Making the Implicit Explicit: Creating Performance Expectations for the Dissertation

Citation

Denholm, C.J. and Philpott, C. (2009), "Making the Implicit Explicit: Creating Performance Expectations for the Dissertation", Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 204-206. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880910951408

This 409 page book is both a compilation and analysis of discipline‐specific outcomes drawn from a two‐year study conducted in 2003‐2004 of 276 experienced doctoral supervisors in nine research intensive universities in the USA. After reading the preface we were struck by the author's tenacity; without doubt it is truly a “labor of love.” In essence, supervisors were asked to reflect upon their implicit standards for evaluating doctoral dissertations, then to make these standards explicit through application to their particular discipline. The term “dissertation” is used throughout and, as in the North American tradition, the final dissertation is preceded by a number of coursework units, oral and written examinations and a defense of the doctoral proposal. Whereas the length and complexity of the dissertation, as compared to Australia or New Zealand is often reduced, the standards of originality, significance, rigor and impact within the discipline remain.

The research approach resulted in the engagement of a formidable cross‐section of the academy who had the following collective characteristics: a total of 6,129 years of experience, had chaired 3,470 dissertations, sat on 9,890 doctoral committees, had been a professor for an average of 22 years, had chaired 13 dissertation examinations and had served as a member on 36 dissertation committees.

The text is presented in two sections. The initial 117 page section explores universal qualities including the characteristics of good/passing and poor/failing dissertations, research on assessment and, recommends the conversion of performance expectations into rubrics that can be used formatively to support the supervisory process. Section two, the bulk of the text, provides a series of chapters and explanatory tables pertaining to ten disciplines (biology, physics, electrical and computer engineering, mathematics, economics, psychology, sociology, english, history, philosophy) with a discipline‐specific description of dissertations at four standards of quality; outstanding, very good, acceptable, unacceptable. For each discipline a similar number of general structural components of the dissertation are discussed (e.g. introduction, literature review, theory, methods, results and data analysis, discussion and conclusion). Thus, the overall purpose of the text is to encourage faculty, departments, disciplines and universities to develop objective standards of quality for the doctoral dissertation and, by developing such explicit statements, to provide a useful template for candidates and supervisors to improve the learning outcomes and reputations of their graduate programs.

Without doubt, carefully selected sections of the text would provide a useful tool in the preparation and mentoring of both beginning candidates and beginning academic staff in the development of uniform quality standards across the sector and in raising questions about determining the quality of the thesis or dissertation. Particularly in the early and then in the last six months of candidature, having explicit statements by experienced supervisors concerning what are “outstanding” and “very good” dissertations can be quite useful. This approach provides candidates with some indication as to what supervisors and examiners expect and provides candidates with explicit goals at which to aim. Not‐with‐standing, these goals (particularly the “outstanding” level) could also be unrealistic for some candidates and may result in negative self‐assessments and thus undermine their confidence and abilities. Candidates may become so consumed in attempting to satisfy all the “outstanding” criteria that they overlook the overall purpose of the dissertation or worse, fail to submit at all for fear of not meeting the required level. The discipline specific templates may however serve as a useful measuring point when disputation and varying opinion arises as to the determination of a quality dissertation.

The text contains excellent generic resources suitable for academics charged with university‐wide responsibilities to conduct training on the purpose of the dissertation, the nature of both an original and significant contribution and, standards of both quality and characteristics of quality dissertations. There is also no doubt that of the disciplines presented, benefits would ensue from debate at in‐school and departmental meetings; the outcome being a close attention and focus on discipline‐specific definitions of quality and in raising the need to have standards and, to put onto the agenda the complexity inherent in the pedagogy of graduate research supervision.

Apart from an interesting and potentially useful resource for department libraries on supervision, there were some areas of concern. Whereas no text can ever cover all the bases, some notable disciplines were never‐the‐less absent; fine and creative arts, education, law, medicine, business. In North America, the decision to award a doctorate is made by a committee following a final oral examination and often aspects such as the personality, intellectual capabilities and professional goals of the student, are taken into consideration for the overall award. The place and purpose of the oral examination within the discipline‐specific templates was strangely silent. According to Lovitts (p. 41), “the hidden criteria for the award of the PhD is that the student will not embarrass or harm the reputation of the advisor, the committee members, the department, or the university.” Such a statement that would cause concern to Antipodean colleagues given our largely external examination processes.

The North American dissertation is submitted in “partial fulfillment” of the requirements. In other countries the degree represents the “complete fulfillment” as this is the only document that is assessed. Furthermore, many of the comments under the “acceptable” standard for the dissertation reveal statements of questionable quality and something for which candidates should not in fact aspire. The existence of such templates which appear akin to competencies just might have the reverse effect of promoting minimal standards. For example, on p. 53 (Table 3A), the characteristics that are listed as “acceptable” for the introductory chapter of a dissertation include:

[…] not well written or well organized, lacks or provides minimal motivation for the work, makes a case for a small problem, does not do a good job of explaining why the problem is important, provides minimum or poor context for the problem, presents minimal overview of the work.

It is as if an undergraduate approach to assessment and marking has dominated parts of the structure of the work leading the reader to consider that it is acceptable for a dissertation with a minimal level of displayed competence to be awarded with a doctorate.

We also questioned whether the “universal qualities of a dissertation” (pp. 36‐38) are indeed “universally” applicable. Also noticeable is that much of the content is repetitive, however this is justified in that there is internal consistency in conceptual understanding, expectations and language across the disciples and academics are actually quite clear as to what distinguishes a high from a low quality dissertation. Herein lies the strength of the text. Candidates do need to have in their hands at critical times during their candidature deep and pervasive notions of what is meant by intellectual grasp, how to grapple with the development of coherent arguments and, of ways to attain high levels of rigorous critical thinking. Preparing the dissertation is not to reach a stage of “writing up” as writing throughout candidature is the key and after all, it is more important to “write through” the thesis in order to see the way in which the long‐term contribution has sustained impact within their discipline.

Making the Implicit Explicit: Creating Performance Expectations for the Dissertation provides a challenge for the discerning and experienced doctoral supervisor. The challenge is be able to stand back and to extract the essence from such detailed analyses of quality and the assessment of the various components of the dissertation within their discipline. The next step is then to choose just the right moment to expose candidates to how and what it is they think when reading drafts of chapters, how it is they determine the level of quality and, how it is they know when it is ready to submit for examination. Hopefully, as a reflection of quality supervision and training the candidate has also become aware of when it is time to stop writing and when it is time to submit.