Curriculum & Instruction

C&I Ph.D. Program
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL 32826
(407) 823-0036
Dissertation

Admission to Candidacy


Admission to Candidacy means you are eligible to start work on your dissertation. In order to be admitted to candidacy, two criteria must be met:
  1. Successful completion of all three examinations.
  2. Presentation of a two page prospectus to your committee.
Upon completion of your last examination, you must present to your committee a two-page prospectus of a dissertation idea you wish to pursue. There is a Prospectus Approval Form which must be signed by your committee members and presented to the Doctoral Studies Office along with a copy of the two-page prospectus before you can register for EDG 7980.03 (A formal presentation of the prospectus need not be done. Individual approval of the idea by each committee member is acceptable.)




Selecting a Dissertation Advisor


Your dissertation advisor may or may not be the same person as your program advisor. Your dissertation advisor should be a College of Education faculty member who is qualified to direct dissertations and with whom you share a common research interest. There are several reasons why your dissertation advisor and program advisor may not be the same person:
  1. Your program advisor is not yet qualified to direct dissertations.
  2. You and your program advisor do not have the same research interests.
  3. You and your program advisor have personality differences which would make working together on a dissertation a difficult task for both of you.
If you must find a dissertation advisor, you should first discuss your need with your program advisor and with the Coordinator of the C & I Doctoral Program. You may have a particular faculty member in mind with whom you would like to work. A faculty member might request that you work with him or her. That information should be shared with your program advisor and with the Coordinator of the C & I Doctoral Program. The Coordinator will then initiate the Change of Advisor procedure. Changes in advisors must be approved by the Coordinator of the C & I Doctoral Program and the appropriate Departmental Chair.

Return to Top


Selecting a Dissertation Committee


Once you have a dissertation advisor, you will select a dissertation committee. Your dissertation committee will include a minimum of four faculty members, one of whom must be a faculty member from outside the College of Education. The typical committee in the C & I Program, however, is a five member committee. Such a configuration serves as a precautionary measure in the event that a committee member leaves the university, becomes ill, or for some other reason cannot continue on the dissertation committee.

The selection of your committee members is a joint decision made by you and your dissertation advisor. Committee members are generally selected because of their research interests and expertise. Once you and your dissertation advisor have discussed your options, you are responsible for contacting the individual faculty members to see if they are willing to serve on your committee. After you have their consent, you should file the Dissertation Committee Appointments Form with the Doctoral Studies Office.

Return to Top


Committee Member Responsibility


Once a faculty member agrees to serve on a dissertation committee, he/she provides appropriate feedback to the student on the proposal and on the dissertation. Committee members will be expected to attend a minimum of two committee meetings, the proposal presentation and the dissertation defense. The committee members may provide their feedback about your progress either directly to you or through the dissertation advisor. Such procedural functions should be agreed upon at the proposal presentation.

Return to Top

Dissertation Proposal


After you have been admitted to Candidacy (prospectus approved, examinations passed and proper papers filed in the Doctoral Studies office), you may register for EDG 7980.03. This registration indicates you are working on your dissertation proposal. During the semester in which you are registered for EDG 7980.03, you will be expected to complete the proposal and formally defend it to your committee.

If you do not complete and defend your proposal during the first semester in which you registered for EDG 7980.03, you must repeat EDG 7980.03 until you complete and defend your proposal. However, you will not be allowed to count more than 3 hours of the proposal credit to meet the 21 hours of required dissertation credit.

Your dissertation proposal is a document which you will share with your committee which explains what you want to do for your research, why you want to do it, and how you will do it. The proposal is not the first three chapters of your dissertation and should not be written with that thought in mind. The proposal is written in sections which represent future chapters. Sections typically are: Background & Significance of the Study, Statement of Problem with accompanying research question and/or hypothesis; Procedures; Data Analysis. Most proposals are 30-40 pages in length. It is important to work closely with your dissertation advisor on specifics regarding your proposal.

When you and your advisor decide that you are ready to present your proposal to your committee, he/she will work with you to find a time and place for your proposal presentation. Schedule a two-hour block of time for presentation. You should assume the responsibility for finding a convenient time for your committee to meet. Your advisor can secure a room for the meeting by working with the Doctoral Studies office.

