The purpose of this book is to share, in rich detail, an understanding of how it feels and what it means to do qualitative research, and to provide support for doctoral students who choose this form of inquiry for their dissertation research.
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Yes, you can access Writing the Qualitative Dissertation by Judith M. Meloy in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Education & Research in Education. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Remember that conducting and writing up qualitative research is an evolutionary and inductive process. Itâs not a predictable or finite event; rather, it needs time and space to grow and change. (Katie)
Although I was never alone in my graduate research classes, I found I was always alone as I was collecting and analyzing data for my thesis. I did not have the companionship of an a priori hypothesis or a statistical design to guide and structure me. None of my courses had required the intense interaction between doing and thinking on such sustained and multiple levels. With the general focus of my dissertation taped on the wall in front of my desk, I continuously had to attend to the tangents of analysis, letting them play themselves out in order to understand which paths, if any, were worth pursuing, or whether the emerging foci or indeed the general one with which I began needed adjusting. I was alone with notes all over the placeâorganized chaosâand yet never alone, as there were always thoughts sprouting in a brain partially numbed to anything but them. I had no idea what âdoing all of thisâ meant, and, at times, I wondered whether I could do it at all. It was like struggling with a team of wild horses pulling a runaway wagon.
Because the efforts to understand and manage my thesis research are as memorable as the substance of the thesis itself, I am convinced that neither course work and texts about how to understand and do qualitative research nor the beginnings of my own efforts to learn by doing would be the appropriate starting point for a book about the experiencing of such things. Those of us who have completed at least one major research project using qualitative methodologies have learned it is only AT THE END of the experience that we begin to see the whole we constructed. For some committees and current graduate students such âlast minuteâ knowing is not yet acceptableââWhat are the a priori foci?â and âWhat will you have when you are finished?â are examples of questions we have been led to believe we should be able to answer from the very beginning.
BY THE END of the dissertation experience I was able to explain why the thesis looked like it did. At the beginning, I did not understand the concept of âbeing able to handle ambiguityâ in any practical way. I had a sense of the practicalities of working with a committee of four different individuals but did not actually know what to expect. At the beginning, I did not know how different from my ordinary ways of making sense of the world the dissertation research process was going to be. In spite of my course work, I had no idea what it felt like to do research. Writing the dissertation was an experience in itself; adding qualitative research on top of that made for an especially interesting time of learning, reflection, and practice. I often felt like I was playing a game of pickup sticks while balancing on a high wire over an empty river in the middle of a moonless night. What qualitative researchers learn AT THE END is that ambiguity is a puzzlement that is resolved through learning-by-doing. The high wire of not knowing does come to ground, and, most often, it does so safely.
What does a qualitative dissertation look like at THE END? I believe a sense of the answer to that question can be found in two letters from recent correspondents whose descriptions of experience foreshadow both old and new themes that the remaining chapters of this book explicate. Susanâs letter provides the opening to many of the themes discussed in the following chapters. A second lengthy letter, which concludes chapter 10, pulls many themes together again.
Hi Judy, My name is Susan Poch and I just recently finished my dissertation and successfully defended it (April 1998). I donât know if that makes me a statistic or just what, but I did finish! [(9/21/00)]
[(10/8/98)] I began my doctoral degree by default. My husband is employed in the area and we have children, 5 to be exact, who were and are attending school here. It was impossible to think of going anywhere else. But fortunately, my department hired an exceptional faculty member who accepted me as her student. She helped me through the prelim process, and Iâm not sure that at that point she was sure of my capabilities. But we managed to develop a good working relationship (which I believe is absolutely essential in a chair-student situation!) and pressed onâŚ.
Students are taught about qualitative research in my department from an ethnographical viewpoint. We are told that we should develop an interest or a âwhatâs going on hereâ perspective, immerse ourselves in the situation, gather all the data possible (interviews, documents, observations), and analyze the data with some framework that would emerge from the data. Then and only then would a literature review be attemptedâessentially, working backward from the data to the introduction is the proper technique. However, when my chair and I talked about a proposal, she told me that I would have a literature review and a theoretical framework in my proposal, even before I knew what I was going to find. How could this be done? The three proposals I used for examples and help (two of which had been successfully defended) contained neither of these things. But being a dutiful student who believes the chair knows best, I did what I was told.
I am eternally grateful for the path my chair laid out for me. Because of her insistence, I was able to use the literature review, methodological chapter, and introduction from my proposal, in my dissertation. What a life/time saver! While it was difficult in my proposal to try to guess what I might find in my data, it still gave me a framework for questions and a path to follow.
My chair is from a policy background, so my study was policy oriented. My study started out being about transfer studentsâ perceptions of their time-to-degree at 4-year institutions. I decided to use focus groups as my primary form of data collection because the students had a common experience (transfer), and I wanted to get a great deal of data in a short amount of time. (Donât we all?
) As I was moving along on this path, it became increasingly apparent that there was a state-mandated policy that had been handed down to these institutions regarding accountability, more specifically, efficient graduation. No one had ever touched on how transfer students impact these mandates, nor had anyone ever asked transfer students how the mandates impacted them. So, the focus shifted from just transfer students and their experiences to the policy and administrators at these institutions and their perceptions of transfer students and the mandates. Twelve administrators, 42 transfer students, and 3 site visits later, I was faced with a mound of data that was only slightly relevant to my proposal.
In the meantime, of course, my chair told me that I would need to take an additional class. (I had already finished my program.) She said, âyou are going to be doing the work anyway, so you might as well sign up for credit and not just audit it.â Great. This was fall semester 1997; I wanted to defend my proposal, get all of my data collected by Christmas, and be doing analysis over Christmas break. It was impossible to do a class, too! But, again, I did what I was told. (Perhaps I should say here that I am 41 years old, I have children, and Iâve been around the block at least once. I am not just somebody who rolls over without question. However, I also believe that your chair should ultimately be respected, and you should just do what youâre supposed to do. If you have a decent chair, that respect will be reciprocated, and youâll really come out ahead.)
