Writing an EdD Dissertation: The Problem of Practice and How to Study It

An EdD dissertation begins with a problem that someone in education is living with. A district cannot keep its teachers. A college loses students after the first year. A school adopted a reading program and the results did not follow. The dissertation studies that problem with scholarly methods and says what the findings mean for the people who have to act.

That is different from choosing a topic. Many EdD proposals come back from committees because the student named a subject, such as teacher retention or student engagement, and a problem was expected. This article explains how to define the problem and how to study it in a setting you know.

For how the degree compares with a PhD, see PhD vs EdD vs DBA.

Defining the problem of practice

A problem of practice is specific, it exists in a real setting, and it matters to the people there. Three questions test it.

Who is affected? Name the group: first-year students at a community college, teachers in a rural district, school leaders in a charter network.

What is happening, and how do you know? Show it with evidence beyond your own observation. Enrollment figures, retention data, state reports, and published studies all count. A problem resting only on your experience at work invites the committee to ask what else supports it.

What do we not know that would help? The gap is what makes the study necessary. If the answer to the problem is already well documented, the study has no question left to ask.

The problem statement then connects the local problem to the wider evidence, since a committee wants to know whether your setting is unusual or typical. Our article on problem and purpose statements covers the writing.

Studying your own setting

Many EdD students study the school, college, or district where they work. This is a strength, because they understand the setting. It also brings questions the committee will ask.

Position. Say what role you hold, how long you have held it, and how it connects to the participants. A principal interviewing her own teachers is in a different position from an outside researcher.

Power. If participants report to you, or could believe their answers affect their jobs, the board will raise this and so will the committee. Explain how participation was voluntary, how confidentiality was protected, and what you did to reduce pressure to take part. Our articles on IRB approval and writing about it in Chapter 3 go through both.

Bias. Describe how your assumptions might shape what you notice, and what you did about it, such as keeping a reflexive journal, asking a colleague to review your coding, or returning findings to participants for comment. Report only the steps you took.

Access. Permission from the school or district is usually required as well as IRB approval. Ask for it early.

Choosing a design

The design should follow from the problem and the questions. Designs common in EdD work include:

• Case study, when you want to understand how something works in a bounded setting.
• Action research, when the study is part of improving the practice itself.
• Program evaluation, when you are judging whether an intervention achieved its aims.
• Survey and other quantitative designs, when the question concerns patterns across a population.
• Mixed methods, when numbers and experience both matter.

Whichever you choose, justify it against the research questions. Chapter 3 is where the committee checks that the design can answer them, and our Chapter 3 guide shows how. A single-site study will have a small sample, and our article on justifying a smaller sample size addresses it. State the boundaries of a single setting openly, as covered in limitations and delimitations.

The dissertation in practice

Some programs, including many that follow the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate, use a format called the dissertation in practice. It keeps the scholarly standard and changes the structure, often by placing more weight on the problem, the setting, and the change or action that follows. The headings and the order differ from the five-chapter model. If your program uses it, follow your program's template.

Writing recommendations people can use

The last chapter is where a practice doctorate earns its title. "Further research is needed" is not a recommendation. A useful one says who should do something, what they should do, and which of your findings supports it. Compare "Districts should improve teacher support" with "District leaders should add a structured mentoring period for teachers in their first two years, since participants who described regular contact with a mentor described fewer reasons to leave." The second can be checked against your evidence. Chapter 5 covers how to build recommendations from findings.

What committees flag most often

• A topic where a problem should be.
• A problem supported only by the writer's workplace experience.
• No discussion of the insider position.
• A design that does not match the questions.
• Recommendations that could apply to any school.
• Claims that reach beyond the single setting studied.

If you want an independent read on whether your problem, questions, design, and recommendations line up, a chapter review gives written feedback on any chapter, and a dissertation manuscript review covers the whole. The research and the decisions stay yours.