Episode 8 - The 10 Steps of the PhD Process: Part 2 [Steps 6-10]
What steps might an individual take in order to earn their PhD? On this episode, I share steps 6-10 out of the 10 steps of the PhD Process. This episode is part two of a two part segment, so please also check out the first part/episode.
Here is the citation for my Dissertation Research in case anyone is interested in checking it out:
Green, K. J. (2023). An exploration of the experiences of preservice special education teachers as they engage in the area of culturally responsive teaching (Order No. 30573991) [Doctoral Dissertation, University of Northern Colorado]. ProQuest One Academic.
Listen to full episode :
Here is a transcription of Episode 8:
0:17: Hello and welcome to the Broke PhD Podcast! I'm your host Dr. G. This episode of Broke PhD Podcast will be Part 2 of a two-part segment titled “The 10 Steps of the PhD Process.”
0:31: On this episode, I will share step six through ten. If you have not done so already, I ask you to pause and go back and listen to episode 7 where I share steps one through five of the 10 steps of the PhD process. As I mentioned in the previous episode, I want to preface by saying I'm sharing about my own experience as an individual who has gone through a special education PhD program. So please keep in mind that the requirements for the educational program that you may be currently in or that you may be interested in participating in, in the near future, may either be more similar or more different from what I share in this segment. Nonetheless, I hope that the insight that I share can still aid you as you navigate along your own educational journey. For steps six through ten I like to think of them as collectively being a part of the during dissertation era, as each of these steps are actions that occur while an individual is going through the dissertation part of their program.
1:29: Step six of the PhD process is the dissertation proposal. Before you are able to begin your dissertation research, you'll have to propose your idea for your study to your respective dissertation committee. For me, my proposal included me sharing about what essentially would become chapters one, two, and three of my final dissertation manuscript. Chapter one was my introduction and it involved me sharing what my research focus area was going to be. I stated the significance of my research. I shared about the problem I was hoping to address through my research. I shared about the purpose of my study, and I also outlined the potential research questions that I was hoping to address through conducting my study. Chapter two was a literature review section and so in being comprehensive I shared about any previous research or any previous literature that was connected or supported my research study in some capacity. Chapter three was the methodology section and so I shared about the research methodology I would use throughout my study. My study was a qualitative case study and so I shared about the qualitative methodology I would use. I shared about the data analysis protocols I was planning to use, along with credibility and trustworthiness protocols that I was planning to use for my study. Essentially, for the dissertation proposal I was telling my committee, here is my research idea. Here is what I'm hopefully planning to implement when conducting my research, and here's how I'm going to achieve that. All of those things are shared so that your committee gets a holistic idea of how you are intending to conduct your research and the methodology and the protocols that you will use in order to conduct your research.
3:06: Before I continue on and share the next steps, I do want to put a plug out there for my own dissertation manuscript. I will have the citation for my dissertation manuscript in the description area, so please feel free to go and find the manuscript and check it out on your own if you're interested. My dissertation manuscript was titled “An Exploration of the Experiences of Preservice Special Education Teachers as they Engage in Explicit Instruction in the Area of Culturally Responsive Teaching” (Green, 2023). Again, my background is in special education and I spent the entirety of my PhD program exploring the topic of disproportionality in special education. And for those who may not be familiar with what disproportionality in special education is or means, essentially it is the over representation and/or the underrepresentation of students who come from backgrounds that are racially, ethnically, economically, culturally, and linguistically diverse. And I really wanted to understand this issue and why it is ever present and ever prevalent here in the United States. And with exploring the area of disproportionality I also had a focus on teacher preparation. And wanted to better understand how educators could expand their skills with implementing practices or pedagogy that is rooted in culturally responsive teaching. So if this sounds interesting to you again, please feel free to check out my dissertation manuscript, which again I will put the citation in the description area.
