Ed.D. Doctor of Education Doctor of Education Dissertation Proposal 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A researcher plans to interview school counselors about student mental health support. Which informed consent element is most critical given the sensitive nature of the topic?
- Disclosure of the funding source for the study
- Confidentiality protections and limits of confidentiality (Correct answer)
- The researcher's academic credentials and institutional affiliation
- The anticipated publication outlets for the research
Correct answer: Confidentiality protections and limits of confidentiality
Participants discussing sensitive topics must understand how their data will be protected and the specific situations where confidentiality might legally be broken.
Question 2: In a proposal using appreciative inquiry, the 'Discovery' phase focuses on:
- Identifying organizational deficits that need to be remedied
- Uncovering peak experiences and what is working best in the organization (Correct answer)
- Designing a future state free of current problems
- Deploying changes based on stakeholder consensus
Correct answer: Uncovering peak experiences and what is working best in the organization
The Discovery phase of appreciative inquiry asks participants to recall times when the organization was at its best to surface positive strengths.
Question 3: A proposal committee flags that the central research question is researchable but not 'defensible.' This most likely means:
- The question cannot be answered with available data sources
- The question lacks sufficient theoretical and empirical grounding to justify the study (Correct answer)
- The question is too narrow to warrant a doctoral-level investigation
- The question includes value-laden or biased language
Correct answer: The question lacks sufficient theoretical and empirical grounding to justify the study
A defensible question is one the candidate can justify through a well-documented rationale rooted in theory and prior literature.
Question 4: Which proposal section should operationally define terms like 'instructional leadership' to clarify how they are used specifically within the study?
- Background of the problem
- Theoretical framework
- Operational definitions (Correct answer)
- Scope and delimitations
Correct answer: Operational definitions
The operational definitions section specifies exactly how key terms are measured or interpreted within the context of the particular study.
Question 5: A researcher finds no statistically significant relationship between professional development hours and student test scores. What should the proposal's data analysis plan specify for this scenario?
- Re-run the analysis with different variables until significance is achieved
- Report the null result and discuss effect size and practical significance (Correct answer)
- Exclude non-significant variables from the final manuscript
- Switch to a qualitative design to find a positive relationship
Correct answer: Report the null result and discuss effect size and practical significance
Ethical research requires reporting null findings alongside effect sizes to provide a complete and honest account of the data.
Question 6: When using a Likert-scale survey in a quantitative proposal, 'pilot testing' the instrument primarily serves to:
- Satisfy the IRB requirement for participant recruitment documentation
- Identify ambiguous items, estimate completion time, and refine reliability estimates (Correct answer)
- Establish the theoretical validity of the constructs being measured
- Determine the optimal number of response categories for the scale
Correct answer: Identify ambiguous items, estimate completion time, and refine reliability estimates
Pilot testing reveals poorly worded or confusing items, provides preliminary reliability data, and confirms that administration procedures work as intended.
Question 7: A proposal committee recommends the candidate conduct a 'systematic' rather than a 'narrative' literature review. The key distinguishing feature of a systematic review is:
- It uses only peer-reviewed journal articles published in the last five years
- It follows a transparent, replicable search protocol with defined inclusion and exclusion criteria (Correct answer)
- It synthesizes literature thematically without statistical aggregation
- It is conducted by a team of at least three independent reviewers
Correct answer: It follows a transparent, replicable search protocol with defined inclusion and exclusion criteria
A systematic review is defined by its explicit, reproducible methodology for identifying, selecting, and evaluating relevant literature to minimize bias.
Ed.D. Doctor of Education Doctor of Education Dissertation Proposal 5
A researcher plans to interview school counselors about student mental health support.
Which informed consent element is most critical given the sensitive nature of the topic?