Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a relationship between doctoral students’ candidacy examination scores and estimated time to degree completion, measured by dissertation progression. Background: Time to degree completion in doctoral programs continues to be an issue and reasons for high attrition rates for doctoral students are broad and include varied core components of the academic pathway such as challenges with critical thinking during coursework, stress about passing comprehensive examinations, poor academic writing, and lack of knowledge around scholarly practitioner research. Methodology: An ex post facto, correlational research design utilized quantitative data to determine whether a relationship existed between candidacy examination scores and time to doctoral degree completion. Contribution: If student’s ability to score higher on the candidacy examination increases their likelihood of dissertation activity, completion of specified benchmarks such as a pre-prospectus, prospectus, and final dissertation defenses, one year following the candidacy examination, programs have evidence-based support to retain a comprehensive examination. Findings: The findings denoted a weak to moderate relationship between candidacy examination score and dissertation progression (defending pre-prospectus and/or prospectus) within one year from taking the candidacy examination. Thus, the researchers believe this identification of this relationship warrants further research to continue to examine how candidacy examination scores impact progress to degree completion with a focus on academic writing and scholarly practitioner research. Recommendations for Practitioners: We recommend for practitioners the continued implementation of the candidacy examination for students to aid in addressing any issues or misunderstandings students may have prior to the bulk of their data collection and analysis by assessing students’ abilities in academic writing and scholarly practitioner research and in turn, improve time to degree completion. Recommendation for Researchers: We recommend that future research is conducted to gather a longitudinal understanding of the implications of administering a comprehensive examination followed by a pre-prospectus and prospectus defense will positively impact student’s progression through their research and result in the dissertation being completed in a more timely manner. Impact on Society: Doctoral programs need to provide support to avoid students who are progressing through a doctoral program and successfully completing coursework, being halted at the All But Dissertation (ABD) stage and as a result fail to complete these programs due to poor academic writing and lack of knowledge around scholarly practitioner research. Future Research: A longer analysis timeline and larger sample size would help in further understanding the true beneficial or potentially harmful implications this continued implementation of the candidacy examination has on individual students’ progression through to degree completion.

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Aim/Purpose: This study examined an educational leadership doctoral preparation program to better understand how students’ self-efficacy evolves from the lens of a scholarly practitioner researcher as they progress through specified checkpoints to degree completion. The aim was to identify what factors contributed to building scholarly practitioner researcher skills and what factors hindered the development of doctoral students as they progressed through their educational leadership preparation program. Background: Doctoral programs have the highest attrition of graduate programs, with almost half of the successful students taking six to seven years to complete. Thus, educational leadership doctoral preparation programs must find ways to enhance students’ perceived capability in an effort to facilitate their progress through the program in a timely manner. The researchers believe having high research self-efficacy coupled with evidence-based practices to strengthen scholarly practitioner research skills may be a contributor to effective program progression if viewed from the lens of a scholarly practitioner researcher. Methodology: A mixed-methods study utilizing an ex-post-facto research design based on descriptive statistics coupled with an analysis of qualitative data examined students’ perceived self-efficacy of educational leadership doctoral students in relation to their rate of progression. Contribution: This study provides other doctoral programs a lens into the importance of maintaining students’ high self-efficacy, specifically in the area of scholarly practitioner research to ensure efficient progression through the program to completion in a timely manner. Findings: Educational leadership doctoral students in the specified cohorts reported high self-efficacy at the pre-, mid-, and post-assessment checkpoints in the program during their coursework tier, and findings revealed this high self-efficacy was sustained throughout this progression to the dissertation tier. Four overarching narrative themes influencing students self-efficacy in scholarly practitioner research were identified as Social Support, Academic Challenges, Discipline, Effort, and Motivation, and Personal Challenges. Recommendations for Practitioners: Educational leadership and related doctoral programs should consider using a scholarly practitioner researcher approach. This focus may lead to faster rates of degree completion and better prepared students to solve problems of practice in their practitioner settings. Recommendation for Researchers: While the results are promising in support of evidence-based practices to prepare scholarly practitioner researchers, in turn sustaining or supporting high levels of self-efficacy may prove impactful, thus warranting further research. Impact on Society: Ensuring high levels of self-efficacy may help students to complete their doctoral degree in a timelier manner due to the perception they are capable of program completion and may also, better prepare students to serve as scholarly practitioner researchers in their educational settings. Future Research: Future research should continue longitudinally to examine self-efficacy from the lens of a scholarly practitioner researcher to better understand how this shapes doctoral students’ efforts and capabilities in their doctoral work from admit to program completion. Additionally, future research can quantitively assess a model identifying the relationship between self-efficacy and the four identified themes for the development of doctoral students’ research skills as scholarly practitioners.

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