Aim/Purpose: Provide methodology suggesting steps to doctoral mentors to work with students in constructing their research problem statement in their dissertation. Background: Writing a doctoral dissertation is a long journey, and it typically starts with writing the research problem statement. Students face challenges in articulating the research problem statement. Clearly articulating the research problems statement influences the success of the entire dissertation. Methodology: This paper uses a widely used framework to describe student adjustment to graduate studies in general and to doctoral programs in particular. Contribution: This study provides a framework for mentors and advisors to assist them in guiding students in writing their research problem statement. Findings: Writing a research problem statement is difficult by itself. Following the methodological approach suggested in this study will help students with the task of writing their own. Recommendations for Practitioners: A methodological approach to writing a research problem statement is helpful in mitigating the difficulties of writing the dissertation. This study tackles the difficulties with writing the research problem statement. Recommendation for Researchers: More research needs to be done to expand the use of a methodological approach to writing in other sections of the dissertation. Impact on Society: The findings of this research will help doctoral mentors/advisors as they guide students in completing the writing of their research problem statement Future Research: Future research should follow a similar methodological approach in guiding students in writing the other sections of the dissertation

Aim/Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to develop instructional rubrics that help in writing and evaluating doctoral dissertation research problem statements. Background: This is a follow up study. In the first paper (Ali & Pandya, 2021), we introduced a model for writing a research problems statement that takes the students through four phases to complete their writing. In this paper, we introduce an instructional rubric to be used for helping to writing the re-search problem statement. Methodology: This paper builds on the previous model, adding to it Socratic questions to trigger critical thinking to help with writing of research problem statement. Contribution: Developing the instructional rubrics is the contribution of this study. The instructional rubrics can help with the writing of a research problem statement. Findings: Writing a research problem statement is difficult by itself. Following the methodological approach suggested in this study will help students with the task of writing their own. Following this instructional rubric will help more with the writing. Recommendations for Practitioners: A methodological approach to writing a research problem statement is helpful in mitigating the difficulties of writing the dissertation. This study tackles the difficulties with writing the research problem statement. Recommendations for Researchers: More research is needed to give examples of research problem statement that shows the writing of the statement through the suggested phases. Impact on Society: The findings of this research will help doctoral mentors/advisors as they guide students in completing the writing of their research problem statement.

Aim/Purpose: Provide methodology suggesting steps to doctoral mentors to work with students in constructing their research problem statement in their dissertation. Background: Doctoral students face difficulties writing their dissertation and they begin by writing the research problem statement. Methodology: This paper uses a framework widely used to describe student adjustment to graduate studies in general and to doctoral program in particular. Contribution: This study provides a framework to mentors/advisors that is helpful in guiding the students to writing their research problem statement. Findings: Writing a research problem statement is difficult by itself. Following a methodological approach suggested in this study could help with writing it. Recommendations for Practitioners: A methodological approach in writing the dissertation is helpful to mitigate the difficulties of writing the dissertation. Our study tackles difficulties with writing the research problem statement. Recommendations for Researchers: More research needs to be done on methodological approach to writing the other sections in the dissertation. Impact on Society: Our findings in this research will help doctoral mentors/advisors as they guide students in completing the writing of their research problem statement Future Research: Intention for future research is to follow similar methodological approach in guiding students in writing the other sections of the dissertation

Aim/Purpose: Provide methodology suggesting steps to doctoral mentors to work with students in constructing their research problem statement in their dissertation. Background: Doctoral students face difficulties writing their dissertation and they begin by writing the research problem statement. Methodology: This paper uses a framework widely used to describe student adjustment to graduate studies in general and to doctoral program in particular. Contribution: This study provides a framework to mentors/advisors that is helpful in guiding the students to writing their research problem statement. Findings: Writing a research problem statement is difficult by itself. Following a methodological approach suggested in this study could help with writing it. Recommendations for Practitioners: A methodological approach in writing the dissertation is helpful to mitigate the difficulties of writing the dissertation. Our study tackles difficulties with writing the research problem statement. Recommendations for Researchers: More research needs to be done on methodological approach to writing the other sections in the dissertation. Impact on Society: Our findings in this research will help doctoral mentors/advisors as they guide students in completing the writing of their research problem statement Future Research: Intention for future research is to follow similar methodological approach in guiding students in writing the other sections of the dissertation. *** NOTE: This Proceedings paper was revised and published in the International Journal of Doctoral Studies, 16, 469-485 Click DOWNLOAD PDF to download the published paper. ***

Aim/Purpose The purpose of this study is to introduce an instrument that contains a set of exercises intended to help doctoral students align the key sections of their dissertation document. The exercises are developed after providing cognitive analysis of the factors that make aligning these key sections challenging to many, and after discussing pedagogical tools that can be used to address these challenges. Background Writing doctoral dissertations is a formidable endeavor for numerous students. Among the myriad challenges that are faced is the issue of aligning key sections of the dissertation document. Students often struggle with conceptualizing the alignment among different sections of the various chapters of their dissertation. In this study, we introduce here an instrument that includes a set of exercises to help address the challenges of alignment in chapter one, before the issues spiral and addressing them becomes complicated. Methodology This paper reviews literature that discusses the underlying challenges that face the writing of doctoral dissertations in general and the alignment of the key sections in particular. It analyzes the cognitive factors that contribute to the challenges and examines the pedagogical tools that can be used to address these challenges. The review of the literature, the analysis of the cognitive, and the examination of pedagogical tools lead to the introduction of an instrument that is designed to help address the challenges of aligning the key sections of doctoral dissertations. Contribution This paper presents an instrument with a set of exercises that are intended to help students align key sections of their doctoral dissertation document. This alignment step is crucial to the successful completion of dissertation documents and is best tackled early in the writing. Delaying alignment or worse, ignoring alignment altogether, can complicate the issue and lead to numerous extra steps and delays. Our developed instrument here can be used to tackle this issue of alignment from the beginning and throughout the writing and completion status of dissertation documents. Findings Students are often faced with challenges when aligning the key sections of a doctoral dissertation. They struggle with conceptualizing the alignment process. They often write each section separately, and independently of other sections of a chapter and a dissertation. However, sections of the dissertation document are interrelated, and each section affects the writing of other sections. For the successful completion of the dissertation, the sections need to be aligned, and it would be best if these issues are tackled from the beginning of the writing and throughout the writing of the dissertation. Recommendations for Practitioners A methodological approach to aligning the sections of a doctoral dissertation is crucial for the resulting treatise to be coherent and present a unified purpose that threads through each chapter consistently. Recommendations for Researchers We recommend that doctoral students follow the exercises we introduced in the instrument provided in this paper or take other similar approaches. With-out such an approach, aligning the key sections of a doctoral dissertation will be challenging, the dissertation writing process will be more complicated, and the time necessary to complete it will lengthen. Impact on Society The findings of this research will help doctoral mentors/advisors as they guide students in aligning key sections of their doctoral dissertations. Keywords doctoral dissertation alignment, aligning sections of a doctoral dissertation, doctoral dissertation challenges