thinkPhD

Are you a contingent faculty member? You might be interested in this article Contingent Faculty Members: Share Data in the Chronicle of Higher Education. I also recommend taking the Fall 2010 CAW Survey of Contingent Faculty Members, Instructors, and Researchers. The purpose of the survey is to “inquire about fall 2010 course assignments, salaries, benefits, and general working conditions as members of the contingent academic workforce experience at the institutional level.”

I work full-time at an international paper manufacturing company and teach at the University of Phoenix. My long term plans are to “never retire” but to teach undergraduate and graduate courses online or on campus. I love to work with students and help them on their educational journey just as my teachers have helped me through the years.

If you are a contingent faculty member, instructor, or researcher, take a few minutes and fill out the survey.

Today is day 30 in DIS9321B. I still do not have an approved CP, but have been working with my chair on the DP abstract. My chair is not too concerned about not having an approved CP, but I am. My original plan was to have an approved CP by Oct 31, approved DP by Nov 30, IRB approval by Dec 31, and begin data collection in Jan 2011. It doesn’t look like I am going to meet this schedule…

If the CP comes back unapproved, with major rewrites, or significant methodological changes, then that will certainly affect my DP. I am ready to move ahead with IRB approval and start to gather data!! I think that working through data analysis will be difficult because of the statistics. I plan to use a MANOVA which has required some additional study to understand the concepts. I never studied MANOVA per se but it seemed the best choice as I will be comparing responses to a survey on five constructs across two groups.

Today, I turned in the second activity in this course (Update on Progress #1), another copy of the CP as requested by Dr. T., and a modified DP based on Dr. T’s comments. I am keeping track by using the version number in the file name, like this: WolfeCDIS9321B-DP_V3.rtf There is also a change matrix included with each version I submit.

This afternoon, I plan to grade some papers for a COM/285 class that I am teaching at the University of Phoenix. I started on those papers yesterday but did not get very far. My mind was just tooooo tired to finish yesterday!

I clicked the submit button tonight while holding my breath…my DP is now in Dr. T’s possession! And I can breathe now…my lit review was 42 pages, 2 more than the minimum. So here’s the breakdown:

Chapter 1, Introduction: 21 pages
Chapter 2, Literature Review: 42 pages
Chapter 3, Research Method: 22 pages
I also had 3 tables and 5 Appendixes
total DP = 125 pages

I can’t even estimate how many hours I spent on this paper between reading hundreds of journal articles, writing, and revising. The worst part is that I don’t even have an approved Concept Paper – I still have not heard from University review even though the turnaround time is supposed to be 7 days. It’s been 15 days. I plan to contact my academic advisor about the delay tomorrow.

I am doing well in relation to the timeline – just 2 days “behind.” I believe Dr. T has 7 days to review my DP. So perhaps he will send me some revisions within the week. Next weekend, I will be in Georgia visiting family so it is unlikely that I will be doing many modifications to the CP or DP then.

I am so happy about turning in my DP even though I know that I will have to make changes!

I continue to work on my DP this week. Today I took one-half day of vacation and worked all afternoon on the Research Method section. Most of this evening has been dedicated to transcribing the two surveys into a Word doc. I tried to put them in the DP as pdfs but that looked messy so I am typing them in Word. It takes time but looks much better.

I also pivoted the list of companies and created a table for the counts by industry. There are 2,253 companies on the NYSE North America list that will be the population, and I need a sample of at least 62 for my MANOVA.

I also working on the lit review. I am fairly satisfied with my 34 pages, which is 6 pages short. I already know what I will add to that section.

…and I am still waiting to hear from University review of my CP…

Today I was inducted in Delta Mu Delta, an international honor society for business students enrolled in programs accredited by ACBSP at the baccalaureate, graduate and doctoral levels.

The organization’s website lists the mission statement as “Delta Mu Delta is a business honor society that recognizes and encourages academic excellence of students at qualifying colleges and universities to create a DMD community that fosters the well-being of its individual members and the business community through life-time membership.”

Delta Mu Delta Eligibility Requirements:
· Currently enrolled learners on or after April 9, 2007
· Undergraduate degree learners that have completed 75% or more of their degree program and have a GPA of 3.9 and are in the top 20% of this classification.
· Masters degree learners need to have completed 75% of their program, have a GPA of not less than 3.9 and in the top 20% of this classification.
· Doctoral learners in the Ph.D. or D.B.A. program need to have completed their comprehensive examinations, have a GPA of 3.9 and in the top 20% of this classification.

The induction was kinda neat – it was by conference call! There were 25 initiants from all over the world on the call. I have been involved in a number of honor society inductions over the years but I must say, this one beats them all. I simply put the call on speakerphone, muted the microphone, and was inducted while sitting in my office chair while taking a break from writing my dissertation proposal!

(By the way, that baby is now 79 pages long and my lit review is 32 pages – 8 more pages required to meet the 40 page minimum and I am still waiting for my concept paper to come back from University review….)

On October 1, I started DIS9321B, Doctoral Dissertation Research I at NCU. I turned in the first assignment which was my proposed timeline. Dr. T has already graded that paper. He had some issues downloading my concept paper (CP) from the school website, so he requested that I send it to him via email yesterday October 2. My CP now goes for Office of Academic Research (OAR) review. We call this “University review” and the reviewer will determine if my topic is acceptable, make recommendations, and then – HOPEFULLY – approve my CP. If approved, I can turn in my dissertation proposal (DP). So now I wait, and wonder if I can move forward or if they find some fundamental flaw with my research proposal.

I’ve completed writing the DP Background, Theoretical Framework, and am now working on my Literature Review. My CP had 4 topics and was 11 pages long; I understand that is an acceptable length for the “Brief Review of Literature.” My DP lit review must be MUCH longer – the school requires 40-80 pages. I plan to include 6-8 topical headings.

Writing the lit review is going much slower than I had expected. I think I am trying to be SO correct and SO exacting with my research, which is a good thing, but definitely makes me work slow. Yesterday, I decided to add a section about Sustainability Accounting, Auditing, and Reporting. I had very few articles about that topic and so much of the day was devoted to finding and summarizing those articles. Today I am looking through articles on hand and deciding on the next lit review topic to write about.

A colleague at NCU posted an excellent article about lit reviews, “A Guide to Writing the Dissertation Literature Review” by Justus J. Randolph. This is a very helpful summary of the types of lit reviews, information on how to conduct a lit review, and a discussion on common mistakes. I recommend this article if you are working on or will be working on your lit review. A lit review is not an exercise in stringing together articles and listing this person did this and this research showed that. It is a comprehensive synthesization of relevant scholarly research.

So it’s back to work on my DP for now.