Once your committee has approved your proposal and has signed the Dissertation Proposal Approval Form, you should deliver the Dissertation Approval Form and a copy of your proposal to the Doctoral Studies Office. The filing of your Dissertation Proposal Approval Form will allow you to register for more dissertation hours.

Sample dissertation proposals are available in the Doctoral Studies Office.

Return to Top

Dissertation Registration


After you have filed your Dissertation Proposal Approval Form and a copy of your proposal in the Doctoral Studies Office, you may register for EDG 7980.09. You may register for EDG7980.09 twice. When you are registered for EDG7980.09, you are expected to make continuous progress towards completion of your dissertation. Hopefully, you can complete your dissertation and defend it during your second semester of EDG 7980.09. If, however, that becomes impossible, you will continuously register for EDG 7980.04 until you have completed and defended your dissertation to your committee. There is a four-year time limit on dissertation enrollment within the seven-year limit for completion. How you, your advisor, and your committee work together during the dissertation process is a matter to be discussed and agreed upon during the proposal stage of your dissertation.

Return to Top

Dissertation Preparation


The College of Education publishes a Handbook for Thesis and Dissertation. This handbook is the approved COE style manual. You must follow these guidelines for typing and formatting your dissertation. A copy of the Handbook is available in the bookstore and should be purchased at the beginning of your program and the rules followed throughout your program in preparing papers and reports. You will be held accountable for submission of a correctly documented, formatted, and typed dissertation to your committee.

Students often underestimate the time and level of skill required to produce the defense copy of the dissertation. Students who do not exhibit a professional level of typing or word processing skills and who are not experienced in the application of APA Style manual rules are encouraged to engage the services of a professional typist and/or editor as required.

Procedures for meeting timelines and deadlines are delineated in the Handbook.

Return to Top

Dissertation Defense


There are several steps within the defense procedure, and each one takes time. The defense is usually scheduled during the semester you intend to graduate. Therefore it is critical to plan each step so you will meet all deadlines, including filing the intent to graduate form (see University catalog for deadline for filing).

Once you have completed the writing of your dissertation and feel that it is in its final form, submit copies of it to each of the members of your committee and to the dissertation examiner. Remember, faculty members who serve on your committee are very busy people. You must give them adequate time to read and react to your dissertation. Turn around time of 10-14 days is minimal. So, plan accordingly.

After each faculty member has read the dissertation, he/she must sign a copy of the Approval to Defend Dissertation Form. This form and the Defense Permission/Deposit Approval Form should be included with the copy of the dissertation given to the dissertation examiner at least two weeks prior to the defense. Check in the Doctoral Studies Office to verify who the examiner will be.

Once it has been determined that you are ready to defend your dissertation to your committee, you must take the responsibility for organizing the time of your defense. Your advisor will secure a room through the Doctoral Studies Office. The defense should be scheduled for a two-hour block of time and must be scheduled according to University deadlines.

The Doctoral Studies Office will provide assistance in obtaining various forms of transmitting defense copies to the dissertation examiner and final copies to the library. Students ordinarily need to plan for two half-days on campus to attend to the details associated with defense approval and final submission of the dissertation.

You and your advisor are responsible for knowing and honoring all deadlines. Deadlines cannot be waived. Be sure to check the catalogue, the Doctoral Studies bulletin board and with the secretary in the Doctoral Studies Office for appropriate deadlines.

Warning Note: If sufficient time is not allowed for defense, revisions and format review of the thesis, the student may not officially graduate until the following term.

Return to Top

Timelines


It may seem that there is a great deal of emphasis here on meeting deadlines, but it is extremely important that you do not get caught in a time-bind which can prevent you from graduating. It is also critical that the committee members and the examiner have ample time to devote to reading your dissertation which you have spent so much of your time and effort producing. All of us want it to be a work which will reflect well on our collective academic efforts. If you have questions, check with the Coordinator of the C & I Doctoral Program or with the Doctoral Studies Secretary.


Return to Top



...last modified on June 19, 1998

Return to Education Graduate Studies