Ed.D. Dissertation Proposal Defense Guide

The Dissertation Proposal

The oral defense of the dissertation proposal and the comprehensive examination occur simultaneously during your sixth or seventh semester. The defense/exam includes an assessment of your knowledge and skills related to the development of your dissertation.  It has both written and oral components. You are examined on:

• your written dissertation proposal (including its content, rationale, review of supporting scholarship, implementation plan, and research plan), and

• your knowledge and understanding of the Professional Core, Research Core, and Advanced Professional Studies, especially as this knowledge applies to your proposed dissertation study.

Successfully presenting and defending your dissertation proposal and passing the comprehensive examination demonstrates readiness to proceed to candidacy, the final, dissertation phase of your program as a doctoral candidate.

All proposals defenses should be run through Adobe Sign. Your Chair should receive a copy of the results.

The Dissertation Proposal Defense Guide

Proposal Defense Guidelines:

• Dissertation proposal defense should be scheduled while classes are in session; events scheduled during a break in the academic calendar or during the summer may not be approved. Contact your academic advisor if you have questions about the academic calendar and scheduling your event.

• As stated in the EdD Handbook, “A student may not sign up for dissertation credits (TEL 799) until they pass their proposal defense. If the student passes the proposal defense within the first 30 calendar days of the semester, he/she will be allowed to take dissertation credits (TEL 799) that semester. If the student does not pass the proposal defense within the first 30 days of the semester, he/she will need to wait until the following semester to take dissertation credits. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to this policy.” 

• Students can still defend their dissertation proposal, just not take TEL 799 credits until the following semester. 

• If you and your LSC Chair determine that you will not meet the requirement, please email the EdD Advisor to request an administrative schedule change to be removed from TEL 799. 

• Defenses typically take about two hours. 

Before Scheduling Proposal Defense:

• Student's iPOS must be approved and committee must be finalized.

Scheduling Proposal Defense Process

• Once the student, LSC Chair, and committee have come to an agreeance on the scheduled date and time for the proposal defense, notify your academic advisor when a date and time has been finalized for the event and CC your LSC Chair. You should include the second and third committee members current email addresses in their email message. Your advisor will confirm your committee paperwork is complete and provide the committee a form to record the outcome of the event electronically via Adobe Sign the day prior to the event.

• Once the proposal defense Adobe Sign form has been signed and all members have indicated pass, the EdD advisor will submit the exam results in the student's iPOS. Students will receive a final copy of the Adobe Sign via their ASU email. 

• Once the exam results are approved by the Graduate College then the student will be advanced to candidacy and are eligible for TEL 799 (LSC 3) Dissertation. The candidacy letter will be available on the student's “My ASU” within five business days.

What To Do Before Your Defense

• Verify that you have an approved iPOS with all three committee members listed

• Go over the Permissions to Conduct Research prior to your defense

• Contact your Chair to schedule the date, time, building and room for your proposal defense (if needed)

• Distribute copies of your dissertation proposal to your committee members at least two weeks before the defense/exam, as directed by your Chair

Oral Comprehensive Exams

Students must choose one of two options for their oral comprehensive exam. Students should communicate with their Chair about their chosen option, at least two weeks ahead of their proposal defense date.

The two options are: 

• Option A: The student will answer six questions during the last 30 minutes of the proposal defense without seeing the questions beforehand. Students must answer each question spontaneously. The questions will come from the following areas: LEADERSHIP (TEL 704, 705, 709); PROFESSIONAL CORE (TEL 702, 703, 706, 707, 708);  and RESEARCH CORE (TEL 701, 711, 712, 713). To prepare for this option, students should review and reflect on their coursework. 

• Option B: The student is provided a set of three questions one week before their defense. Then, they will orally respond to the three questions during the last 30 minutes of their proposal defense. Students should review their coursework to prepare their responses. While students may take notes as they prepare for the exam, they may not read their responses directly from any notes or prepared materials. 

In both options, students are encouraged not to share the questions with other students in the program.

