Career and Technical Education Concentration - Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Leadership
Program Description
The doctoral (Ph.D.) degree in Educational Leadership with a concentration in Career and Technical Education (CTE) requires a 90 credit hour minimum beyond the bachelor’s degree. The degree is awarded from WMU, but can be done in cooperation with Ferris State University. All CTE courses are articulated between the institutions and participants have the option of completing a Total Quality Management (TQM) certificate awarded from FSU, as part of the doctoral degree program.
The career and technical education concentration is designed to enhance skills in administrative leadership, curriculum, or instruction for individuals involved in adult, secondary, postsecondary and four-year institutions.
Admissions
Faculty
Oral Defense Preparation
I. Scheduling Procedures
An oral defense of the dissertation is required after the student’s dissertation committee has approved the initial submitted research. A defense of the dissertation must occur no later than five weeks before the student’s expected graduation date. Required revisions, if any, after the oral defense must be made and submitted to the Graduate College no later than four weeks before graduation.
Students expecting to receive a Doctoral Degree in Educational Leadership with a concentration in Career and Technical Education are required to contact the Department of Teaching, Learning and Leadership in the College of Education to arrange a meeting time and location. It is suggested that one hour be scheduled for the oral defense. The student should prepare a 20-30 minute oral presentation along with an abstract, supporting visuals and related handouts. An additional 15-30 minutes should be planned for committee members’ questions and possible questions or comments from the viewing audience.
The following represents a list of potential questions that a researcher should consider when preparing for the oral defense of the Dissertation Research Study. Although it is not intended to be a complete list of potential questions, this list is provided to assist the student in the preparing for the defense the Dissertation Study.
II. Evaluating and Defending the Research Report
Introduction
- Is there a statement of the problem?
- Is background information on the problem presented?
- Does the problem statement indicate the variables of interest and the specific relationship between those variables, which were investigated?
Literature Review
- Is the review recent and comprehensive?
- Are all references cited relevant to the problem under investigation?
- Are all the primary and secondary data sources cited?
- Have references been critically analyzed and the results of various studies compared and contrasted or is the review basically a series of abstracts or annotations?
- Is the review well organized, does it logically flow in such a way that the references least related to the problem are discussed first and the most-related references are discussed last?
- Does the review conclude with a brief summary of the literature and its implications?
Methodology
Hypotheses/Questions
- Are specific questions to be answered listed or specific hypotheses to be tested stated?
- Does each hypothesis state an expected relationship or difference between two variables?
- If necessary, are variables directly or operationally defined?
- Is each hypothesis testable?
Subjects
- Is the size and main characteristics of the population described?
- Was the entire population studied?
- Was a sample selected?
- Was the method of selecting a sample clearly described?
- Will the sample selection method used result in a representative, unbiased sample?
- Are the size and main characteristics of the sample described?
- Does the sample size meet suggested guidelines for minimum sample size appropriate for the method of research used?
Instruments
- Is a rationale given for selection of the instruments used?
- Is each instrument described in terms of purpose and content?
- Are the instruments appropriate for measuring the intended variables?
- When necessary, are variables directly or operationally defined?
- If an instrument was developed specifically for the study, are the procedures involved in its development and validation described?
- Is evidence presented that indicates that each instrument is appropriate for the sample under study?
- Is instrument validity discussed and coefficients given, if appropriate?
- Is reliability discussed in terms of type and size of reliability coefficients?
- If appropriate, are subtest reliabilities given?
- If an instrument was specifically developed for the study, are administration, scoring and interpretation procedures fully described?
Design and Procedure
- Is the design appropriate for testing the hypotheses/questions of the study?
- Are procedures described in sufficient detail to permit them to be replicated by another researcher?
- Was a pilot study conducted?
- If a pilot study was conducted, are its execution and results described as well as its impact on the subsequent study?
- Are control procedures described?
- Are there any potentially confounding variables, which were not controlled?
Data Analysis/Results
- Are appropriate descriptive statistics presented?
- Was the probability level, p, at which the results of the tests of significance were evaluated, specified in advance of data analysis?
- If parametric tests were used is there any evidence that one or more of the required assumptions were greatly violated?
- Are the tests of significance described appropriate, given the hypotheses and design of the study?
- Was every hypothesis/question tested?
- Are the tests of significance interpreted using the appropriate degrees of freedom?
- Are the results clearly presented?
- Are the table and figures (if any) well organized and easy to understand?
- Are the data in each table and figure described in the test?
Conclusions, Implications and Recommendations
- Is each result discussed in terms of the original hypothesis to which it relates?
- Is each result discussed in terms of its agreement or disagreement with previous results obtained by other researchers in other studies?
- Are generalizations made that are not warranted by the results?
- Are the possible effects of uncontrolled variables on the results discussed?
- Are theoretical and practical implications of the findings discussed?
- Are recommendations for future action made?
- Based only on statistical significance, are suggestions for educational action made that are not justified by the data; in other words, has the author confused statistical significance and practical significance?
- Are recommendations for future research made?
Summary (or Abstract)
- Is the problem restated?
- Are the number and type of subjects and instruments described?
- Is the design used identified?
- Are procedures described?
- Are the major results and conclusions restated?
