EdD: proposal approved after three rejections, in one round
Marcus, 41 | EdD in Educational Leadership | Public R2, Midwest
The challenge
Three proposal rejections in fourteen months. Each time the feedback was different, so I kept fixing the last comment instead of the actual problem. I was a full-time assistant principal and I was close to quitting.
What we changed
- We built the alignment table first: research question, construct, data source, analysis, one row per question.
- Two of my four research questions had no analysis that could answer them. Those questions were rewritten, not the methods.
- Chapter 1 was rewritten so the problem statement began with the words The problem is, which is what my program's rubric literally required.
- We drafted one-page answers to the six proposal defense questions my chair asks every candidate.
The outcome
The proposal was approved in one round. My chair's only substantive comment was on a recruitment contingency, which we had already drafted.
Nobody had told me my four questions and my three analyses could not both be right. One table made that obvious in an afternoon.