The Defense

• • Your Dissertation Committee Chair will open the meeting with an informal call to order, extend a welcome, and introduce you and the members of the committee to each other. Your Chair will notify everyone that this is an official ASU Graduate Education event that combines two examinations into one:

  • An Oral Defense of the Dissertation Proposal

  • A Doctoral Comprehensive Examination

• Your Chair will invite you to present a 30-minute overview of your professional background and your dissertation study

  • A handout limited to one or two pages is appropriate

  • A handout is useful for contextualizing your study and highlighting your method

  • PowerPoint presentations may be used if they were previously approved

• Following your presentation, your Chair will invite each committee member to direct questions and comments to you for your response. Committee members (including your Chair) will ask questions and raise issues until they agree that the important matters have been addressed.  This may take 60 minutes.

• Following the defense of the proposal, relevant, appropriate comprehensive examination questions are posed by the committee.

• When your Chair and other committee members are satisfied that the relevant questions have been asked and answered, the Chair will ask you to leave the room (either physical or virtual) but remain in the immediate area.

• The committee will deliberate in closed session, deciding

  • Pass

  • Fail

• Your Chair will invite you back into the room for congratulations and a brief discussion of next steps.

• Following the successful completion of your defense/exam, your committee will submit the completed EdD Proposal Defense-Comp Exam Form electronically via Adobe Sign 

• You will then need to gain formal Institutional Review Board approval of your dissertation research.

Permissions to Conduct Research

As you develop your dissertation proposal and before you obtain IRB approval, obtain consent to conduct your research. To insure clarity and avoid misunderstandings, obtain the formal permission of your supervisor and others holding the keys to your success.  Although the following checklist will not apply to every situation, be sure to obtain written consent in situations that do apply.

• Implementing a change in a PreK-12 school will require obtaining the written consent of the principal;

• Implementing PreK-12 professional development in more than one school will require written consent from the appropriate school district official;

• Technology-rich projects will require the permission of the IT director and school principal;

• Use of school district test data will require the written consent of the director of assessment and/or institutional IRB approval.

What does your permission letter need to include? A written consent letter serves to make concrete the important aspects of your innovation and gain the support needed to make the implementation successful.  Permission letters need to clearly identify:

• your purpose,

• expected outcomes,

• who (the participants),

• frequency of meetings with the participants,

• assessment instruments,

• meeting room,

• dates of the intervention,

• resources you need, and

• the audience(s) for your findings.

Why are the permissions so important?  Every year, a few doctoral students find they can not implement their projects as planned due to planning oversights.  Examples follow. Samantha’s hoped that her sixth grade team (community of practice) could meet over a common lunch period, but she failed to ask the principal or the scheduler to schedule lunch periods so all sixth grade teachers involved can meet at this time. It was too late to change the schedule when Samantha discovered this. Martha hoped to offer cognitive coaching lessons to induction year teachers, but the coordinator of the induction year training was not informed of her plan and was following a mentoring model. She was informed that the agenda was too full. Jim had ordered iPads through a teaching improvement inservice grant, but the IT director would not connect them to the school network because they were a single platform Windows school district. Jim’s project was significantly delayed until the wrangling with the IT folks could be resolved.

Think ahead.  Inform the key leaders with the critical points and obtain their written consent.

**Also remember to secure permissions for instruments you may use.

Human subjects. As a general rule doctoral students working in schools or community colleges are expected to receive approval from their employing institution’s IRB as well as ASU’s IRB.  In our program this occurs after the proposal defense. The IRB will expect to see permission letters. The signed consent forms should be attached to your IRB proposals and will also be included in an appendix of your dissertation proposals.

Formatting Your Dissertation

Formal papers submitted throughout the program and for the dissertation are to follow the style guide presented in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (latest edition). It is the candidates responsibility to prepare the dissertation manuscript in accordance to the guidelines set by Graduate Education.

• Format Manual guidelines and updates: https://graduate.asu.edu/current-students/completing-your-degree/formatting-your-thesis-or-dissertation/asu-graduate-college

• ASU dissertation format tool instructions: https://graduate.asu.edu/sites/default/files/asu-graduate-college-format-manual.pdf

• ASU dissertation format advising tool: https://graduateapps.asu.edu/formatadvising