Experiences and Perceived Barriers to Dissertation Writing for Curriculum Studies Doctoral Students

Presentation given at Georgia Educational Research Association Annual Meeting.

Dissertations and theses are difficult genres to master (Autry & Carter, 2015) and considerable scholarship has been published on the challenges dissertation and theses writing students experience (e.g., Bitchener & Basturkmen, 2010; Strachan, Murray, & Grierson, 2004). For doctoral candidates who work full-time in settings that often do not require academic writing, the challenges of mastering dissertation writing can be even greater (Klocko, Marshall, & Davidson, 2015). Students who are unable to manage the process of dissertation writing create stress and anxiety for themselves and their instructors (Strachan et al., 2004) and are more likely to be delayed in program completion (Locke & Boyle, 2016). Helping doctoral students successfully complete their dissertations plays an important role in addressing alarmingly high rates of doctoral attrition (Di Pierro, 2007). This presentation offers preliminary findings from a survey of 53 practitioner scholars who were enrolled in the EdD in Curriculum Studies program in 2017. The presentation also discusses programmatic changes that were implemented to improve outcomes for this population of students.