The class was, of course, a policy class. Because I really didnât have any background in policy and was attempting a policy study for a dissertation, it was probably sound advice from my chair. Indeed, it turned out to be a very good way to develop pieces of the policy that would wind up as a chapter in my dissertation. She is so sly!
I did defend my proposal in early September (I had the luxury of devoting my summer to writing it.) Once my committee gave me their blessing, I was ready to roll. But the snag was that while I had communicated with the three institutions about when and what I wanted to do, there was a BIG lag time in when I was ready and when they could schedule me, or for that matter, even respond to my requests. That was the first major hurdle in my data collection. Patience is not easy when you see the days, weeks, months pass without much progress being made writing. Of course, my chair suggested that I could start preliminary analysis before all of the data were collected. Of course I could. Get real. How was I supposed to do that? It turned out that I collected data at two of the institutions by December and the third in January.
The paper requirements were finished for the policy class, I had collected all of my data, I had virtually three chapters all ready to plug in to the dissertation. Now what was the hold up? Where should I start? I sat for nearly 2 weeks wondering what to do next. I really couldnât afford too much of that because I had set a goal for myself. I wanted to walk through ceremonies in early May, which meant that I had to be finished and defended by the middle of April. It was nearing February.
What followed was a remarkable series of events at which I still marvel. I had (have) three friends who listened, helped me focus, and encouraged me endlessly through the process. The original model in the proposal simply would not work now, so one friend made me talk out all of my data so that she could understand what I saw and heard. Then she made me talk out how I visualized it all fitting together. She pushed me to think! I wound up reorganizing my chapters to a more logical flow and using a theoretical framework that I knew about but hadnât considered. The second friend simply said, âJust start.â He encouraged me to take the three chapters from my proposal and put them in the correct format. Just keep at it. No excuses, just start. He wouldnât hear anything else. The third friend, my neighbor, walked with me every night. She helped with my physical health. Couple that with the fact that I had an office (away from home) where I could shut the door and concentrate; no classes to take, none to teach, nothing but writing. Plus, my chair knew when I was working or socializing. Drat!
I gave her a first draft (7 of 8 chapters) the second week of March. I had successfully written the bulk of my dissertation in 6 weeks. Then I took a week off for Spring Break and tended to my Golden Retriever, who had nine puppies that week. Great timing, donât you think? In fact, I believe that because I had children, puppies, a household, and a husband, I both cherished my writing time (because it was limited) and savored the real life that was happening around me. The real life kept me sane during the writing. I wouldnât recommend this method to everyone, but it was really my only option.
The rest of the remarkable events include the fact that my chair gave me back the first draft virtually free from any editorial comments. She was really a bit surprised about what I had given her. She prides herself on being a good writerâjust ask her, sheâll tell you. So, even though she expected good work from me (she really does have great faith in me) she didnât expect it to be as good as it was. Whew! You have no idea how that improved my self-esteem. I wanted it to be good, but I was really scared. I had revised my proposal five times, after all. I finished the final chapter in about a week, revised the whole shebang a couple of times, and left for a conference. Can you believe this? I had to defend a week after I returned from the conference and I was totally prepared! I had done all the paperwork, submitted it to all the committee members, written abstracts, and had the format blessing from the graduate school. You cannot say that I didnât have someone looking out for me! The defense was successful; I was overjoyed, and I left the building that day saying, âMy work here is done.â
Themes emerging from Susanâs letter include student-faculty relationships, the role of the chair, the importance and placement of the literature review, gaining entry, patience, âsnags,â support, and fear. Of the potential a priori themes the correspondents for the second edition could address (see About This Book), the one of especial importance to this group is the autobiographical nature of qualitative research. In addition, these writers concur with several correspondents from the first edition in their desire to do original research. The resulting emotional âteeter totter,â not only of such a choice but also of the total qualitative research experience, remains a strong theme. Additional themes shared across editions include the cost and size of a qualitative dissertation; the writing of the proposal and the final product; and issues of ethics, power, and control. The use of technology to support research is made most explicit in the closing letter (chap. 10), and the work, continuity, and completion of this book were vastly facilitated by it as well. Within the discussions of voice, ownership, autobiography, and writing, themes of positionality and forms of representation appear.
2 UNDERSTANDING BY BEGINNING
What Does a Qualitative Dissertation Look Like?
The âfinished productâ looks very much like a âtraditionalâ dissertation, although it is much longer than mostâŚ. It appears in one HEAVY volume. It is not something youâd want to fall on your foot. (Jean)
At the beginning of the 21st century, qualitative research is more widely accepted in graduate schools than ever before. However, several correspondents let me know that acceptance is more likely in schools of education than elsewhere. One correspondent writes:
Although I should have gotten my PhD in ââââââ, I was advised early on in my graduate study that I would have a much easier time doing a dissertation in the education department, especially since I already had a vision of what I wanted to write about. I took this advice, although I took many courses in my discipline and got an MA in itâŚ. Compared with many of my fellow students, I had a relatively easy time of getting a very alternative dissertation approved and completed.
A second correspondent concurs: âMy doctorate is truly politically motivated, and, contrary to the wishes of my department Chair, it will be in education, but the subject matter is in my discipline.â A third correspondent describes interviewing for a position in her discipline after successfully defending her thesis. (Yes, qualitative researchers do defend successfully and find employment!) This individualâs experience suggests that qualitative researchers still have obstacles to face:...
