PhD vs EdD vs DBA: How the Dissertation Differs

The same five chapters can sit under three different degrees and be judged by three different standards. A committee reading a PhD dissertation asks what the study adds to the field's understanding. A committee reading an EdD or DBA dissertation asks that too, and then asks what the study means for the school, the organization, or the industry it came from. Students who write to the wrong standard often meet the same comment in chapter after chapter: the work is sound, but it does not do what this degree asks.

Programs define these degrees differently, and some EdD and DBA programs follow the traditional five-chapter model exactly. What follows describes the pattern most programs share. Your program handbook decides where yours departs from it.

The core difference

A PhD is a research doctorate. Its dissertation is expected to make an original contribution to knowledge, usually to theory, so the study is judged on how well it extends, tests, or challenges what the discipline already holds.

An EdD in education and a DBA in business are practice doctorates. Their students are often working professionals, and the dissertation is expected to address a problem that exists in practice, using scholarly methods. The contribution is to knowledge and to practice together. In education, the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate describes the EdD as preparing scholarly practitioners, who study a "problem of practice."

Other degrees follow the practice model. The DNP in nursing, the DSW in social work, and the DPA in public administration usually require a project, a capstone, or a dissertation built around a problem in the profession.

How the chapters change

The five chapters keep their jobs. The emphasis shifts.

	PhD	EdD or DBA
Problem statement	A gap in knowledge or theory	A problem in a school, organization, or industry, shown with evidence
Literature review	Theory and prior research in the discipline	Theory and research, plus practice literature such as policy documents, professional reports, and case evidence
Research questions	Often test or extend theory	Often explore how and why something happens in a setting, or what works
Framework	Central, and the study tends to speak back to it	Applied as a lens on a practical problem
Contribution	To theory and the field	To the field and to practice
Chapter 5	Implications for theory, then practice	Implications for practice, stated in detail, then theory

These are tendencies, not rules. A PhD in education can be applied, and a DBA can be strongly theoretical.

What committees ask

For a PhD, expect questions such as: What is your contribution to theory? How does this study differ from the work it builds on? What would a researcher do next?

For an EdD or DBA, expect questions such as: Who benefits from this study, and how? What should a principal, a manager, or a policy maker do differently after reading it? How do you know the setting does not limit what you found? And, because many practice-doctorate students study their own workplace: how did you manage your position as an insider?

Our mock defense questions include many that apply to every degree.

Writing to the right standard

Check the problem statement first. A PhD-style problem, written as a gap in a literature, may leave an EdD committee asking where the problem is. An EdD-style problem, written as a local difficulty, may leave a PhD committee asking what the field learns. Our article on problem and purpose statements shows how the statements hold the study together.

Then check the final chapter. In a practice doctorate, "recommendations for further research" is not enough. Committees expect specific, reasoned recommendations for the people who can act on the findings, tied to the evidence you reported. Chapter 5 covers how to build them.

And check the framework. In any degree it has to do real work, and our article on theoretical and conceptual frameworks explains how.

For more on the two practice doctorates, see our guides to writing an EdD dissertation and writing a DBA dissertation.

If you want an independent read on whether your dissertation meets the standard of your degree, our dissertation manuscript review tests whether the problem, purpose, questions, framework, methods, and conclusions support each other. The argument and the decisions stay yours.