4:31: So step seven of the PhD process is to conduct your research study and to conduct the data analysis for your research study. You've made it to the point in your dissertation program where you are ready to implement the study that you had just previously proposed. You're gonna collect that data and then after you collect all of your data, you're going to then go on and analyze that data so you can uncover the results that's existing within. The time frame for conducting your research study will obviously vary based on the specificities of your study along with how many participants you might have, or if you're analyzing anything that needs to be cured or sit for a long period of time. That may impact the length of time for actually conducting your research. Some people may have shorter studies, some people may have longer studies. For me, my research study was on the shorter side in length as I was able to implement my protocol and collect my data within a shorter time frame. Whereas I know others have taken a year to collect their data or sometimes longer, depending on what you're looking at. So again, the length of time for your research study and for the data analysis will be dependent on the specificities of your research study.
5:48: Step eight of the PhD process is to write your dissertation manuscript. You've conducted the research, you've analyzed the data, and now you need to share your results. And share the interpretations of your results with others. And in order to do that, you need to write and complete your dissertation manuscript. At this point, essentially writing means to complete the final two chapters. As I shared earlier, step six with your proposal, you basically have chapters one, two, and three already done, and now you just need to write chapters four and five, with chapter four being the result section and chapter five being the discussion section. So essentially you just need to take chapters one, two, and three, which have already been done, make sure that they are in past tense because they are actions that have already occurred, and then include chapters four and five. Again, chapter four being that result section outlining all of the results that you uncovered from conducting your study, and then Chapter five being that discussion section, which is basically the section where you share the interpretations of the data as well as you make those direct connections between existing research and existing literature with your own research study.
7:01: Step nine of the PhD process is the dissertation defense. So the dissertation defense is similar to the dissertation proposal where you are giving a presentation to your dissertation committee, but this time you are sharing about what happened with your research study. You're sharing about the protocols that you implemented. You're sharing about the methodology you used. As well as you're sharing those results that you uncovered, and you're sharing about what do those results mean and the connections that they have with past literature and past research and the interpretations of those results that you uncovered through your analysis. So my dissertation occurred in an online format. It was via Zoom. And my dissertation committee was there, but it was also open, so anyone was able to join. And I shared out with what occurred in my research study. I shared about my results. I shared about the interpretation of my results and the connections of my results with existing literature and existing research. And anyone who was there was able to ask me questions pertaining to my dissertation research.
8:07: Step 10, the final step of the PhD process, and what I view as sometimes being the most overlooked step, is to file your dissertation manuscript and to graduate. With filing your dissertation manuscript it means that you need to format your dissertation manuscript correctly. For my program, we were given a guidebook of the formatting for our manuscript and that included the indentation requirements. It included the page numbering requirements and little minute details that revolved around how the manuscript needed to be formatted in order to be accepted. And with filing of your dissertation, it just means that you're officially submitting your manuscript to your university in its final form. And then your university will typically upload it to one of the dissertation and theses platforms, which for my university and my program was ProQuest. Again, if you're interested in viewing and looking at my dissertation research manuscript, I will have the citation for my manuscript in the description box, so feel free to look for it there and to try to find the manuscript online. And again, the last part of this is to graduate! After you complete your research, after you defend your dissertation research, and after you file your research, you're done. You made it to the end and you need to celebrate yourself!
9:31: So in summary, step six through ten included: step six – to go through the dissertation proposal, step seven – to conduct your research study and conduct the data analysis for your study, step eight – to write your dissertation manuscript, step nine – to go through the dissertation defense, and step ten – to file your dissertation manuscript and to graduate.
9:58: After hearing these last five steps of the PhD process, I ask you, the listener, to please pause and reflect about your own experience. Do any of these steps in this episode or the collective of the 10 steps resonate with what you have gone through? Or are they completely different from what you have went through? I asked you to please share about your own experience via the podcast website – brokephdpodcast.com – or via any of the social media outlets. Again, I share about my experience with the hope that even one listener out there can feel less alone. Embarking on any type of educational journey is not an easy feat. So I call on you, the listener, to share this podcast with your colleagues and to engage in conversation with your peers. So that you can all navigate this journey collectively rather than feeling like you are braving storms on your own.
10:52: Well that concludes this episode, but I am so excited to have you on this journey with me. So please hit that subscribe button or that follow button. And check out the website – brokephdpodcast.com – to continue to follow along. Thank you for listening and no matter where you are in your own journey, remember – YOU GOT THIS! Again, I'm your host, Dr. G, and I hope you have a wonderful day!