Five Things to Do During and After Your Defense of a Dissertation Proposal

Doctoral students are often surprised to find that they need dissertation help more after they have passed their defense of proposal than before. The way I categorize it, the proposal is an arduous scholarly task, after the proposal when you are engaged for the first time in significant personal research, it is a rite of passage. This is when your dissertation methodology is tested, and you work to make sure that you're dissertation research passes the final Defense. In order to most efficiently navigate the waters of data collection and analysis, this article discusses five steps I recommend to all of the students I mentor.
Step one: Ask Your Committee What Specific Things They Will Look for in Your Analysis of Data
You can start to understand the expectations of your doctoral committee if you are armed with questions about the end game of data collection and analysis during the defense. Perhaps, your mentor or advisor will ask some of these questions for you, but you cannot count on that. Remember, your committee have experience doing this kind of research and it is their job to help you be successful. Therefore, come prepared and make sure that before you leave the defense you understand the following:

1. What can they tell you about the pitfalls that you might encounter in completing your data collection and analysis?
2. What will they look for in terms of credibility, rigor, and reliability as determined by the specifics of your form of data collection?
3. What tools do they recommend you use to make your job more efficient and easy?
4. Is there anything else that they can think of that will help you?

These four questions serve a double purpose, not only do they help you move forward efficiently, but later, they allow you to push back a little bit if you find that, after you are done with most of the work, a committee member comes up with entirely new expectations for your work. It may help calm down academic fervor a bit if you say, "These were not at all the things you told me about when I asked what your expectations were at the time of the defense."
Step Two: Take Good Notes/Journal Your Data Collection and Analysis Procedure
Starting at the defense take very good notes, especially as your committee answer the above questions. After that, however, it is very important that you journal what you are doing as you do it. This should include the date, the time you spent, the activity, and the outcome. Why? Because it is part of the rigor of scientific research to be able to show evidence of such a log, and because you will be required to write up your data collection procedure. Such notes make that task easy. The more specificity you write to your data collection and analysis explanation, the less likely that your committee will question your rigor.
Step Three: Send Preliminary Data Analysis and Findings
Ask permission first, but work to be able to send all your committee members your final outline of your data collection and analysis, prior to writing it up. This will save you hours of time because it allows them to ask questions when they follow your logic, or they question your analysis. It is much easier to answer the questions: " How did you arrive at that conclusion?" Or, "Can you tell me specifically how many disagree with this finding?" Or, perhaps, "I don't follow you there, couldn't you also see these data as implying...?"
The data collection and analysis section of dissertation work was for me, and I believe it is for everyone a rite of passage. This is the time when you test your own ideas against academic peer review. It is always easier to test preliminary ideas, get feedback, re-sync and re-imagine your data, enlarge your findings, and test again rather than writing it all up, only to be shot down when you get back the peer review.
Step Four: Keep Asking Questions until You Are Sure You Understand What Others See in Your Data
First -time data collection and analysis is for many people a hard period of time. For one thing, you're anxious to get out and be done with it. On the other hand, is a rich time, and you may never again get to experience the daily intrigue and enjoyment of analyzing great quantities of data and to discern the outcomes of what you learned.
Just as many people experiencing the same event will have different stories about what happened, so too, many academics looking at the same data will have different analysis of the meaning uncovered. For this reason data collection and analysis should not be a completely solitary task. Brainstorm what you are doing and what you're finding with this many people as possible. Hopefully one of those will be your mentor or advisor.
When experienced researchers suggest things you don't understand, this is not a time to just shake your head and agree. Rather, keep asking, "What do you mean by that?" "How did you reach that conclusion?" "Can you help me out here, I don't understand your logic?"
Step Five: Read All the Dissertations You Can That Model Your Methodology
Writing up a defensible analysis of data is not an easy task, especially the first time you do it. Therefore, I highly recommend, you read at least half a dozen dissertations, no matter what the topic area, that use a methodology similar to yours. As you read their chapters 4 and 5 ask yourself, "Am I convinced?" Did they build a solid case for their findings? Do they tie their data collection and analysis back to their research questions? Do I believe they fulfilled the purpose of their research? Make notes of what works for you in each section and then mimic them when you start to write up your own work.
Those questions are the same ones that your committee will be asking when they read your write up of your data collection and analysis during your final defense of your dissertation. If you follow these five steps you will find that the process is less mysterious, and that you pass your final defense with fewer required updates.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=E._Alana_James