Approaching EdD Program Redesign as a Problem of Practice

Abstract

As members of the Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate (CPED), universities across the United States are restructuring EdD programs to better prepare professional practitioners with the practical skills and theoretical knowledge needed to improve the educational environments that they serve. The hallmark of these programs is often the dissertation in practice, a scholarly investigation within which students define a problem of practice and then systematically test solutions to that problem. In this study, we investigate the experiences of university faculty participating in the redesign of an Educational Leadership EdD program who approach the redesign as a problem of practice. Root causes of identified program issues are presented in addition to the changes implemented in the redesigned program to improve upon the problem of practice.

Inquiry as Practice

“…While we are in the first year of implementing this redesigned curriculum, we are already finding it fruitful in our conversations with our doctoral students inside and outside the classroom. These richer experiences address the calling by other colleagues and scholars to incorporate the dissertation processes earlier into coursework to better equip doctoral students for their dissertation research (Leach et al, 2020). To that end, we expect we will see gains in the quality of our students' writing at the dissertation stage and yield greater numbers of students defending their dissertation at the pre-prospectus stage, improving overall progression and time to degree completion (Figure 2).…”