chair that you have had some say in selecting—you still need to consider with whom you can work best to support your dissertation research work. Even if you have no control over who serves as your chair and/or even if you already have been assigned or selected a chair, knowing a bit more about what a chair means for your qualitative dissertation study can serve you well not only as you develop your methodology chapter, but also as you implement your study. With multiple roles in doctoral student lives, faculty advisors are essential to meaningful student experiences and outcomes. At the dissertation level, the faculty advisor as “chairperson of the committee usually has broad power and influence throughout the process of completing the dissertation . . . [so] the selection of a chairperson for your project is a very important decision” (Reis, 2014). But the dissertation chair is so much more than simply a research supervisor. Indeed, a chair tends to serve in multiple roles—so the selection of someone who can offer more than a supervisorial role benefits students. Of course, we know that at the dissertation phase of a program, faculty–student advising tends to intensify and the frequency of interaction increases—leading to more time together and more collaborative efforts as a research partnership. Within program contexts, this is a critical time in students’ development, so a productive, supportive, and caring relationship with faculty advisors as dissertation chair often translates into not only degree and dissertation research progress but also professional growth and career opportunities as a researcher.
Table 1.1
Note that this timeline may not apply directly to your program or advising contexts and can be selectively used as a basic guideline to set timeline goals and dates for deliverables of dissertation research products. Where dissertation formats vary and time-to-degree extend beyond what appears here, adapt what appears in the table to meet your specific research and advising needs.
Faculty Contact With Students in Graduate Programs
From pre-program entry to orientation, faculty members most often are the first line of contact for students in a graduate program. Indeed, graduate students meet and work immediately and directly with faculty. In sharp contrast, a system of advising that spans student and academic affairs—from admissions and records operations and assessment programs to new student orientations, large-scale first-year advising initiatives, and individual academic advising in the majors— often pushes undergraduate students to interact with college and university staff before they ever see or meet with faculty. While transitioning to a graduate program, faculty tend to be the first to welcome students and run orientations, describing campus life and department culture, discussing program and degree requirements, and structuring advising as a relationship with faculty.
Like other program policies and practices, the selection of a dissertation chair is typically documented in program handbooks, a discussion that gives us a sense of who this person is to a student. For example, the University of New Orleans (p. 19) states that the “[s]election of a dissertation advisor (or major professor or chair) is initiated by students and is determined by mutual agreement of the student, the faculty member, and the Ph.D. Graduate Coordinator” (Department of Planning and Urban Studies/College of Liberal Arts, 2013). Similarly, at California State University, Northridge, the doctoral program handbook mentions that dissertation chair selection is “based on candidate requests and faculty availability, eligibility, and expertise” (California State University, Northridge, 2014, p. 26). A quick look at just these two program handbook statements presents a compelling case for a dissertation chair selection process that is regulated, ordered, and deliberate—at least from the program perspective. But what do you need to know as you consider with whom to work? What program handbooks generally omit, though, is the process and criteria that students should use to select a chair and committee. Indeed, using a systematic process to inform decisions about whom to work with will support one of the broadest goals of such an approach: gathering lots of information (Clark, 2006).
Key Questions to Ask Yourself
If I currently work with a dissertation chair or faculty advisor, do I have what I need to complete